Fabric-a-brac - May 2016

This year is flying by, today I went to my first Fabric-a-brac of the year! Fabric-a-brac is as always a good chance to catch up with sewing friends and find a few treasures.

As with many times before I  volunteered to help in the kitchen along with my friend Emma, we arrived a little earlier than normal and decided to help with the set up as well.

Emma and I decided to do a mini sewing challenge for the day and made the same dress, the Sigma dress by New Zealand pattern company Papercut Patterns.

This is the first time I've made a dress from Papercut patterns but I don't think it will be the last, because apart from lengthening the skirt on this dress (I'd been warned by other sewing friends that the skirts on Papercut patterns  were a bit short) I made zero changes to this dress pattern and it fitted really well! Emma mixed up her version a bit and added a different skirt, she used the Fen skirt from Fancy Tiger Crafts. 

Here's another pattern that Rich took in the courtyard when I got home from fabric-a-brac, unfortunately by this stage the fabric had creased A LOT!

This fabric is from the LAST fabric-a-brac back in October, just thought I'd share that to show I DO use all the fabric I acquire at these events. Also the detail of this fabric is really sweet, its covered in little embroidered flowers.

This time around I tried to keep purchases to a minimum, I had one thing I REALLY wanted to buy at this fabric-a-brac and that was bias binding. I wanted bias binding and I wanted a LOT of it as I love using it to sew with and I'm lazy and don't want to make my own unless I have to. I bought all this bias binding for $3 and I was pretty stoked!

I also bought this pattern and I do have costume related plans for it for my mid-year work function, but it is kind of worth getting without plans because its just so awesome.

One of the nicest things about fabric-a-brac is having the chance to catch up with friends you haven't seen in a while, Ria came along after my shift at the cafe and we went and had lunch with was fun as she's been busy at work and I haven't seen her for a while.

I hope you folks are all having a fun weekend, maybe I can use some of that bias binding tomorrow (or go hiking!).