Husqvarna Viking Sapphire 850

So, here it is. My beautiful new machine. We had a few hiccups in the first few days, mainly from me not understanding that I needed to adjust the tension (which I still don't feel confident with) but apart from that we are on our way :) It is so exciting to finally have a new machine and I just love it. I am still adjusting to where everything is, but it is great! The first thing I have made (well half made) is the Mia top below. It's hard to capture what I'm attempting to do, but it's my first go at shirring. So far I have done the whole bodice twice. The first tute talked about steam shrinking the elastic. It didn't. I must have had the tension wrong. I then rang the lovely people where I brought my machine and they rang someone who lives 5 hours away (I love their dedication to sewing) to get me some advice. I finally got a method that works so I've done the bodice. However, I have discovered that my machine cannot read patterns, so when I only cut out two pieces for the skirt instead of four, it didn't tell me where I'd gone wrong. So, I now have to redo the underskirt which involves buying more material as I have run out. Aaaagh! Luckily R is loving it so far.

New title

Okay I've decided to change the title of my blog. It was too negative and implied that I had too little time to do anything! Sometimes that might be true but I don't want it to become a self fulfilling prophecy. So, the new title. It's taken from a poem in a poetry anthology called... yep, you guessed it 'The world's contracted thus'. I can't remember who wrote the poem at the moment so I'll have to look it up. Either that or unpack the boxes of books I packed up four years ago when we moved here. For me the poem is about the centre of the world and the universe is here, and time should stop for those who want this moment to last forever. It's actually about two lovers in bed feeling the demands on their time pulling at the edge of their moment, but not wanting to leave. That's how I feel about my life. It's going too fast, I love it so much and I wish time would slow down so I could enjoy each moment more. Hmmm I could start philosophising about that now, but I won't go on. Suffice to say, I have a new blog title and this is it. Not bad given I haven't read the poem for at least four years. I'll probably look it up now and discover it is totally different to what I remember :)

Dear Blog

Dear Blog
I have no time to visit you at the moment. Hence your title I guess. And I'm sorry, I have no photo for you either even though I have done a photography class since we last made contact. I have done a little sewing of part of the pinkfig Mia top, but it is slow going at the moment. I also have my new machine, and I have no time to describe the wonders of that either. Or even really enjoy it properly. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I miss you, and I will be back, perhaps on Thursday. Hmmm - maybe Friday. Does next week sound do-able?

My Monday promise

I have promised to myself (oh silly me, why do I do these things?) that every sewing day one of the girls will wear something that I have made. That sounds great in theory, but there's only so many times one girl can wear the same two pairs of boutique bottom pants (which are due a post all to themselves one day soon). So I spent the weekend busily sewing this top so that Alice would have something new to wear.

It's based on a dress pattern I've forgotten the name of atm and I just cut it short. The material is from the lot I ordered from pinkchalkfabrics last week. I love the bright pink color and she looked just gorgeous (not that I'm biased!)with a denim skirt, pink leggings and white long sleeved top.