In which I make some progress on all fronts

I'll start with the best, if not at all sewing-related, news: MY KITCHEN IS ALMOST FINISHED. Hopefully by this weekend, all that will stand between me and ACTUALLY MOVING IN is cleaning everything up and then the horrifying prospect of unpacking my kitchen-related belongings from their boxes. \o/ \o/ \o/ The knock on effect will be that I will finally be living in the same house as my sewing stuff, so I will get more done, and also actually I will be able to finish setting up my sewing room (currently partly occupied by things that are waiting to go elsewhere, but can't until the kitchen is finished). It will be SO GREAT when everything is done! \o/

Alas, I've made less progress on my autumn sewing this months so far than I would have liked. I had a major medication change and the last 10-14 days have been pretty miserable from a health perspective as a result. Any kind of close work, including both reading on my computer and sewing, was kind of unpleasant. And then just as I started to recover, my laptop died and I had to run around, buy a new one and set myself up again. Sewing time was in short supply as a result. I feel much better now though AND I have a shiny new laptop, so all is well in my world.

Ottobre 05-2012-07

I did get a few short sewing sessions in and as a result I am about a third of the way through constructing my first Ottobre 05-2012-07 blouse. I am making a version with no colour blocking and I've managed to put together the bodice with flat-felled seams and I'm working on the details of the sleeves at the moment. I am cautiously optimistic about the shirt so far, although all the fiddly details (collar, cuffs, button band, button holes, etc) are all still ahead of me so there's plenty of time for me to change my mind about that! D:

My last project was a total fail, in part because I was using such unpleasant and badly behaved fabric. It's made me appreciate the very nice and easy-to-sew 100% cotton I picked out for this shirt SO MUCH MORE, let me tell you.  The next few things I'm planning on making are all in lovely high quality cottons too. More than ever I am determined that as I work towards having a smaller and higher quality fabric stash that I buy fabrics that I really love, and increasingly I think making sure there's plenty of natural fibres in the mix is going to be key.