::Top Tip:: Getting Grease Out of Fabric

Back when I showed you my Navy S2444 Dress I mentioned that I had gotten grease on the bodice.

I ran it through the was and the stains didn't come out. I was devastated. I have had other clothing get grease stains that didn't come out. So I hit the internet searching for how to remove grease from cotton and cotton blend fabric (the dress is made of a poly cotton).

There was a lot of advice out there. There was some for vinegar, bicarbonate soda, baby powder, toothbrushes. *sigh* But the simplest solution I came across was...dish soap. Which makes sense as dish soap is designed to remove grease.

"It is I. Dish Soap. To the rescue with my tea towel cape!"

I just put a couple of drops on each stain. Worked it in with my hands and rinsed thoroughly a few times. I let the dress dry to see if it had worked. It had so I then ran it through the washing machine on a gentle cycle.

Phew. What a relief!

Here is a great reference if you get grease on your favourite clothes.

Have you ever been devastated by damage to your favourite clothes? What did you do?
Leave a comment below, I'd love to hear from you :)

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Until next time,

::Show and Tell:: Weekend Shopping

Last weekend Spotlight had a 'spend $100 or more and get $40 off' deal. There were a couple of things I wanted to buy and a couple of fabrics in the catalogue that I was keen to have a look at.
My sister, mum and I traipsed off to the shops on Sunday morning.

I came away with these goodies. (The photos are a bit washed out, but that's what you get when you use your phone camera :) )

I bought this blue with spots cotton lawn

Some royal blue cotton drill

This peacock green cotton sateen (mmm sateen)

This interesting Japanese tana lawn

It seems I have a thing for cotton these days. But it makes sense as we head into a Queensland summer it's better to have clothes that breathe. I also bought black overlocker thread to give me more options when I finish seams. I also wanted a beige coloured thread, but couldn't find anything that grabbed my fancy.

While I was there and seeing as there was a sale on anyway (*cough* excuse *cough*) I bought this giant cutting mat too. I've been having to shift fabric around on my current cutting mat when cutting fabric out with a rotary cutter and I didn't like doing it. So, this was more of a nice to have item that I've been wanting for quite some time.

I was going to buy some sewing patterns while I was there, but then I thought to myself,
"Vanessa, you need to use the patterns you have before you go spending more money on patterns that you could be spending on Fabric!"
So I didn't :)

My sister bought some top pop poplin cotton. I've never come across this before but it looked lovely. So the next time I go to Spotty I'll have to scope this out.

I'm not terribly familiar with all the types of fabrics out in the world so I think I'm going to have to take a leaf out of Miss Crayola Creepy's book and make a fabric swatch book.

I have some idea of how I want to use the fabric I bought. I always do lots of planning in my head, but rarely put it on paper and so I forget. So I'm going to do a post on my plans soon.

Until next time, hope your doing some retail therapy to feed your crafty habit.
Vanessa xoxo

::Show & Tell:: Fabric Purchases

I've been meaning to show you some loveliness I bought at spotlight when they had a sale a while back.
As per usual I went there to buy something completely unrelated and ended up with an armful of fabric and other bits and pieces. It was cheap and lovely and at $5 a metre I couldn't help myself.
I originally went just to buy a snap fastener kit, some thread for a quilting project I've been working on for aaages and an embroidery hoop for a project that I was meant to have completed for my 'get-together' anniversary with the Mr-that was in April :(

Anyway, anyway, anyway while I was walking around I notice that there was a sign for fabrics for just $5 a metre. I thought what the hell, I'm new to sewing and if I don't like what I make it's of no great loss. While I was rummaging through the fabrics I came across these lovelies.

Vintagey Roses
celia ptd cotton viole 112cm-2m

These colours always remind me of old style china tea sets
flower press ctn blues large blue 108cm-2m

70cms! What shall I do with it!
Passion Rayn CHLS Paisley in Latte 144cm - 70cms

This post has been in the wings for sooo long that I've already made something out of the Paisley. You can see it over here.

And as a bonus this is some fabric from the Mr's Grandmothers stash. I think it's upholstery fabric, But I totally want to make this into a lined pencil skirt.

Bonus!

What have you been stashing away? Yarn, fabric, other crafty supplies? Tell me all about it.

Until next time, I hope you're surrounded by lovely things that you have stumbled upon, or been gifted.
Vanessa xo

It's my party I can buy if I want to...Part 3

Hello hello,

How are you?

Okay let me finish up my achingly long story. This is my last post about my birthday. I left you at the end of Sunday. That brings me to Monday - My Birthday!

The day started off pretty slow. I did whatever my heart desired. and my heart desired that I sleep in, take my sweet time with in the morning. I made a hair appointment and when I had done enough schlepping around the house in my pyjamas I got dressed and went to the shops. I had a bit of time to kill before my haircut so I went to a nearby bookshop. While I was there I saw they had the Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Sewing. I've heard good things about the internets about the original book and on first impressions it looks pretty great.

What a great find

They also had The Gentle Art of Knitting which I had read about here, here and here on Karen's blog Did You Make That. I flipped through and I wasn't too impressed, but now I'm reading it I'm quite enjoying (Shhh and it was cheap).

Really enjoying this read at the moment

Lucky for me the Mr's sister gave me a gift card for this bookshop for Christmas. So I just went for it and bought both.

After the failure of accepting my Sisters offer to have her ruffler foot, it made me want one more! I still had a little more time before my haircut so I quickly ducked to a sewing shop across the road from the shopping centre I was in and bought this....

An extra big pic of The ULTIMATE Ruffler!

...Ta Da! The ULTIMATE Ruffler! Oh YEAH! When I first put it on my sewing machine the needle didn't line up with the hole AGAIN! Argh! But upon inspection of the leaflet that came with it, I was able to adjust it and it fit! Woohoo! So I now have to get my ruffle on, no excuses now.

On Monday night the Mr's family came over for dinner and his mum brought over a giant box of yarn! She said pick what you want out of it. So on Tuesday night I dived it and probably kept about a third of what was in the box. Here is my loot...

More yarn!!!

All this yarn is from the Mr's Grandparents house. His mum is cleaning out their house because they have moved into a nursing home. So my friends, this is all delightfully vintagy goodness right in here! Oh yeah :-p
So now I have sooo much yarn I really cannot go buying any more.


And that is where my epic tale ends. I hope I haven't bored you to death. After this massive dose of purchasing and gifting I hope that I can settle down and start making some great stuff. Time will tell.


Do something that makes your creative juices flow,
Vxo

It's my party I can buy if I want to...Part 2

Hello again,

So where was I? Oh that's right, I had just finished talking about Saturday. 

On Sunday morning I had a Birthday breakfast with friends. I received some lovely gifts from my awesome peeps. 

Ok. So technically these aren't things that I bought, but boy oh boy are they too fantastic not to share!

The fantastically creative Sarah of Stitching Lyrical made me this delightful necklace with a crocheted motif pendant, SO Great! She even invented the pattern for the motif and named it after me and everything! So cute and it came in a great box too. You can read about it in her post here.

Sarah's fantastic crochet motif pendant

My sister gave me this cute little wall hanging pouch. It's pretty great and it going to be a sweet nesting place for my bits and bobs. I need to find somewhere to hang it.

Wall Hanging Pouch from my Sis

My talented friend K made this leather pouch. A-MA-ZING! It looks sooo profesh! This is be a great place to hide my hoozits and wotzits!

Leather Pouch from K

I think my favourite part is the leaves that are stamped into the leather. Sooo purdy! 

Look at the back-Oooh!

My good friend J bought me a bag and IN that bag was a cupcake stand AND a Spatula Man! Heehee. Soo cute. I think I need to do more cupcake baking!

I'm a little Frenchy nuts at the moment in my life - so this bag is perfect

26 cupcakes coming up!

You can just make out his face-he has arms and everything!

So they were to goodies that I got for my birthday. Pretty great and another big thank you to my generous friends!


On Sunday afternoon my Sis and I went to The Fabric Store, which I heard all about from Steph's post on her 3 Hours Past the Edge of the World blog and it did not disappoint! I think my favourite feature was the fact they grouped fabrics together based on colour. Oh yeah! So pleasing to the eye.

Fantastic fabrics from The Fabric Store

There was so much lovely fabric in their but I had to limit my purchases. I bought (from L to R) some black acetate lining, navy cotton and lycra fabric and some floral cotton and ramie fabric.


That's enough for now. I'll tell you all about my Birthday on Monday next time.


Fondle some fabric if it makes you happy ;)
V xo

It's my party I can buy if I want to...Part 1

Well hello there!


How have you been? Oh me? I'm great. Yeah, I know, it's been ages since I’ve been here, but I've got HEAPS to tell you.


My birthday was on Monday a few weeks ago and pretty much the whole weekend was a bit of a purchase party. I got lots of goodies, let me show you…


Saturday
I have been lusting for an overlocker for AGES. I don’t know why. I’ve really only started sewing more. Aaanyway, I saw that Janome were selling a discontinued overlocker model for half price, HALF PRICE!
I thought, “Heck! I better jump on that ASAP!”
I did a bit of research and found it would be a good place to start for a beginner. I figured it was kinda fate as well, you know great sale around the same time as my birthday.


So on Saturday I dragged my sister down to the Janome shop and bought me an overlocker. Woohoo! I present to you my Janome 8002DX...

Say hello to my little friend-Janome 8002DX

This puppy came with 4 additional accessories too - gathering attachment, elastic attachment, blind stitch foot and cording foot - what a bargain!


Heady with retail euphoria I also bought a couple of sewing feet for my regular sewing machine-Janome MS5027LE. I was there already anyway :)
I got a gathering foot and a binder foot.

Binder Foot & Gathering foot for my Janome MS5027LE

Some of you would have seen my post about my binder foot lust on my Tumblr a while back, the gathering foot was pure impulse – naughty I know. I also wanted to buy a ruffler foot as well (a long time lust item) but they didn’t have any in stock. Wah! :’(


My sis had a ruffler foot she isn't using much so she offered for me to take it instead of buying one. I took it home and tried it out on my machine. It all was looking so promising, but the needle didn't line up with the hole. Bahumbug!


After buying my goodies from the Janome shop my sis and I scooted over to the nearest Spotlight (which is less than 1 k from the Janome shop - Dangerous combo!).
I had a little list of things that I wanted to buy, I didn't get most of the things on my list, but I'm kinda glad after having made such a big purchase not a couple of hours previously.


I bought a couple of invisible zippers, Simplicity 3688, navy blue with white spots cotton drill and some greyish blackish spotty, meshy printed cotton. I bought Simplicity 3688, a reprint of a 1940's American Sewing Guild pattern, mainly for the pants, I've been hearing good things around the blogasphere about these pants, so I'd like to give them a go when I get my sewing skillz up.

My Spotlight loot

Well I think that's enough of my Birthday shopping show and tell. To be continued...

Buy something you've been lusting for ages ;-p.
Vxo