36 Secret Squirrel: Stop #2 - Sewpony to Suburbia Soup

Hello fellow Secret Squirrel enthusiasts!

SURPRISE!

Secret Squirrel has chosen me for the August challenge.  The Secret Squirrel series is a year-long sewing journey created by An from Straight-grain and Suz from sewpony.  Read all about it HERE. Secret Squirrel contacted me via Suz from sewpony and gave me these five acorns of inspiration....

With much delight I solemnly swore to secrecy and obliged to fulfill my duties. It was a long taxing flight for Secret Squirrel from Melbourne to San Diego and under the cloak of darkness, he made it safe and sound.

5 acorns of inspiration... a very tricky mix to say the least.

It was a bit taxing on the brain to think how the heck I was going to create a cohesive outfit that would fill the criteria and still be wearable (not "costume-y").

Hmmm...

we thunk 

and thunk

and thunk some more.

And with a little help from my colleague (aka: MR.), we devised a plan.

Can you spot all five acorns in the previous pictures?

Let's venture some more and I'll break each one down for you...

Such a cute and simple top, no? Hmmm... yes, I would even go as far as to say, "basic".

But look closely friends...

ABRAH-CAH-DABRAH!

*poof*

What is a seemingly basic blouse, it has a hidden pouch!

I cannot take full credit for this. Mr. had the brilliant idea of incorporating marsupials and thus the pouch was born. Lala loves toting her friends around and this is perfect for when she wants to have her hands free for other things.

I have used this pattern before, but with a different type of pocket in front seen HERE. With a little cutting here and adding there and after 6 muslins, I managed to create the hidden pouch. The only real pain in this was aligning the plaid. That in it itself almost drove me bonkers.

The plaid fabric was a God send. Another "angels singing and light gleaming" moment. It's a thrift find several years back of a bed sheet. I loved the colors and just kept it hidden away for future use. So when I dug through and found this, you can imagine how tickled I was to not only find something old, but with the tangerine color in it.

Yessss! Yeah, baby!

Okay, before I move forward, I gave up on aligning the darn plaid on the sides. My sewing ADD took the better of me.

Now moving forward...

I changed up the back. I wanted to somehow include a petticoat, but I didn't want to go all crazy by adding ruffles and making it super poofy, so I went with a simple lightweight eyelet fabric in white, did a simple gathering and added "flaps" to mimic an apron or skirt. The flaps also help balance the weight in the front when a little friend is along for a ride in the pouch.

Now when I first read Suz's post for the next Secret Squirrel challenge and saw "Anne of Green Gables", as an inspiration, I chuckled. I just remembered watching the show and reading the books. SO-so long ago. The one thing that comes to mind when I think of Anne Shirley is her hat and braids. I had to have the hat. Finding it was another story. I found something very similar on line, bought it and hoping it would get here in time, to only put a kink in my plans and long story short, it never came. Just when I thought I was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, I had to search for a replacement. Visiting three hat shops and almost buying a hat for $40, I found a hat in the most unlikely of places... a craft shop. *face palm* Duh! Of course... why didn't I go here in the first place?! And the price? Get this... $1.99!!!!

My last acorn... "patch".

With time to spare, I decided to make an unofficial honorary Secret Squirrel patch. This is my first official attempt at hand embroidery. Oh sure, I've done little things like stitching words, but not anything of this size and certainly not satin stitching. So it's not the best stitching, but it definitely fulfilled my mission. 

For anyone who is interested in stitching up a patch of their own, feel free to grab this pic and stitch it up! Or if you like, shoot me an email and I can send you the PDF.

And there you have it, SS Comrades!

I have fulfilled my duties and successfully completed the mission.

*salute*

Venus from Suburbia Soup, signing off and delivering the next five acorns to the next SS Comrade:

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If you would like and join Secret Squirrel on his journey, leave a comment on this post and check your inbox in a week’s time… you may be the chosen one to pass on the baton of creativity that is SECRET SQUIRREL!!!

If you don't receive a message from Secret squirrel, you can still sew along (link to ss flickr group -http://www.flickr.com/groups/secretsquirrelsewalong/)  Prizes are being organised and are going to be super cool!!

Kind Regards from SECRET SQUIRREL (AKA Suz and An).

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