Laura: in a tangle

Argh inspiration overload

2012-02-25T11:52:00.000Z

It’s happened again, I have too many ideas going on in my head, have too many things I want to do, I spend every lunch-hour window shopping on the internet, filling baskets but never actually pressing the “continue to checkout” button. I can’t focus, I can’t think straight. I need help!

Ok ok ok, Laura, stop, breathe, re-group. I have issues. I have a very distractible flighty brain, my thoughts whizz from one thing to another very quickly. In fact I’m like a squirrel who’s drunk too many coffees. You should see me when I’m on a computer, my boyfriend gets a bit motion sick watching the screen when I’m on my laptop, I’m that fast.

The problem I now face is, I have a plan, and want to stick to it. I’m ready to start drafting my wool half circle skirt and to cut a toile for my darling ranges dress. The fabrics are washed and ready to go. Buuuut I’ve just discovered the joys of overlockers and sewing with knits, so want to make this pattern

And this pattern

and that pattern

and a million more of this pattern

Oh and the ballet dress by DIY Dixie too!

I need to pull up the reigns, and re-stock before I get too over excited and (like I usually do) end up doing nothing.

Maybe I can come up with a compromise. I have decided to buy an overlocker, and have signed up for a workshop in April that runs through everything you need to know to use one. I know I’ve already been playing with Zoe’s but she did give me a crash course on how to use hers, and I am a bit nervous a different machine might scare me off. So I thought if I bought one of my own I could get familiar with it in a structured environment.

So I am thinking that I should maybe make one more Renfrew whilst I have Zoe’s machine and then put knits aside until April. So spend March making my wool skirt and at least starting on my darling ranges dress, as that’d be a great springtime dress to have.

Then I have summer to whip up tees and summer dresses in jersey fabrics (my eye is on you simplicity 2443). I know myself and when there’s sunshine outside I will want to be out in it with my hula hoops. Sewing indoors will not be a priority for me, so trying to make a few vesty dresses for summer hooping is reasonable I think, as knits are quick and easy clothes to make, and are practical to wear.

Finally come autumn I can crack on with the rest of my plan and make the pleated and gathered skirt, and maybe try my hand at the trousers.

Ok now I’ve put that in words I feel better. Thanks guys, talking it through has really helped :o)

I love overlockers!!!!

2012-02-19T14:50:00.001Z

When Zoe brought round her overlocker last week she said "this will change your world". Well she wasn't kidding.

I now love overlockers. I made myself this Renfrew T-shirt in about 3-4 hours.

It was my first time handling knit fabric, and using an overlocker, but once the dreaded cutting process was over (thank heavens I have a a rotary cutter), it was so quick and easy to put together.

Almost matching stripes

The jersey I used was pretty cheapy and thin, so I'm not mad about the T-shirt itself. Also I think I need to tweak the pattern a bit, I cut a size 10 in the end, but reckon I could go smaller in the waist. However I am dead chuffed with this first attempt.

Stretchy jersey!

Also the overlocker's abilities impressed John so much that, when I asked him what he thought of the finished T, he actually looked up and passed comment, rather than glancing my way and murmuring in a usual vaguely positive way! I think realising I could make him customised T-shirts has sparked an interest in the overlocker. This means I could actually buy one, without having to justify the practical necessity of the purchase, which is something I struggle to achieve when it comes to my other hobby, hula-hooping.

Any more entry level overlocker recommendations greatly appreciated!

T-shirts and a question for overlocker owners

2012-02-14T13:16:00.000Z

So I’ve bought a shed-load of t-shirting from Fabricland. It’s not a stable knit as its quite stretchy, but it was very cheap, so is good for me to ~~ruin~~ practice on in my first attempts at using knits and an overlocker. Looking at the measurements on the Renfrew pattern it seems quite loose for a fitted top. I think I’d be a 12 as my waist is around 31 ½ inches, but the finished measurements make the waist 35 ½ inches, so I may go down a size or two. Also, although I’ve ordered some double knit online (planning to make a cowl version), for normal t-shirts I want thinner jersey, so I want to see what size I’d need to use for a stretchier material.

source

Once I’ve mastered the art of t-shirt making (because I have full confidence I will), I also want to have a go at customising my creations. Mad Mim as a whole series of posts on this (and on how to make your own –shirt pattern as well!). I like the idea of yoyos on one shoulder, and the reverse appliqué bow.

Now although Zoe has lent me her overlocker for a little while (which I am super super grateful for), she is going to want it back at some point. And blatantly by then, I will not want to let it go, so I need to start thinking about getting my hands on an overlocker of my own.

source

I’ve seen that many peeps in blogland (including Tilly, Karen and Jane) have the Brother 1034D, which looks like a fab one to go for. However at around £200-£250 it’s a bit out of my price range, so I may end up going down the secondhand route.

source

However if I buy secondhand I won’t really have that much choice in terms of make and model, or have any online reviews to help guide me. What are other peoples experiences of buying and using secondhand overlockers? Are some brands better than others? Are there any brands I should completely avoid? What about age, is it better to go for a sturdy 70’s-80’s overlocker than get a newer model secondhand? Should I just save my pennies and go for new? I was thinking about going to my local dealers to see if they have any reconditioned ones, or display models I could buy at a cheaper price. What do people think?

Brighton swapping and borrowing someone's baby

2012-02-12T18:20:00.000Z

So a few bloggers have posted about the Brighton de stash meet-up, but me being me, I've taken a wee while to write up my post.

It was a really fab day, and I met some lovely bloggers and soon-to-be bloggers. But I won't go into mega details as it has been so well covered elsewhere. So instead I'll just get straight to the important bit, the items I received in the swap:

From left to right, a red muslin fabric (great for lining), awesome retro vintage cotton (cushion cover methinks), green and white heavy weight cotton (definitely going to become a bag) and tonnes of lush grey silk (Colette Truffle dress maybe). Oh and an ace vintage dress pattern too!

The idea of a stash swap was a really great one, as we all went home with new-to-us fabric and patterns, and had given away things that we no longer needed or wanted but that others were really keen to have. Karma was topped up and we didn't spend any money!!

I also ended up with something else as a result of the meet-up. The generous loan of someones precious baby.......well not their actual baby, but their overlocker!!!

At the meet-up I mentioned how I'd like to try sewing with knits, and am keen to buy an overlocker, to sew knits, and to finish seams. Anyway Zoe, kindly offered to end me her overlocker for a few weeks, so I could get to grips with one, and hopefully make a few things. So earlier today she popped round to mine, overlocker in hand and gave me a crash course on how to use it.

Isn't she pretty. Don't worry Zo, I will treat her well I promise.

Isn't the sewing community generous!

The Plan 2012: The list

2012-02-06T19:55:00.000Z

Right so here's the list of things I'd like to make in 2012. Some of these are fully formed ideas, with pattern and fabric already chosen, others are vaguer ideas, and I may need some suggestions on fabric or pattern choice.

Note: I was going to have loads of pics of all my planned patterns and fabrics but haven't had time to get it all together, and as this post is about a month overdue, it'll just have to look a bit bland I'm afraid!

1. Red dress

Fabric choice: Red cotton lawn

Pattern choice: Darling Ranges Dress by Megan Nielsen

I loved this dress the moment i saw it and am desperate to make one for myself. Instead of playing it safe and going for a black or navy fabric which is my first intstinct, I have decided to take a risk and make a red version. I’d love to have a red dress, and this’ll be a nice everyday wear kinda dress, that hopefully will be super comfy. The cotton lawn was bought online from Truro fabrics, they threw in a spool of matching thread too, which was nice.

The next three items all belong together really. In deciding that I needed some separates I was unsure what type of skirt to make. I don’t really wear skirts much and am not sure what suits me. So I have decided to make 3 different types of skirt. One gathered, one pleated and one half-circle. I already have an a-line skirt, my black Ginger, which is ok, but I’m not a massive fan of. I would like to try a pencil skirt, but that’s for another time I think.

2. Slouchy gathered skirt

Fabric choice: not sure, maybe black I want something drapey though

Pattern choice: Simplicity 2226

3. Pleated skirt

Fabric choice: maybe an olive green or navy

Pattern choice: Simplicity 2215

4. Half circle skirt

Fabric choice: A charcol grey wool from Ditto Fabrics

Pattern choice: For Christmas my mum gave me the book Make your own clothes. In it is a pattern for a half circle skirt. I just need to input my measurements into the program provided on a CD-rom, then print out a paper pattern supposedly custom drafted to my body. Will it work, we shall see, but it’ll certainly be handy if it does, as that eliminates fitting issues.

Also, I'm a bit nervous about using wool fabric, so any hints or tips would be greatly appreciated!

5. Wide legged trousers

Fabric choice: Not sure at this stage, will be a dark colour like navy, dark brown or black, probably cotton.

Pattern choice: Also unknown. Any suggestions (high waisted is a plus)

6. Tops
I've just received two patterns from Sewaholic, the Pendrell and the Renfrew.

I am keen to get a good fit with princess seams, as I think it's be a very flattering look for me, and I am keen to give knits a go. No decisions have been made on fabrics though!

Plus a few non clothing items:

1. New bag using the free pdf pattern from U-Handbag, with a blue floral cotton and red leather handles I think.

2. Purse or wallet. I'm still searcching for a pattern for this as I am quite particular about what I want from a purse, but havn't quite got the skill to draft my own or adapt an existing pattern.

3. Oh and finally finish the quilt I started months ago, and blogged about here

I'm not sure if I will achieve everything on this list, but I have a clear plan now. Other project ideas may disrtcat me during the year, but I will try to hold off from veering too far from my plan and do my very best to make at least 2 or 3 of these things listed above!

Crochet attempts

2012-01-24T19:34:00.000Z

Well the personalised croquis is on hold at the moment. I wanted to do one on the computer like Lauren at LLadybird, but alas the photoshop expert that is my boyfriend has abandoned me this week to go sliding down snowy mountains on a bit of wood (also referred to as snowboarding). I’m not much good with complex computer software programs, and I know it’s the kind of thing he could do in minutes but that it would leave me tearing my hair out and take at least a day. Therefore I am waiting until his return so he can do it for me! On the plus side I have pretty much finished my plan for 2012, so I’ll probably do a croquis post as a follow-up after I’ve posted about all my plans.

In the meantime I have been trying my hand at another craft as I had my mum to stay over the weekend, and persuaded her to teach me how to crochet. She's a master at embroidery, cross stitch, knitting and crochet and she can sew too! She got me doing a basic chain stitch and showed me how to double crochet, slip stitch and treble crochet. She left behind some perfect examples to look at that she whipped up whilst drinking a cup of tea and chatting (it's like her brain is on auto pilot the muscle memory is that good). Oh and she bashed these out in a few minutes as well.

Bad photos are due to the boyfriend taking the good camera with him on his snowboarding holiday. Bitter, me?...Never!

Needless to say I didn't get that far, however I am very keen to get cracking on some granny squares, then maybe I can make this lovely crochet tie for my currently absent boyfriend

or these charming pieces of headgear for myself:

Yummy!

Rayon seam binding

2012-01-19T13:01:00.000Z

I first heard of this stuff whilst reading Lauren's blog Lladybird. She seems to use it a lot, and even has a tutorial on how to use it. This stuff really appeals to me. I like the look of bias bound seams, but double fold tape can be a bit bulky. Also I hate hemming with a passion and a narrow hem practically kills me, I go nuts pressing the hem over twice, it’s such a pain in the posterior. So using seam binding on the edge and only folding the seam once will give my hems a nice finish that is less bulky than bias binding, and will avoid some of the painful and painstaking hem pressing.

Look how thin this is!

It doesn't seem to be something widely available in the UK though. So after scouring the Internet for a little while I found a UK based shop called Crafty Ribbons which sells hundreds of colours of the stuff at £1 for 5 meters. They have an offer on as well, if buy 5 lots of 5 meters and get a 6^th lot free. So I stocked up with a nice selection of colours.

The colours of the binding will give you some clue about the projects I am deciding on for The Plan 2012.

So what about other UK sewers, do you use this stuff, how do you get hold of it and what are your experiences with it?

My 5 favourite wardrobe items

2012-01-15T11:58:00.000Z

A few other peeps in blogland have followed one of the exercises recommended in the Colette Sewing Handbook, of picking 5 things in your wardrobe that you love to wear and analysing them to try and get a better understanding of your own personal style, and what you value in your clothes. I've had a go at this now, and my top 5 are below:

1. Chunky necklace

I love this necklace!! Every time I wear this necklace I get a compliment on it, it's just fab. Pretty, chunky, unusual and funky (also it's from Accessorize if you can believe it).

2. Brown and yellow blazer jacket

This wool blazer is so warm, but is smart and cool too. I love the mustard lining, and the pinstripe. It's a really nicely tailored piece, but isn't "too" smart so I tend to wear it with jeans.

3. Purple blue dress

I love the bright block colour of this dress. It's empire line so is very flettering to wear, but not too restrctive either. I like the simple style, fitted bodice but floaty skirt. I also like the embroidery detail near the hem

Wearing this dress makes me feel really feminine and pretty.

4. Flowery jersey dress

This dress is so soft, comfy and easy to wear. I can just throw it on and go. It's basically just a rectangle with a waist tie and a cowly style neckline. It doesn't exactly make me feel professional or pretty but it does make me feel happy!

5. Chunky biker-style boots

I adore chunky boots. I own a fair few pairs. Although I'm occasionally tempted to be grown up and actually buy proper shoes, I really am only drawn to converse sneakers and chunky boots! Boots are practical in wet and muddy weather, and are comfortable for my feet. Also my favourite thing to do is pair chunky boots with a girly dress, I'm not sure why, I just love that look.

Looking at my chosen items, I'd say I like to mix soft with hard, feminine with a rocky edge I guess. I like soft comfortable clothes, but also things that make me feel pretty.

Browsing through my wardrobe, whilst selecting these 5 items, made me realise that I really really like blue! Almost to the point that it’s the only colour I wear. I am attracted to other colours but don’t tend to wear them, I’m not sure why. I don’t even know what other colours may suit me! So that’s challenge #1, make something not blue.

Besides blue, I tend I veer towards earthy tones and darker shades. But one of the reasons I love my purple/blue dress so much is that it’s quite bright and I would not regularly wear a colour that bright. That’s something I want to change too, so challenge #2 is make something in a bright block colour.

I have also realised I don’t wear trousers much these days. I tend to buy a bootcut pair of jeans and wear them till they wear out, then buy another and so on. But other than jeans I don’t really wear any other trousers. This is partly because of current fashions, I mean skinny jeans, harem pants or high waisted shorts on my body, um I don’t think so! I also hate jeans / trouser shopping because they never fit me because of my sway back! They always always gape at the back of the waist, and wearing a belt gives me this unattractive tugging look, nasty! So that’s challenge # 3 make a pair of trousers that fit me!

Lastly I have spotted that I don’t own a lot of separates. I own a lot of dresses, and a few long tops that I wear over my denim skirt or jeans, but I don’t own many nice tops or blouses, and the only skirts I wear are my denim mini and my beignet, which to be honest gets pretty limited wear because I have no tuck-in-able tops to go with it. So finally that’s challenge #4 make more separates (a mix and match selection of tops and skirts/trousers is the ideal).

Right so the next step is too make a croquis, have a play with a few pattern ideas, and try to incorporate my 4 challenges to come up with a list of items to make this year.

The plan 2012

2012-01-07T13:34:00.000Z

Peter from Male Pattern Boldness had an interesting post the other day on whether we sew with practicality in mind or fantasy. Personally when I think about my behaviour in the past (especially when I first started sewing), the motivation behind my pattern and fabric purchases was pretty much always pure fantasy. I mean seriously what was I thinking when I bought this quilting weight cotton!? What can be made from this?

And these 1950's retro patterns, yes they are beautiful, but lets face it how many occasions am I going to find to wear these?

I have realised that what I need to do as a sewer who still puts herself in the beginnerish category, is to make functional wearable and well constructed pieces. This will help me gain confidence in my sewing abilities, and in wearing the things I have sewn! Then later on down the line I can go a bit nuts and make a few things just for fun.

That's not to say I won't be having fun when sewing, but in order to enjoy the process I need confidence that the end result will be good.

Also I am an avid reader of So Zo. I share a lot of her views when it come to consumerism in society, but so far have done little to start making changes in my own life. I would love to be able to only make my clothes and not buy new ones. Fantasy sewing in this respect is also fairly pointless if I make a "fantasy" dress that I hardly ever wear, only to have to go and buy some practical clothes I actually need. I really need to think about the clothes I "need" and then make them myself.

So I have decided for 2012, I am going to plan, and hopefully sew, a selection of key basic pieces.. When I say basic I don't mean dull and boring plain coloured things, just items that are wearable on a regular basis and aren't going to be crazy hard to sew (like smart skirts and shirts for work, or comfy tunic style tops for my free time). As fitting has been such a massive issue for me, simpler more basic patterns will also mean I can get to grips with adjustments more easily. For example I love the Colette Ceylon dress, but attempting to fit that to my full busted front and my narrow and sway back does not appeal to me right now!

With that in mind I am starting to follow the "programme" in the Colette Sewing handbook. I intend to:

Analyse my wardrobe to find my favourite 5 items, and work out what I value in these.
Look and see if there are any obvious gaps in the clothes I already own, that I could fill by sewing up something
Make a Croquis of my self so I can have a play with a variety of pattern styles.
Come up with a list of maybe 5-10 items (I'm not trying to be over ambitious) of things I would like to sew in 2012

So thats the plan anyway!

Farewell 2011

2011-12-24T12:52:00.000Z

Hi everyone,

I'm not going to do a year in review / round-up post becuase quite frankly my sewing achievements are petty paultry compared with a lot of other bloggers out there. Sewing hasn't come easily to me, and I have strugged so much with fitting that it has put me off even attempting to make a lot of the things I've really wanted to. However I do get a lot of satisfaction from sewing, in both the process and the completion of a project, and I do want to do a lot more of it next year.

With that in mind I do have some serious sewing plans for the new year. I have already started sewing my peony dress, I’ve also ordered the fab Darling Ranges dress from Megan Nielsen’s website (then saw you can buy it in the UK at Backstitch, d'oh!), having seen awesome versions by Mary at Idle Fancy and Paunnet. Not forgetting that I have an altered Rooibos pattern just sitting there begging to be used, so I have three dresses now in progress or being planned in my head. Hopefully I will finish one of them in time to wear for my birthday on the 14^th January.

I have also been doing some Christmas related sewing and embroidery, check out my post over at Tilly’s Crafty Christmas Club for more info on that!

Have great Christmas everyone and see you in 2012!

Rooibos and Peony fabric choice dilemmas!

2011-11-30T17:00:00.000Z

So my Rooibos and Peony patterns are altered and ready to go. I had some existing fabric in my stash that I could possibly use, but I also bought some new fabric in a recent splurge in Ditto.

But now I've sat down and looked at the fabrics I am stumped about what to use! I am totally overwhelmed by fabric, weight, composition, draperyness, it's all so confusing! I usually just go for cotton poplins or twills when making things as they are so easy to find and don't scare me. But I really fancied trying something a bit different with these makes.

But onto the actual possible choices. First up Peony:

I have this lovely cotton sateen in my stash, it's heavy and quite stiff, but still has movement:

It's quite thick though and I wasn't sure it's work with this dress pattern, it feels like it needs something lighter.

I found this lush viscose fabric in Ditto, it is so soft and drapey and lovely I just fell for it.

But this pattern recommends a crisp fabric, and this fabric is anything but crisp! The pattern actually suggests a poplin, but this is something that Karen at Did you make that, does not recommend. And she's made up a fab version of this dress, so she should know! So could I get away with a drapey soft soft fabric rather than something more crisp and stiff?

Is it worth doing a wearable muslin in a poplin to see whether the pattern works better with stiff or drapey?

Help!

And then there's my possible choice for Rooibos:

I wanted a nice thick warm fabric and was looking for a gabardine, but have struggled to find any, and anyway is wool gabardine machine washable? If not can you get a cotton/wool mix??

I did find this lovely olive green needlecord with orange running through it. It was so hard to photograph though!.

But now I have it home it seems really drapey and I think drapey is bad with Rooibos, I want stiff right? Also it is fairly light (for a corduroy) which I think is also bad.

I did also buy some more needlcord, it's almost velvety, the cording is so fine.

But it has a pattern on it, and Rooibos has a lot of seams, so I wasn't sure it would work for this make. I just couldn't pass up this cord, it' so pretty!

Argh maybe I should just buy a cotton twill and be done with it. I so wanted to be more adventurous with my fabric choice though.

I repeat, help!

Pattern fitting class - result!

2011-11-23T22:18:00.001Z

I finally had my private pattern fitting class, and it was a revelation!

Firstly the teacher took my measurements, she measured pretty much everything you’d need when making a bodice, including my wrist (it's 15cm).

Then we tried on my toiles. Now I wonder how anyone manages to do adjustments to a toile on their own! You could just about do the front yourself, but the back!!?? I’m not even sure using a dress form could work unless you’re 100% certain the measurements are exactly the same as yours. Even if you do one of those gaffer tape dress forms of your own shape, you’ve effectively added a few millimetres to yourself all the way around. Seriously how do people do fitting on their own?

Now in the end I chose to fit Colette Peony and Colette Rooibos. Now the size I cut was not the one I probably should have gone for. Having made the Beignet skirt (which is quite fitted) I knew the size 12 fit me well from the waist down, and rather than start with a bodice too small for my waist and add to it I thought it’d be easier to get a bodice that fitted my waist and take it in in other areas. My full bust and high bust measurements were 37.5 inches and 35 inches respectively, so if anything I “should” have gone with a size 4 or 8, but I have a 31 inch waist so I knew that even the 8 was never going to fit me, heck I wouldn’t even be able to pin it up.

I admit that the 12 didn’t fit in the shoulders and we had to take it in loads, but we did practically the same adjustments to both the Rooibos and Peony toiles so now I have some standard adjustments for Colette patterns I can use straight away.

So this is what we did:

Took in the shoulders by 0.5cm on the front and back (so 1cm in total)
Took in the centre back by 2cm
Reduced the armhole by 2cm. Peony: moving the dart to the armhole and increasing this dart by 2cm. Rooibos: pivoting this amount from the armhole and adding it to the under bust darts

Adding a bit more length to the front of the Rooibos under the darts because of the additional dart fullness there.
Increasing the length of the back waist dart in the Peony to 13cm, and in the Rooibos by a fair bit too

Taking off another 1cm the Peony back by adding it to the upper back/shoulder dart
Reducing the length of the centre back of the Peony by 1cm, tapering to nothing at the side seam.

Lowering the Peony neckline a little as it was cutting into my neck a bit

Phew, that was a lot of adjustments! Here are the results

Rooibos front bodice

Rooibos back bodice

Peony front bodice

Peony back bodice

Although I don’t feel confident that I could grab a random pattern and fit it, I have seen the process of fitting close up and now know how to adjust the pattern pieces to take account of toile adjustments. I have also seen that in a lot of cases it involves just pinching up fabric to increase darts etc. I also have some standard(ish) adjustments I can now apply to the other Colette patterns I have, and will have confidence that the fit will be good.

Now I just need to sew these babies :o)

Other things I learnt:

How to draft facings (and it couldn’t be easier)
How to alter a neckline shape (who knew it was literally just a case of redrawing the neckline however you like!)
If you are redrawing a dart, how to draw the bottom of it (the other pointy bit that sticks out of the pattern).

A change of scenery

2011-11-12T10:14:00.000Z

Do you remember a while back when I posted about my lovely sewing space?

Well sadly I have had to vacate it. Our landlord decided to sell our flat, and it was bought by someone who wanted to keep it as a rental property. This was great for us as it meant we didn't need to find another place to live. The downside being the new owner wanted the spare room back to use for storage. As it has it's own door on the communal hallway, and is separate to the main flat this was something we couldn't really argue with, but we did manage to negotiate keeping half of it. I made the ultimate sacrifice and gave up my sewing space, because at the end of the day there was no way 3 bikes, 2 surfboards, 2 snowboards, 3 wetsuits and a copious amount of camping gear could have been stored in the flat.

We managed to squeeze in my sewing desk into the bay of our bedroom window

And have moved the big Ikea shelf behind the sofa, so all my sewing patterns and fabric and stored out of sight.

Yes I have to move the sofa to reach it but it isn't that much of an inconvenience

This turn of events initially seemed like quite a bummer for me, but as it has turned out it was a blessing in disguise. Having my sewing room away from the flat meant it took more motivation for me to go down there, yes it's only one flight of stairs, but psychologically it did feel like I had to make a concerted effort to go and sew. I also felt a bit cut off in there because John wouldn't be popping in and out at all. In fact he used to ring me on my phone if he wanted to talk to me rather than come down and speak to me face to face!! That may be more of a reflection on him than my sewing space though.

Also having my sewing stuff far away meant there was nothing around me to remind/inspire me to sew. Now everyday I see my sewing machine sitting opposite me when I wake up , and I kinda like that. I have sewed (sewn??) at least every other evening over the past couple of weeks, and I hardly ever used to sew in the evenings, I'd save it all up for weekends.

This new set up clearly works for me, but I am curious about other peoples spaces. Do you like to have a room whose sole purpose is to be your sewing room, or do you prefer to have your sewing machine in a communal room? Do you like having your own space away from everything else, or do you feel cut off and lonely??

No sun on the darkside

2011-11-05T20:06:00.000Z

So I wanted to take some pretty autumnal pics in my darkside skirt, but the UK weather isn't playing ball, so here's some indoor pics instead. Also my boyfriend hates being my photographer, and was not taking the process seriously, hence I got a million pics like these:

Anyway you get the idea!

This skirt was so easy to sew, and it has such a nice shape. Colette patterns seem to fit my lower half really well which is such a relief!!

The invisible zipper insertion was a bit tricky, and it isn't completely invisible. Not sure what I did wrong there, did I not sew close enough to the teeth? Also do you press the zipper teeth before sewing the zip in or not? I didn't as I didn't want to damage the zip so it got stuck or broke or something, and I thought pressing a hot iron onto plastic teeth might muck it up!

I already have my wine coloured corduroy ready to go to sew up another version of this pattern. I'm going to line that one, I wasn't certain how to do this but now Scruffy Badger has provided me with a quick how-to on her blog I am ready to go!

The darkside skirt aka the which-side-is-the-right-side skirt

2011-11-04T22:34:00.000Z

I have some fairly heavy weight cotton drill that I’d been planning to use to make a pencil skirt. Having never got round to that I decided to make use of it and make a Ginger skirt instead.

At first glance the fabric appeared to have no right or wrong side. Thinking nothing of it I happily went about cutting up the fabric. It wasn’t until I went to attach the waistband (which I had already interfaced) to the main skirt, that I realised that oops there was in fact a right and wrong side to this fabric and that I had interfaced the waistband so that the right side of the waistband didn’t match the right side of the main skirt.

As I’d already finished the centre seam on the main skirt with bias binding (the first time I'd tried this technique and it's such a nice neat finish) I decided that re-cutting and interfacing the waistband was the quicker job, so made the call that the right side of the skirt was in fact the correct right side of the fabric.

However I am not certain I made the right call.

The side which became the “right” side of my skirt has a noticeable diagonal weave to it. My attempt to photograph it looks like this:

The side which became the “wrong” side of my skirt is very flat and it’s hard to see a weave of any kind unless you do an extreme close up, like this:

So I’m curious, which side do you think is the real right side??

Ultimately it doesn’t matter, and unless someone looks at my skirt up close with a magnifying glass I very much doubt I will encounter any public humiliation or shame because of having a the wrong side of my fabric showing. But for future reference I would quite like to know which side I should be using on fabric like this.

P.S I have finished the darkside skirt, but haven't been at home in daylight to photograph it!

Pattern fitting advice needed

2011-10-26T13:44:00.000+01:00

I’ve booked a private sewing lesson in a few weeks to focus solely on my fitting issues on my top half. The teacher has suggested either making up a couple if muslins in advance using unadjusted pattern pieces and then adjusting them and then making the appropriate changes on the paper pattern, or starting from scratch by adjusting the pattern pieces first then making up a muslin from those.

I prefer the idea of having some muslins ready to go. I can always take more fabric with me to make new muslins, plus I intend to make copies of the pattern pieces, so I will have unadjusted originals whatever we do.

The class will be 4 hours long so it’s going to be an intense one-on-one class. My main aim is to be able to look at a muslin and see the fitting issues and know how to adjust them to make the fit better. But I am unsure on which patterns to use.

I think my options are:

a) Focus on one pattern for an item I am keen to make - in this case it’s the Rooibos dress

Source

Positives: I will have a good-to-go adjusted pattern that I can use straight away

Negatives: I will learn very specific adjustments to a non-standard bodice so I may not be able to apply what I have learnt to other garments

b) Make up a couple of muslins for two basic bodices, I’m thinking a princess seamed bodice and a standard darted bodice, and then work on those

Positives: I will hopefully have the skills to adjust most bodices

Negatives: I may be trying to cram too much in here, 4 hours may not be enough to do two different bodices

c) Pick one basic bodice that I think I can learn the most from and focus on this

Positives: Will have plenty of time to get it right

Negatives: Which type of bodice to pick?? I really struggled fitting a princess seam, but only have two princess seamed patterns and am unsure if learning adjustments on these types of bodice will be that useful to me. I have quite a few gathered bodice patterns, but would rather get the fit a standard darted bodice right as I think these adjustments will be applicable to most bodices as you can always pivot darts into gathers and so on.

d) Same as C but take a Rooibos muslin with me in case we have time to look at that too

Positives: If there is time I will be able to adjust the Rooibos

Negatives: Same as c) – which bodice to pick??

I am erring towards d) – taking a basic darted bodice and a Roobios in case we have time to look at that too, and for the time being avoiding princess seams.

In terms of basic bodice patterns, I had a rummage in my pattern stash and I only own about two top patterns, one is Colette Jasmin, which as it's bias cut is no good for me at this stage. In my dress pattern stash the only simple darted bodice pattern I could find was this:

Burda Style Danielle

source

So I was thinking of buying this pattern as it looks pretty good for my purposes:

Colette - Peony

source

In terms of a princess seam pattern I was thinking of New Look 6457, View A destroyed me but I am thinking view E might be good to try out

New Look 6457

source

What do you think? I basically need advice on what bodice to take and whether you think my plan makes sense? What do you think is realistically achievable in 4 hours? Do you have any other suggestions for simple bodice patterns I could use?

Finished Beignet, now known as my happy autumn skirt

2011-10-16T16:52:00.000+01:00

Yay, I have finally completed my Beignet skirt.

This is a great pattern, it definitely deserves it's intermediate status though, as I found it a quite time consuming and complex project. I did deliberately take my time with it, as I wanted it to feel solid and well made. I have to say I love the result. No wonder this pattern is so popular.

I made mine from a medium weight denim for the shell, some polyester anti-static lining fabric for the lining and used a patterned cotton for the facings.

I had a few new sewing experiences with this project, most notably:

Sewing buttonholes

My machine has a 4 step buttonhole function, and once I'd had a few practice goes, these were pretty easy to do. My machine makes them quite neatly I think, but making 12 was pretty stressful!

Sewing with polyester lining fabric

All I can say on this subject is argh! It frays ridiculously, it slips and slides all over the place, it wouldn't hold a crease when I was trying to press the hem and my chalk marks wouldn't even stay on it for more than 5 seconds.

Sewing with denim

This fabric was the polar opposite of the lining fabric, it's sturdy, hardly frays at all, chalk loves it and I love it. Would be tempted to make an entire denim wardrobe just because it's so easy to handle.

Basting

I am a cheat, if a pattern tells me to pin, then hand baste and then sew, I usually skip the basting. I mean come on, I have to pin it then sew the thing up a bit rubbishly and then do it again properly, and finally pull out my basting stitches after I'm done. What's the point. However on this pattern, those two evil curves on the lining and facing, one concave one convex, well basting twas the only way to go. And even then I had to unpick and re-sew them because I fudged it up the first time. Rubbish slippery lining fabric got caught up underneath my needle, grrr.

Under stitching

I'd not done this on anything before, but the pattern instructions suggested under-stitching the facing to stop it rolling out to the outside. I found sewing right into the corners a bit tricky though. Did anyone else have this problem?

It's such a relief to have a well fitting garment that I have made myself. After all my fitting issues with the upper half of my body, this skirt has really improved my sewing confidence.
It's not perfect by any means. I got bored when sewing the buttons on and Downton Abbey was on the telly and I'd had a glass (or two) of wine by this point, so a few are a bit wonky. Plus the hem of the lining is dreadful, but it's on the inside so nobody will ever see that it isn't straight.

Can you tell what it is yet?

2011-10-13T18:26:00.000+01:00

And I've finished it too. More pics to come soon I promise.......

Sewing plans - and I (really) mean it this time!

2011-10-01T09:49:00.000+01:00

Ok ok I admit it, I’m just plain un-motivated when it comes to sewing. I think my enthusiasm has taken a fair few knocks thanks to my fitting woes and I have been just plain avoiding going anywhere near my sewing machine. But I have got a fair way through making my Beignet skirt and hope to get most of it done by the end of the weekend (update: not this weekend, the weather is amazing outside so indoor activity is not happening!).

See I've finished the shell and facings, and lining except for hemming. Just need to finish the lining hem, sew the facing onto the lining, then onto the shell, hem the shell do the buttonholes and then sew on the buttons. Oh and add the belt loops - ok maybe there's more to do than I realised!

Unfortunately my bank balance just wouldn’t allow me to sign up for any sewing classes in the end, which I am gutted about. But I am exploring getting a private lesson or two with someone in the hope they can help me a bit with fitting a couple of bodice patterns, to kinda kick-start me in the right direction there.

In the meantime I have decided to steer clear of dresses and tops for a little while and make a couple more skirts. Just so I can get a few successful makes under my belt before trying to fit my top half again.

Luckily my bank balance would stretch to a couple of new patterns, so I decided on Colette’s Ginger skirt, and also because it is so darn cute (again I went for a Colette) the Jasmine top.

Yes I realise I said I wasn’t making any tops for a while, but this purchase is totally justified. Firstly it’s a semi-fitted style so doesn’t need to fit perfectly, second it’s cut on the bias so is designed to stretch and fit round you more easily, lastly I repeat my earlier statement, it’s just so darn cute.

So after I have finished Beignet, I will be making up a Ginger. I have some black cotton drill so will be making a wearable muslin in that. I'm also thinking of making one in corduroy, but am unsure if this will work.

images from Croft Mill

What do you think? Will corduroy work? I like the Navy best, but I always go for blues.

Fun fabric flowers

2011-09-25T18:24:00.000+01:00

The lovely ladies who ran the beginners sewing classes I went to way back when, have recently opened a new sewing studio called The Sewing Lounge. To promote their new classes and workshops they were hosting free workshops this weekend.

I popped along to a fabric flower making workshop and managed to make a cute felt flower

Plus this one (my personal favourite) made from organza.

We were discussing in the group that you could make two of the organza flowers and sew them together back-to-back, with a loop of ribbon in between and it'd make a very cool christmas decoration.

What do you think?

Don't buy cheap interfacing!

2011-09-13T10:51:00.000+01:00

You may remember a while back I was cutting out my Beignet and had a strange interfacing-creating-bubbles dilemma. Well the interfacing I was using was not Vilene which I usually use. For some reason Fabricland is phasing it out and is now stocking some other interfacing (don't know the brand). Anyway I went out and bought some Vilene elsewhere and had another go with some freshly cut facing pieces.

Spot the difference:

Lesson learnt, use decent interfacing.

Right I'm off to start sewing my Beignet, but will leave you with a couple of Corfu piccies. Twas a lovely hot 35 degrees out there.

Last minute holiday makes (almost complete)

2011-09-02T10:21:00.000+01:00

So the last couple of evenings I have been cutting out and sewing, in an attempt to whip up a little buttercup bag and a easy beach dress for my holiday.

Unfortunately only the bag is complete as my machine starting behaving very badly, which slowed me up considerably. However I'm happy with my little summer holiday bag

I'm a bit bummed I didn't finish the dress. I still need to finish the sleeve edges, hem the skirt part and insert the elastic, oh and take it in by about 2 inches. But on the plus side, it fits my boobs!! Never mind, I will have it for my next holiday.

I secretly think I have a dress-making curse on me, as the second I started sewing up the beach dress, the bobbin tension started to go mental and it was making nasty thudding noises. Turns out I had a tonne of fluff around the bobbin case (bad me for not cleaning it more). Still it's like something really doesn't want me to sew dresses.

I have a week off work after we get back from our hols, and I plan to make up my Beignet as the pieces are just lying there begging to be sewn together. However I plan to abandon my frappuccino dress now (autumn is coming so I wouldn't be able to wear it anyway), and instead I will make a Rooibos for work (and maybe one for play), the pattern for which I won on Ashley's giveaway. As Sarai over at Colette patterns has just done a sew-along on this dress (including how to do an FBA!!!) I am hoping the fitting on this dress will be less of an issue.

Right I'm off to catch a plane.

P.S. is is cliché to take "My family and other animals" as your holiday read if you are going to Corfu?

cute clutch and a rethink

2011-08-29T17:27:00.001+01:00

After the stressy rant of my last post, I am pleased to show a completed project. A cute clutch purse which I have made for a friends birthday. the pattern I used is by Keyka Lou. It's really nice and easy and has a cool alternative method for sewing up a purse / bag with a drop in lining.

I have also decided to whip up a little buttercup bag of my own to take on holiday, as well as maybe a quick summer dress for the beach using this pattern Butterick 5216 (view C), and just making it a bit longer so it's a dress rather than a tunic.

It's elasticated so should be an easy fit / sew.

Hopefully this'll make me feel a bit better about my fitting torment and I'll have a couple of me made bits to take on holiday! I'm not sure what to do about getting better at fitting, but thanks for all the supportive comments to my last post!

Fitting, argh!!!!

2011-08-24T20:58:00.000+01:00

Warning this is a word heavy post, but please do read it as I am in desperate need of some moral support, help me please!

Every so often I think to myself, “oh Laura, why are you so rubbish at getting your sewing projects underway?”

Yes I have a bit of a thing against cutting out, all stemming from a childhood inability to follow the dotted line (I couldn’t colour-in very neatly either). But I am tackling that problem and have done ok, for example it only took me a month to get round to cutting out my Beignet.

But yet I avoid starting new projects like a small boy avoids bathtime. And I had forgotten why, until last weekend when I decided to crack on with fitting the bodice for my frappuccino summer dress (I’ve decided to name it after my favourite summertime drink, plus the polka dot print is a light coffee colour so it ties in nicely).

My biggest fitting problem (figuratively and literally as well I’m afraid) is my boobies. Previously mentioned here I struggle with full bust adjustments, and yet again the problem has re-emerged.

The bodice I am fitting can be strapless or has straps that you adjust to fit you, so there’s no shoulder seam to hang the muslin from to gauge what length/width I need to add.

The dress I am trying to make

As far as I know you pin the muslin or tissue to the shoulder and the side seams when fitting and work out the extra width you need by measuring the distance from the pattern/muslin centre front to your actual centre front. This also helps you work out if you need more length. This is tricky to do with a strapless bodice as I have no clue how high the pattern is supposed to sit.

So I basically put the muslin as high as I wanted it and went from there. Also I forgot to lower the bust fullness on the princess seam before making the muslin, so worked out where the fullness should be, then calculated the amount needed for the FBA by lowering the actual fullest part of the bodice to the right place, re-pining it there, and working out the distance needed to reach the centre front.

Confused? I know I am.

Right so after all that I went back to my pattern pieces. Firstly I moved the fullness down on the pattern piece based on the line I drew on muslin one.

lowering bust fullness

Then I did an FBA. I did have a look at the fab tutorial from Sewaholic. I also referred a lot to Monkeysocks' post on bust fullness and FBA’s on a princess seam. But these resources couldn’t help me as much as I would have liked. This is because my princess seam is very much to side, whereas the standard princess seam sits on (or very close to) your apex. So the standard FBA is done on the side bodice piece, but my adjustment really needed to be on the front piece as thats where all my bust fullness was. The main fitting book I use, Fit For Real People said that you can add to the front piece as well as the side if the princess seam is closer to the side. I’d looked at the fit of my muslin and kinda guessed whether the room was needed at the side or the front. I went for the front so did a different type of FBA, thankfully my book FFRP explained the process.

My FBA

Lastly I added an inch in length to all the bodice pieces as my FBA didn't add any length and muslin number one was too short.

adding length

This is muslin number 2. Does it look ok?

No it blinking doesn't. The FBA created a massive amount of excess fabric at the front so this whole top is basically now a shapeless bag!

Not only that but the FBA also added an extra triangle of space near the side seam when doing the whole slash/spread thing.

In the book states that this spread will be minor, and gives no instruction to alter the side piece to account for the extra length in the seam, however on my piece it's almost half an inch longer than before the FBA, so now matching the front seams to the side seams is really hard, hence all the bumpy bits round the bust.

I have pretty much run out of time to do anything to sort this out and sew up the actual dress before my holiday so that plan was a big fail.

I’m not experienced at noticing fitting problems when trying on a muslin and have found tissue fitting impossible so have given up on that. I don’t know how to fix any problems I do spot, and I am constantly confounded because I feel like the problems I have aren’t shown in books or online tutorials.

I am pulling my hair out, not least because as much as I love reading all the other sewing blogs out there it feels like everyone else breezes through these fitting issues and churns out dresses like there's no tomorrow. Why do I find this process so hard?

Sunny Monday walkies

2011-08-15T21:22:00.001+01:00

This isn't a sewing related post, but I have been using Picnik recently in the hope of improving the look of my blog photos. I thought I would share some pics of a recent walk John and I went on along the South Downs, and show you what I've been playing around with.

A weekend of progress, and a weird interfacing dilemma

2011-08-08T19:46:00.000+01:00

I have been quite a busy girl this weekend.

John went on a boys only camping trip (sleeping in a cave, no less) leaving me free reign to cover the flat in bits of tissue paper, scraps of fabric, threads, pins, and other such sewing related mess.

So what have I achieved?

Well first off, I completed one of my gifts, so here it is one Parisian buttercup bag (please ignore the fluff and lint, this fabric is like a lint magnet!!):

This is for a work friend who is off to live in Paris for 3 months (I am very jealous). So this cute little print seemed to be the perfect choice for the lining.

I also popped to the shops and bought all I needed for my pretty summer dress. I decided on a large polka dot fabric for this, and will use New Look 6457 view A, making the top band and straps out of a plain white cotton.

All the fabric is washed and ready to go. Not looking forward to fitting the bodice though, it's my first attempt at an FBA on princess seams!

I have also (finally) cut out all the pieces for my Beignet. So that's good to go now.

But, when I attched the interfacing onto the facing pieces, the fabric ended up being a bit bubbly / puckery. Have a look at these pics:

I swear I pressed and didn't iron the pieces, so I'm not sure what happened! Should I cut new pieces and try again, or leave them as they are.? What might have caused this problem and how do I avoid it happening again??
Even besides the weird problem with my interfacing, I am feeling a lot more focused and productive at the moment, so hopefully I will do some sewing in the week.

Oh also, I found out on Friday that I passed my final AAT exam. Woo, no more exams ever!!!!

Project planning overload! And I won something awesome!!

2011-08-05T13:38:00.000+01:00

Ok ok so I have been very very slack with the sewing of garments recently. My weekends have been quite busy, or really sunny, so I haven’t even finished cutting out my Beignet yet.

But I suddenly have all this inspiration plus reasons to sew. I already wanted to finish my Beignet and the guilt of yet another UFO is too much to bear. I must get cracking on it.

I also have two gifts to sew by the end of the month. I have chosen Made by Rae’s buttercup bag for one, and this cute clutch pattern by Keyka Lou for the other. I’ve made a buttercup before for my sister (sorry no pics) and the clutch looks straightforward, so that’ll be fairly easy.

But I have just booked a last minute holiday in Corfu and I really really want to sew a dress that I can wear on my hols. I love Scruffy Badger's dress here. I would love to make something similar, but don’t think I have time to make a button front dress. I do however have this pattern: New Look 6457.

And looking on Sew Weekly the other day I saw this awesome dress from Modcloth on Mena's “make this look” feature. Which just happens to use this very pattern!

Source

I’d like to make it out of gingham or maybe with a polka dot and the white trim, like the modcloth version.

Lastly, the super lovely Ashley from Jellybeans odds and ends had a recent giveaway, which I won!!! My prize: a Rooibos pattern from Colette Patterns. Am I chuffed? Heck yes!

I do need a work dress quite badly and Rooibos fits the bill. Now that my college course is over I am back at the office 5 days a week, and my work outfit rotation is seriously lacking. It just so happens that Colette are having a Rooibos sewalong at the mo, which will be great to take part in.

My question is though, what to do first?

Right I need to get updating my sewing schedule……

Apron!

2011-07-19T18:50:00.000+01:00

I recently made this apron for a friend's birthday. I love this pattern by sew liberated, as it's reversible, and have in fact made one of these for myself.

Here's the other side:

Those are cute little hedgehogs

My topstitching on this was pretty ropy at times (there's a lot of layers to sew through), but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Quick project: Hoop cover

2011-07-05T20:40:00.000+01:00

My other main interest apart from sewing is hula hoop dance. It involves circus style hooping, some aspects of poi and dancing / tricks with a hula hoop. It's super super fun!

LED hooping fun

As a consequence I have a built up a reasonable collection of hula hoops, and still want to get a few more (plus I want to start making my own). I need some way to store them together and to keep them covered so the decorative tape doesn’t get damaged.

You can buy hoop covers, but I found this fab tutorial online on how to make one. It’s pretty simple really, get a rectangle of fabric (longer than the circumference of your largest hoop), encase elastic in the two long edges and then sew the two short edges together, and voila!

I’m now one happy hooper

Beignet muslin

2011-07-02T18:23:00.001+01:00

I decided to cut my muslin in a straight 12 and see what happened. Please forgive the wobbly pinning at the front:

Thoughts?

It feels like a good fit at the bum area. Any smaller and it wouldn't lie right.

There is a bit of ease at the hips, but I'm not sure how hip-hugging the pattern is supposed to be, so I don't know if it needs taking in or not.

The waist is too big, there's a fair bit of loose fabric here. But when I sit down the waist is tight so if I made it any smaller it might be too tight and cut me in half when sitting, not comfy during meal times!!.

Lastly there seems to be a bit of bagginess in the tummy area. Again not sure if it's best to leave his (my front pinning was very dodgy)

It doesn't seem as snug a fit as some versions I've seen, but I'm not sure how snug it needs so be. I quite like the fit overall.

What do you think?

Quicky question: How to adjust a pattern if I cross 2 sizes??

2011-06-28T21:44:00.000+01:00

People, I need advice please.

I'm 32 inch waist 44 inch hip (not actually my hips but the tops of my thighs really as that's my broadest point).

That makes me a 12 on the waist 14 on the hip on the Beignet pattern.

I recently read Sunni's ace post on her series for her Ginger sew-along, which shows you how to grade between sizes, this seems pretty straightforward on a skirt with only a couple of pieces.

However the Beignet doesn't have a waistband, so I am not sure where the waist line actually is on the pattern pieces, so don't know where to start the grading.

Also it has 4 skirt pieces, 4 lining pieces and 4 facing pieces, so that's going to take a lot of adjustments! Do I therefore just adjust the side pieces (there's a front piece, side front piece, back piece and a side back piece for the shell, facing and lining) or the front and back pieces too?

Lastly the lining and facings attach to form the inner shell so my grading will have to go across pieces. So how do I grade across the facing and lining pieces on the pattern, bearing in mind all the pieces have seam allowance?

How should I do this grading? Is it too much faff, should I just cut a muslin in a 14 and take in the seams around the waist a little?

See, this is why I struggle to actually make any clothes, and I haven't even gone near my sewing machine yet.

Brighton meet up and the Beignet begins!

2011-06-27T17:09:00.000+01:00

Well my last exam was today, so hopefully in 6 weeks (once my results are in) I will able to call myself an Accounting Technician. Lucky me.

To celebrate it's high time I actually started sewing something, and I now have my fabric for the Beignet skirt washed and ready to go.

Saturday was the Brighton M-M-J meet-up, and although I wasn't participating, being a Brighton local I tagged along. I met some lovely sewers, and seeing everyone in their me-made creations really inspired me to get sewing again.

I was pretty restrained in my purchasing, as I don't feel I can justify buying any more fabric until I've at least made a dent in my existing stash. I did however pick up some buttons for the Beignet, but can't decide which ones I want to use.

In the fabric swapping section of the day I didn't bring anything with me, so wasn't expecting to take home anything either. However once everyone had had a swap around, there were a few pieces left unclaimed, including this Liberty cotton print of Zoe's. She kindly offered it up to me. I'm not sure what the heck I'll do with it, but I have around one and a half metres to play with so any suggestions you may have are very welcome.

Sewing space complete!!!

2011-06-10T18:50:00.000+01:00

Well here it is people, the big reveal. I finally moved all my stuff into the spare room and set up my sewing space.

But first of all let's remind ourselves with what I was working with. Here's come before pics:

And now check out my man's space!!!

Nice huh? But lets face it you're not here to see a bunch of bikes and plastic crates, you're here to see a sewing space! So lets check out my side of the room:

I bought the screen / room divider from a lady at work for £20. I think it works well.

I attached a cheapy flowery fabric to the back of the bookcase using my new favourite toy, my staple gun. It was a bit of a rush job (I didn't even iron the fabric) but I think it looks quite nice.

Those are my white shelves which are now holding all my patterns, fabric scrap stash, sewing books etc.

That big box contains my fabric stash. Now the box is full to bursting I can't buy any more fabric. I have decided that I must at least half empty it before I can buy any more.

Now it's not fully functional yet, because the only power socket is by the white shelves and I need to buy an extension lead to reach my sewing machine. I also need a desk lamp, and want a noticeboard so I can pin up inspirational pictures and the like.

Looks pretty good now though right?

Courses follow-up

2011-06-06T19:32:00.000+01:00

Right chaps, many thanks for all your insightful comments on my last post. I've had a good long think I do agree with you all, a dressmaking course at this stage in my sewing journey seems like the better option.
I did do a beginners sewing class last year, and made a dress in it (see exhibit A in this post), but we didn't cover fitting at all so I am a bit cautious about not getting support in that area again. So I am going to investigate the course a bit more before I sign up, as it is a big commitment, and isn't exactly cheap.

I also think I'll give drafting my own bodice and skirt blocks a go. A few of you mentioned Miss P's bodice draft along, which I most certainly will follow. However I also fancy picking myself up a book on pattern drafting for further reference. Do any of you have any recommendations?

The newest edition of Cloth magazine had this in it's books round-up section:

It's only just been published, but looks pretty comprehensive, and at nearly £35 it sure better be!

I've seen this one around a lot:

But having a nosey inside with the "look inside" feature at Amazon has made me uncertain. It feels like it rushes through everything, and I want baby steps. Does anyone have this book, and if you do what do you think of it?

And what bout this beastie:

This looks the most serious, and thus scares me a bit.

What I want is a gentle easy entry into this stuff, something with diagrams that don't look too scary, and that I can follow fairly easily. But I do want some depth as well, something that covers all adjustments etc that might be needed. But is that asking too much?

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Advice which course (if either) to take????

2011-06-03T19:44:00.000+01:00

Now my accounting technician course is coming to and end, I have more free time (yay!). However I am a learning addict, I need to be studying something, academic, creative, practical whatever really as long as I’m using my brain in some way. So because I’m finishing off this qualification there now is a hole in the self improvement / studying / learning part of my life. I want to fill this whole, but my question is with what?

Sewing of course is the answer :o)

My local college is running evening classes from September in both dressmaking and pattern cutting. The courses run for 30 weeks (so a full academic year), and aren’t cheap so I can only do one.

DRESSMAKING

Now my sewing productivity level is pretty low at the moment, and I am hoping that I will be able to improve this anyway thanks to my soon-to-be-completed sewing space and my lack of other studying commitments now. But I am still fairly inexperienced on anything beyond the basic sewing techniques, so I think a sewing course where I could make an item of clothing over a few weeks with my instructors help would be great. However, if the course doesn’t include help with fitting I’m not so keen. This is something I will need to find out as the blurb doesn’t say, but fitting is a major bug bear for me, and if I have to sort that bit myself at home (i.e. we just sew in class and nothing else) then I’m less keen.

PATTERN CUTTING

Source

Next option is pattern cutting. It says you start with a skirt block in the first term. I am guessing you move on to a bodice block after that. Again details are sketchy, this is all the info on the website at the moment:

"Each term we will look at how to create patterns for a different garment, beginning in the autumn term with skirts. Learn how to draft a basic pattern from your own measurements and how this can be adapted to different styles".

I think having a block pattern could be really handy, especially after seeing Rachel's post on how she uses hers to compare against commercial patterns, to work out adjustments needed. However I don’t really want to “self-draft” anything at the moment as I just don’t have those skills. But then again will this course teach me these skills? Is it really worthwhile having a block pattern of yourself? I just don’t know!!!

What do you guys think??

Stitches I know

2011-05-30T10:49:00.000+01:00

I decided recently that I needed to spend more time practicing my embroidery. I want to use embroidery a lot more on sewing projects but am not a very neat stitcher. Also it's a good thing to do of an evening, if you are too tired to do anything major. So it has been great for me he past few weeks as I have been studying as soon as I get home from work, and my brain has been far too dead. to do any sewing.

Back in January, on my birthday I received Jenny Hart's book Embroidered Effects. It has lots of cool projects in it, and there's a few I wanted to have a crack at. However as my first attempt to try proper embroidery fell a bit flat, this time I decided to start at the beginning and have a go at the sampler project in the book. This is the result:

I'm not sure whether to frame it or to put a border round it and turn it into a cushion. What do you think??

It's a bit scruffy in places, but these are my favourite bits:

Inspiration ideas #1

2011-05-26T20:04:00.000+01:00

I am a very easily distractable person, and often have an idea, but forget it and move onto something else before the idea is fully formed and recorded anywhere. I want to start recording these inspirations, so that one day I can (possibly) go back to them and do something with them. I have many fleeting fancies with project ideas, mainly pretty dresses, and want to show you what I’m currently inspired by.

Recently I saw the dress below in Dorothy Perkins:

I totally loved the lemon print fabric, yellow is not a colour I usually go for but this print was so summery and kitsch I though it looked fab.

I’ve seen similar style prints around recently but the Dorothy Perkins dress was my favourite in terms of the style of the dress.

Dresses from South, Primark & New Look

I tried the Dorothy Perkins dress on but (bizarrely in my case) the waist was a bit too tight and the bust was waay too big! So it’s something I can’t buy, and I already own a few patterns I could use to make a dress like this myself.

The first is New Look 6557.

I’ve made view B before but was thinking of maybe using view C or E instead. However I’m not a massive fan of the waist band on this dress as I really like the matching waist and hem bands on the DP dress.

Next option is McCall's 6011,view C wthout sleeves.

This is better terms of waistband, and I’m sure I could figure out how to add a band on the skirt too. Plus this dress is lined which is better if the fabric is going to be white / pale.

And the wildcard entry is Vogue 8184, view B (which is incidentally the first sewing pattern I ever bought).

This doesn't have a wiastband but I think the structured bodice, which calls for boning, could work really well with a big bold print.

The next question is fabric. Where would I find a fabric like this? Anyone got any ideas, apart from scouring ebay for something similar (I’ve already googled “lemon print fabric” and “fruit print fabric” with little success).

Do you sew basics? - Follow-up

2011-05-21T12:14:00.001+01:00

Firstly thank you to everyone for your responses.

The consensus seems to be that as a [semi] beginner it would be better for me to sew things that excite me, rather than making boring basic wardrobe-building pieces. Rachel did mention I can make simple stretch tops on my machine, but I think my machine is too basic as there is no stretch stitch. At least I can't find one.

So although I do fancy having a go at stretch fabrics, I think it'll have to wait until I invest in a more advanced machine and/or an overlocker.

Some of you also brought up the interesting point that I could have the best of both worlds and make a staple piece I am likely to wear frequently but that also is a fun and interesting pattern. I totally agree, and following Sarah's suggestion I think the Beignet skirt is bumping the queue to be first on my to-sew list once my accounting technician qualification is done and dusted (only 2 exams and 6 weeks to go!!!). It fulfils both criteria of being a beautiful pattern that caught my eye (plus I’ve been inspired by the gazillion gorgeous versions you other bloggers have made) and it is a good staple piece that I know I will wear.

I think I will probably make it out of dark denim so I can wear it with my pre-existing tops. But I’m not sure what buttons I should go for. There are a few blue versions I’ve seen, namely Jane’s (who used red buttons) Ashley’s (who went for gold/metallic) and of course Tilly the queen of Beignet (who chose yellow buttons for her blue denim version), that all inspire me but I am confused as to what to go for myself. I've not used buttons on anything before, and want to make sure that this skirt can be worn with lots of things, so a strong contrasting colour may not be the way to go. Could I make self-covered buttons with denim do you think?

But at least I decided what my next project should be. Sadly it means leaving a few UFO’s behind at least for a while. I don’t want to be the kind of blogger who posts about works in progress and then never shows the finished article (ok so I’m already guilty of that, see grey leafy skirt, echino bag, quilt top etc etc), but I really think I need to kick start my sewing afresh, with a shiny happy sewing space and a brand new project!

Fingers crossed I’ll find time to finish up my WIPs soon. I’m most keen to finish the quilt, but I can’t sign up for another class until after July so that’ll have to wait anyway!

Starting to bring order to chaos

2011-05-14T11:28:00.000+01:00

Right ok, having realised my sewing productivity is pretty poor, I have decided to organise myself a bit by sorting out my sewing space. As mentioned in a previous post, I have half a small room to use, but I have not yet done anything with it, because frankly I didn't know where to start.

What I need to do is:

Clear up, tidy and clean my part of the room
Create a partition of some kind
Make decorative bunting and hang and a cork board to pin inspirational bits and bobs
Get our big bookcase sorted [not in pic]. Empty the two drawers of my man's man-things (wires, cables, screws, hammers you know the kind of thing) into plastic boxes and move to his side, and instead fill the bookcase with my sewing books, my fabric stash and my patterns!
Move in my sewing machine and my storage drawers, then the space is complete

I already got some storage drawers (from Ikea, inspired by Karen's) for all my sewing sundries:

And I've shamelessly copied Ashley and bought myself some plastic drawers to store my mid-progress projects:

I'm on my way!

Do you sew basics?

2011-05-10T21:00:00.000+01:00

So I haven't been sewing much [read at all] recently, and am spending my free time finishing up my project and revising for my exams [boo hiss].

Side note: my stepdad couldn't fix the laptop, apparently there was a motherboard connection problem. But he did rescue my hard drive and has lent me his old laptop so I can finish my project, yay stepdad!!!

I am stepping it up with sorting out my sewing room (update post to come soon). And I still want to keep my blogging going even if i have no crafty projects to show you, so I thought I'd ask you lovely readers a question or two.

I've been thinking a lot about the fact that I keep wanting to sew "feature" items, you know pretty dresses and fancy clothes for special occasions, but not really practical for everyday wear. Five days a week I have to wear smart clothes for work, and that's an area where I should be sewing clothes for but I don't really want to spend my time making things to wear at work. I want to make fun things!

Also I should be sewing things like basic tops and maybe a simple tunic dress or two, but again they don't exactly inspire me. But if I'm ever going to get over the "fear" of wearing things I've made I do need to make something I can wear on a regular basis!

So what about you, do you sew good basic staple items, or mainly fun pretty things from fabrics and patterns that really grab your eye? Or maybe you're a bit of both?

What inspires you to sew, practical need or desire for beautiful clothes?

Here's a few of my basic items I always wear:

The Denim skirt

I have a short(ish) denim skirt and it is my fallback item, along with a pair of leggings or tights. Can be worn with pumps, heels or boots so is good to dress up or down.

Would I ever sew one? Well I am considering making a Beignet skirt and denim is a fabric I'm thinking of using for it (that or corduroy). Plus Lucy made a great skirt refashioned from old jeans so it's certainly possible.

The Black Cardigan

I love my black cardigan, it's a work staple and is the thing I grab on a sunny day "just in case" it gets cold. It goes with anything and is soft and comfy.

Would I sew one? Well it'd have to be made from a knit, so at this stage probably not. I want to customise more of my existing knitwear though, as lets face is it black is a bit boring isn't it?

The baggy jeans

Jeans that are well worn and easy wearing. Comfy and relaxed, good for "fat days" and slouching around on weekends.

Would I sew them? No way would I attempt jeans at the moment! Maybe way way into the future (but don't hold your breath).

Plain vests and T-shirts

Dull dull dull, but again they are a good basic top to just "throw on".

Would I sew it? If I had an overlocker I bet you could whip these up in minutes, and could probably customise them very easily too. But until I can afford an (and justify the purchase of) overlocker it's another thing I have to buy.

So those are my basics. Pretty dull huh? But who wants to sew dull things when you can sew pretty things like these:

Pay it forward

2011-05-04T22:10:00.000+01:00

I recently spotted on Sarah’s blog narcoleptic in a cupboard that she was participating in Pay it Forward. It’s a really cute idea for crafty peeps in the blogging community to send handmade gifts to 3 other bloggers who then each have to do the same for 3 other bloggers (and so on). I signed up pronto as I think this is a fab way to share our skills and anyway who doesn’t like receiving a gift in the post?! The rules are as follows:

The first 3 people who comment on this blog post will receive a handmade gift from me.

In return, you must FIRST write a blog post explaining Pay It Forward 2011.
Then send out a handmade gift to the first 3 visitors who leave a comment. It doesn't have to be sewn, it could be knitted or drawn or embroidered, anything as long as it's handmade
Take your time, you have 365 days to do it.

So if you fancy a little handmade gift from me please comment and take part. I have 365 days to do it though so you won't know when to expect it!

Results from the sewing productivity project

2011-04-26T18:32:00.000+01:00

So because the disaster of my laptop breaking, I cannot do fancy charts showing how I spend my free time as part of Tilly’s sewing productivity project. However I did make notes over the past two weeks and discovered a few things which I will now share:

I don’t use my evening free-time wisely.

I spend a lot of time cooking / washing up in the evenings, at least a hour on the days when I cook. I think I need to cut down on the fancy meals during the week, because this is cutting in on my evening free time. I also need to organise my evenings better as I do not utilise this time well. I often sit on the sofa and put my feet up when I get in (just in time for neighbours or home and away) and then don’t get up till after 7-7.30. Bad me!!

I don’t manage well with big overwhelming projects.

My grey skirt has remained untouched basically because I need a good chunk of time (say 3-4 hours) to sit down an figure out where I got, what I need to do next and also how to attach the lining to the skirt at the zipper (see this post of details). In the evening I am usually tired and need something I can pick up and put down quite easily. Or at least I need to have a notebook where I write these things down and have everything ready to go when I next want to work on a bigger project. [By the way a skirt may be a quickie project normally for most people but for me at the moment it’s a biggie!]

This leads onto the next point:

I need a dedicated sewing space!

Currently everything is stashed behind our sofa and I use the dining table to sew on. Having to faff around unpacking everything and set up my machine, re-pressing everything that has been sat stacked up behind the sofa, and rummaging around trying to find certain bits of equipment is a real pain in the posterior. Likewise having to clear it all up afterwards, it just takes up too much time. I need to be able to leave things mid-progress, and I need to be able to create a mess and leave it there. It’s just how I roll. This is the space I plan to utilise, it’s part of a spare room we have in our flat. Well it’s actually separate to our flat on the communal hallway but half of it is mine to use, lucky me.

As you can see the other half is used by my lovely man for man-things. Any advice on how to create a cheap partition would be fab!

Anyway those were my major obstructers of productivity. However there were some interesting positives I gleaned from this project. They were the following:

I work a lot better with small manageable goals.

I made the purses over a few evenings and gave myself a clear goal each time. In this case they were, cut out all the pieces and iron on the interfacing in evening one, sew them up in evening two and lastly glue the frames on in evening three. This was great as each task took 30 minutes to an hour to complete and it was easily manageable. Breaking down projects into smaller chunks really works for me.

Deadlines / timetables are great (if you make them realistic).

I gave myself too many things to do by Easter and had to drop a couple just because I ran out of time. However having a schedule to stick to gives me something to follow and keeps me focused, as I am [very] easily distracted.

Something else I really need to face up to is that I just don’t have as much free time as I’d like at the moment. At least till the end of June after my accountancy course is over I just can’t churn out projects on a weekly basis like many of the other bloggers out there. That’s not great news for my blog as I won’t have much to show over the next few months, but I will give myself a few smaller easier projects to keep things ticking over. Plus I plan to do a little makeover series of posts on my sewing space, as I make it workable and pretty, so that’ll be nice.

So overall my plan for improved productivity is as follows:

Sort out my sewing space!!

Don’t try and do more than I can manage right now

Give myself a "realistic" schedule for the projects I choose to start

Break down all my projects into little chunks, and a have a list on which I can tick off each one when complete

Thanks to Tilly for this great idea. I am enjoying reading everyone else’s findings and tips

Disaster and misery!!!

2011-04-25T21:10:00.000+01:00

Argh my computer has died (I am typing this on my boyfriend's). I switched it on the other day only fora nasty blue screen to appear showing a nasty mean message about parity errors or some such. This means my half finished accountancy project, and my sewing productivity project spreadsheet are lost in it's depths until I can (hopefully) get it fixed.

I am not happy, now I don't know if I should re-write my project from the beginning or hold out until someone can check my laptop and see if it is fixable. Also it means all the fancy graphs and pie charts I was going to make on my sewing productivity levels have gone the way of the dodo.

I am not happy.

Oh also I gave up on my embroidery christening gift. It just wasn't working and I had no time to bash out another one.

Bleugh

On a happier note, I am planning to finish the top of my first quilt , my echino bag and that darned grey leafy skirt in the next week or so.

I've also decided to scrap making pyjama's and have a crack a a summer top or two. Details to come.....

Pretty purses

2011-04-20T08:10:00.000+01:00

I finally completed something!!

They are both made from the same pattern, but when squaring the bottom corners I cut off more on the red one to give it a smaller squashier look.

Here's some inside views:

Both are a bit wonky, which is slightly annoying. I've got the hang of the glueing now, but it is still a bit fiddly. All in all a great little gift project, and I've cut the pattern onto cardboard now so I can cut all the bits out nice and easily with my rotary cutter when I make one of these again.

The mysterious case of the disappearing 9, or Laura learns to Patchwork

2011-04-17T18:34:00.000+01:00

So amongst other things I spent my weekend tidying my fabric stash:

Stash box!!

I also went to my first patchworking workshop.

Recognise 2 of these fabrics??

Inspired by the Narcoleptic in a Cupboard, who makes amazing quilts, I thought I'd have a go at this jolly pursuit myself.

The class I went to was a bit of mix, with some people bringing along an ongoing project to get advice and guidance, and there were a couple of beginners like me who just wanted to have a go at a bit of patchwork. I picked out the disappearing 9 pattern for my quilt which looks quite complex but is actually quite easy. The trickiest thing is cutting all those darn squares out to begin with (mine needed 36 squares!!).

You sew up the squares in rows of 3. Then sew 3 rows of 3 together to form a block of 9 squares. Then (and here's the clever bit) you cut down the middle of each block vertically then horizontally:

My high-tech diagram

That's as far as I managed to get in the 4 hour class, but after that you lay them out and sew them up again into rows of 4, then into the square of 16 (4x4). I'm going to add a border and then get some batting and backing fabric together and go along another Sunday to quilt it all together.

After I got home I laid them out on the floor and played around with them to get them into a pattern I (just about) liked, so now I am numbering them and stacking them up to sew together another day.

This was the hardest bit, making sure no bits of the same fabric were touching! If you are a serious perfectionist this will take you a looooong time!!!!

More speed, less work! My time and motion study

2011-04-12T19:18:00.001+01:00

source

I've signed up for Tilly's Sewing Productivity Project. Basically we have to analyse how we spend our time and try and find ways to improve our sewing productivity.

Doing a study on how I spend my time reminds me of this fab children’s TV show I watched as a child called Bertha. It was about a factory machine called Bertha [hence the pic above], who (obviously) was alive and had her own personality. She’d make different things every week, and was helped out by various other peeps in the factory and office. Anyway in one episode the Foreman Mr Duncan decides to do a time and motion study on everyone, and struts around with a big clipboard observing everyone, and spent most of the episode shaking his head, tutting loudly then saying “too slow” or “more speed” and scribbling furiously on his clipboard.

Source

The moral of the episode was that sometimes it’s quality not quantity that counts when working, and that you have to enjoy the process, not just get things done as quickly as possible. So although I want to measure how I spend my time, I’m also going to do a qualitative analysis (I know get me right, I used a big word!) on how well that time was spent.

For example, maybe I spend a night watching a film with my fella, which initially may seem fairly unproductive. But we both have a lot on work-wise and both have things on during the week, so sometimes relaxing together over a film and a bottle of wine now and again can be time well spent! Equally if I spend 2 hours sewing one evening, but actually fuss about for 20 minutes because I can’t find my paper scissors or my water soluble fabric marker pen thingy or whatever, then that was time poorly spent. Do you see? I know one of my biggest issues is lack of a proper sewing space, and maybe if I see the time I actually spend faffing and setting up before / tidying up after sewing I will buck my ideas up and sort my sewing space plans out!!

Now for the boring bit; laying down some ground rules for the quantitative side of things:

Sleeping, working & time at college are all unavoidable time activities as in I have no choice in these activities. However I will record those hours as I can control when I go to work (I’m on flexi time so can start as early as 8 or as late as 10, and can finish at any time between 4 and 6 as long as I get my 8 hours in it’s cool) and I can decide on the time I go to bed or get up in the morning.

Hooping (and travelling time to hoop class), cleaning, socialising, watching TV, sewing, embroidery, reading, cooking, project work, homework and so on fit in as free time activities as I do these through choice. Homework and project work technically must be done, but once my course finishes this time will effectively become free again so I want to see how much more time it gives me. Likewise I am starting to think I spend too much time cooking fancy meals during the week and need to start speeding things up and making simpler things on work nights so keeping a record of cooking time works for me (anything over half an hour is waaay to long I reckon).

I am breaking down my time into half hourly blocks, obviously total hours in a day are 24, so 48 blocks of time per day. If I must I can always get picky and do 15 minutes on the odd occasion, but I want to avoid making myself actually include a “time and motion study” category in this thing, as recording every 15 minutes will just take too much time.

I will create a simple table to record time taken up by each activity in each day like below:

Exciting huh! Then I can do a fancy pie chart to show how I spend my time each day.

Oh and in other news, I just received my custom labels in the post.

Pretty!

Unsuprisingly Laura isn't posting about sewing

2011-04-09T14:55:00.001+01:00

Yes well I have to confess my "Amazing plan of action" isn't actually working. But I protest, it's not my fault!! I mean how can you by rights sit indoors and study let alone sew when you have this outside your front door!

So I confess that this weekend, which was supposed to consist of one day studying and one day sewing, will now more than likely consist of me and my fella sitting outdoors in the sun, perhaps some doing some hula hoping and maybe just maybe throwing in a bit of studying. Unfortunately I am working to a deadline with my college project but the sewing can wait (at least a couple of weeks). The only thing I must make soon is the purses, but I can do both of those in one evening.

So I think I need to re-think my schedule. I was banking on this weekend and next but I need to buck my ideas up during the week and start spending my evenings sewing and studying rather than lolling about on the sofa watching rubbish tele.

So apologies, I have no completed sewing projects, or embroidery or even any "in progress" pictures to show you this week. Sorry to disappoint, don't be sad, but instead why don't you turn off your PC and go enjoy the sun, like I'm about to do!

Oh also, after my project is out the way I am thinking of joining in on Tilly's Sewing Productivity Project, so I can sit down and work out what I really do with my time, and how I can be more productive. I must confess that I am acutely aware that I don't sew nearly as much as the rest of you sewing bloggers out there!

Happy weekend all. xx

General frustrations and bad embroidery

2011-04-05T19:08:00.000+01:00

I am having a real grrrr humpf week this week. I've got stress at work (end of the financial year drama), and more stress at home because my college project just won't get out of my head and onto paper. I know what I want to say but just can't get my brain into essay/report writing mode so I'm sitting staring as a blank screen (well really out of the window), and it's driving me nuts.

Anyway I thought I'd get cracking on my embroidery project, as a way to de-stress plus it's a good pick up put down kinda thing to do. Only the transfer went squiffy, the fabric I picked is too loose a weave and my stitches look clunky and fat, bleugh!

So I've decided to make it a practice version, so I can play around with stitches and stuff. But I still feel like I've got the opposite of the Midas touch this week. What about you? Do you ever get times when whatever you do seems to go wrong?

Purse prototype completed!

2011-04-03T10:26:00.002+01:00

Well here it is folks a finished version of the purse I'm planning to make a couple of for birthday gifts.

This project involves some fiddly glueing so i wanted a dry-run before doing this for real. Here's an inside view.

Note: For some reason blogger is turning this pic on it's side. I've tried about 10 times to get this thing the right way round and it's not playing ball, so you'll just have to tilt your head (or the computer screen) I'm afraid!

The purse pattern I used was created by the lovely Lisa Lam, whose book I own, and who I've now met in real life thanks to Craftaganza (and yes she is super lovely). I also used her free purse making tutorial which is really handy. Check out her shop's blog, as there's loads of free tutorials and stuff on there.

The type of frame I used means you glue the fabric into the frame. This isn't too tricky but I did manage to get the glue everywhere, mainly because I was a bit impatient. The instructions say you should wait 4-5 minutes after applying the glue to the frame before you attach the fabric. The reason for this is the glue goes from gunky and messy to tacky and easy to handle. But me being me wanted to crack on and so a gloopy mess was the result. It's ok on the outside but the inside isn't great.

Yukky gluey inside

But for a first attempt I am happy with the result and feel confident enough with the process to get on and make the real ones:

If anyone has any suggestions for how to get rid of the glue from fabric that'd be great!

Bags and purses a go go! Skirt less go go, more go-slow

2011-04-01T22:55:00.000+01:00

Don’t you love getting packages in the mail? When I am ordering things online, I tend to try and order everything at the same time so all my parcels arrive within a few days of each other. This is mainly because they don’t usually fit through our letterbox so need to be picked up at the post office, and it’s easier to do this in one go. As a result I tend to get a stash of packages to open, which I love!

Following my updated crafting plan, I ordered the bits I need for my first few projects, which I couldn’t buy locally. I have now just received the purse frames for my gifts purses plus the bag handles and beady trim for my Echino bag. I have the lining fabric now too. Thanks go to Jane for her suggestion of fabric colour. I like the combo, don’t you? Best get cracking now.

My grey skirt has taken a back seat just because I’ve decided it needs a lining but am a bit flummoxed as to how to do it as I’ve never lined anything before and the pattern is for an unlined skirt. An old sewing book my Gran gave me says that for lining skirts, pleats in the main skirt fabric and lining should be done together as one piece (unlike darts which apparently should be done on the lining and main skirt separately), but I’m not sure if / how to attach the back bit of the lining to my zipper in the main skirt, as the rest of the lining will fall free from the bottom of the sewn pleat. I’m thinking I might just baste it to the seam allowance on either side of the zip and see how that goes. This is probably not making much sense and is hard to visualise, but if it works I’ll post a pic.

Also if anyone has any advice on lining a skirt please let me know. The pattern is McCalls 5803 and it’s a simple skirt with pleats that attaches to a straight waistband. I’ve already sewn the back pieces together and inserted the zipper (which is not coming out for love nor money) and have sewn one half of the pockets to front piece’s sides and the other half of the pockets to to the back piece sides. Oh yes I forgot to mention it has pockets, does that matter lining-wise? Nothings attached to the waistband so I thought now was the time to get the lining sorted.

I have put aside a day this weekend to crafting, so hopefully I will have something completed to post here by next week. Here's hoping!

Craftaganza: What I bought

2011-03-30T21:48:00.000+01:00

On Saturday, I helped out at the first Brighton Craftaganza craft maket, organised by Lisa and Steph from U Handbag and the lovely Zoe from So Zo....

It was a really good day, long, but really good fun. Energy levels were topped up with regular doses of coffee and some of the best sausage rolls I have ever eaten!

I may of had a smidgeon of a browse whilst I was there, and did purchase a couple of bits.

Firstly I got this awesome ring made from the end of a teaspoon from Ai Ijiima

I also bought something from Rosy Appleton. This lady hand weaves ner own fabric on her loom, seriously! Her cushions were so lovely, but I went for this super cute pin cushion.

Last up I bought something from Cherie from My Three Trees. I can't show you a pic of this though as it's a gift for someone, who may read this blog post!

There were so many other great stalls, and lots of things I wanted to buy, but alas my bank balance wouldn't let me.

My plan to prevent distraction

2011-03-27T20:38:00.002+01:00

I’ve recently updated my planned projects page, to give it more of a structure, and to provide me with some guidance. I’m very easily distracted and have a lot of project ideas on the go that don’t take shape. Here is just a smidgeon of the ideas i have whizzing around my brain:

Green cord beignet skirt, I’ve got the pattern but as yet no fabric of buttons. I originally intended to make this in denim but changed my mind. Might change it again soon.

Flowery blouse from my Japanese pattern book. I can only start this after buying some double gauze from this website that I first heard about through Jane’s blog. It has to be from this site because if I’m making a Japanese pattern I must use Japanese fabric (duh!).

Sashiko cushion cover, now this one’s actually partially completed, but again not finished. I bought a cutting mat and rotary cutter to start me off in the patch-working world but have yet to use them.

Jenny skirt, got pattern, got wearable muslin fabric, but got stuck on fitting and then quit

Jenny dress, got the pattern, got the fabric yonks ago online, but can’t start it until I’ve made the skirt.

Men’s ties and shirt front cushion for John inspired by this. Bought sod all for this one.

Work bag for summer. No fabric in mind but I decided on this free pattern.

Danielle dress, one for work one for play. Bought some green cotton drill (wearable muslin), a grey blue cotton (work) and some purple cotton sateen (play), but got stuck on my FBA. This is a good contender for nailing an FBA as the dress itself is very simple, and can be adapted by not including the sleeves, and /or giving it a more a-line look using these instructions. I think if I got this pattern down and made it a few times it would really boost my confidence in pattern adjustment

Out of all of these Danielle and Beignet are serious contenders for actual make-attempts once summer is over, but garment making is low on my list of priorities at the moment.

I think my main problem is I have no clear plan. It’s all very well to get inspired by others creations, or pretty fabrics in shops or online, but if I don’t have deadlines or timetables to follow I fall apart. Sometimes I can have a crazy productive streak and sit down for 2 days and bash something out, but I need to schedule my sewing time into my life in a realistic and consistent way.

Here’s what I actually need to make in the next few months:

exterior and lining fabrics

2 coin purses for friends/family birthdays in April.

Grey leafy skirt. I posted about this a while back and have all the pieces cut. I want to be able to wear this in the summer and hopefully to a friend’s baby’s christening in April so it’s gotta get sewn up soon.

Craft bag, using my Echino fabric, as I need to actually show something I’ve made recently on this darn blog, just to prove I am actually a sewer.

colour palette

Embroidered christening gift using this free pattern. Hopefully easy to complete as I can do this in the evenings whilst watching tele. Also I want to get into my embroidery more. I find it very calming and therapeutic to do which is good as and I can be a big ball of stress quite a lot of the time.

Picnic blanket made from souvenir tea towels. I’ve got half the tea towels needed, and am scouring ebay for the rest. The actual making process should be fairly straightforward, again the rotary cutter will be most handy here. I have to make this before summer starts, or at least before it ends!!! Hopefully by the royal wedding for Hove Lawn lunch frolics

Pyjama bottoms. Not an urgent make as days are getting warmer here in Brighton, but my main pair of jammy bottoms have worn out and I like to slouch around in them when at home. Bought a pattern, not bought the fabric but reckon it’ll be this flannel.

Wish me luck!

Istanbul Bargaining

2011-03-20T11:31:00.000Z

Well I’ve been away for a few days, being a classic tourist in Istanbul. We ate a lot of kebabs, did a fair amount of sightseeing and did a little bit of shopping.

One of my favourite places in Istanbul was the Grand Bazaar, a massive indoor market of shops and stalls selling everything including carpets (lots and lots of carpets), leather jackets, soap, lamps and various trinkets. My boyfriend John is an unbelievable bargainer, I have never seen anything like it. He honed this particular skill when travelling around Morocco for a few months with friends a few years ago. His philosophy is that there is little point in shopping unless you can negotiate a good price. Where’s the fun otherwise? After watching him wear down one shopkeeper to the point he almost walked off in a frustrated huff knowing he’d reached his lowest price, and then shaking hands with another shopkeeper who loved John for his banter and bargaining skills (we were then invited to check out his very good denim shop and carpet shop too, but had to decline) I knew I needed to get in on the action, so went in search of what I truly desired, fabric.

I found a few fabric shops within the bazaar and went rummaging. They had a lot of cheap cotton rolls at the front, very bright colours but poor quality. But when you wandered into the depths of the shops you discovered all sorts of lovely things. They had silks and satins and wools, lots of embroidered pashminas and blankets, so much fabric it was overwhelming. I find fabric shopping a bit intimidating at the best of times, so stuck with the brief of cotton, and only cotton. And I found this fabric straight away.

It’s a lovely cotton, quite drapery but with a good weight, as the touts would say “very good quality, nice price”. It worked out about £6 a metre and I got 3 metres. Good for a summer dress, or vintage pattern shirt waist dress methinks.

Then at the counter I spotted a lovely lush red fabric with cream flowers dotted about, but when the shop keeper took it down from the shelf to show me it was a polyester that was so synthetic it felt like plastic. I was so disappointed and the shop keeper was so keen to help me find something he rushed off to find a similar thing in cotton. But he brought back a bright pink fabric with a grey paisley pattern, not exactly what I was looking for! Then a colleague got involved and disappeared further into the shop and came back with a nice red cotton but with a very large flower pattern. It was a lot closer to the fabric which had caught my eye, but still not right, Then I got ushered into another shop next door to look around, but which ultimately had nothing I wanted in there. Finally I gave up, feeling rather guilty for all the effort they’d gone to. Then when re-entering the original shop to buy the first cotton I’d found I looked up and saw this:

Well then I knew I wanted this one, and it was cotton (phew, although I think it may be a poly mix). John by this point had reached the end of his tether (20 minutes hovering in a very compact fabric shop is too much for even the most patient man) but he still managed to knock the price down by 5 Turkish Lire a metre (I got 2 metres of this one and am thinking a blouse would be good), and I was proclaimed “a very good explorer” by the shop keeper so all in all a good days shopping!

Istanbul itself is very East meets West. Fascinating and hectic, historical and modern. Here are a few touristy snapshots of our trip to enjoy.

The reason why I haven't made any dresses recently

2011-03-12T19:18:00.000Z

Boobs!

Or to be more precise, the cursed fact that patterns are made for a bust size about 100 times smaller than my own. I actually decided to start sewing my own clothes because all the cute little summer dresses I liked never fitted me, blouses and shirts I wanted to buy always gaped and showed things they shouldn’t, and I resented having to buy clothes that didn’t fit properly or splash my cash on speciality companies' clothes which cost a lot more. I wanted to make things that fitted me properly!

Now the irony is that my bust is again the thing holding me back from making all the dresses I have bought patterns for, such as the ones below.

To explain why involves 2 examples of things I have made that don’t quite work [in my opinion anyway].

Exhibit A

This is the very first piece of clothing I made, which I completed in the sewing class I was going to at the time. It’s view A of Burda 7798.

Apart from finishing the neckline it was pretty easy to sew. The neckline was basically bias bound but the way they instructed you to do it had me totally confused and even both of my teachers were head scratching and furrowing their brows for a couple of minutes before they figured it out.

But anyway back to the problem. I made no adjustments to the pattern even though I knew the bodice might not fit my bust, but it was my first ever garment so I just wanted to get on with the sewing.

The bodice should end just below the bust (empire line stylee) but in my case it stops about 2/3rds of the way down. And it isn't exactly roomy for me either.

It’s not massively visible, but I know the seam is there! Plus it just doesn’t sit right on me; I can feel it even if it doesn’t show that badly. I wear this dress at home but have only worn it out once. It just felt too weird and uncomfortable, like I was basically wandering around naked, so it has not got past my front door ever again!

Exhibit B

Now this dress I made all by myself. from New Look 6557.

This pic was taken during the same "shoot" as my reversible apron, and was taken at the point when my boyfriend got bored and wanted to try taking pics from strange angles. You can see from the expression on my face how much I was enjoying this!

This dress was also actually surprisingly easy to make, apart from a fiddly facing turning inside out weird bit about half-way through. It's also really nice, and i do like quite a few of the different bodice views (especially view E).

On this dress I knew the bodice would fall far too high on my bust so planned ahead and bought myself a pattern fitting book and did a full bust adjustment (ah ha, take that B-cup patterns!).

Here’s a pic of it, looks fancy right?

Now to also try and be all big and clever I did a toile / muslin / prototype [whatever you want to call it], of the main bodice.

The first one still hit me too high on the bust, but was pretty good in terms of boob coverage. So I did another, bigger full bust adjustment and tried again. Now the second prototype was made, and alarm bells should have rung. The bodice is gathered to make it look all pretty and the FBA made tonnes of extra gathering, too much in fact on prototype 2. But it fit fine length-wise.

BTW, The FBA I used was from the book Fit for Real People, by Pati Palmer & Marta Alto. It gives you width and length but ultimately keeps the side seams the same length so they still match with back pieces, and I think it is a good method to use.

What is should have done now was keep FBA 1 from prototype 1 but increase the length of the bodice a smidge. Only then it wouldn’t have matched up at the side seams with the back bodice. So I didn’t do that as it confused me.

So instead the dress was made with FBA 2 and alas, I feel like there is too much bagginess in the gathering. It makes my bust look at least and inch bigger just because of the extra fabric.

Well I did wear this dress on holiday (but have no pics to prove it), but wore it only once as again I felt like a weirdo, and was just constantly paranoid everyone “knew” I was wearing a home made dress (as if that is something to scorn and stigmatise someone for)! In reality if anyone knew it was homemade (but how would they “know”?) I doubt they would have run up to me pointing and yelling and shooing me off like I carried the plague, but I just felt like they would!

And since then I’ve been too scared to make any dresses. Admittedly both dresses are a bit long so I feel a bit frumpy in them, and should really adjust the hems. But I hate hemming so haven't bothered yet.

The whole FBA process has totally confused me though. I know I need to add a bit more length after doing an FBA, but do I extend the back bodice pieces too, because surely that’ll make the bodice slant backwards. If I don't make the back longer then how do I match the side seams of the back and front bodice, as the front bodice will be longer than the back? And what about any waist or skirt pieces (depending on the pattern) that attach to the bodice. Do I need to shorten them to account for lengthening the bodice?

Oh I don’t know and my head hurts just thinking about it. Curse you B cup pattern makers, you’ve beaten me.

Can anyone offer advice on this issue? As it is seriously holding me back at the mo. I love dresses and to make my own, that I can wear down the road and not feel self conscious in, would be lovely.

A completed project, and my first photo "shoot" experience

2011-03-05T16:51:00.000Z

You may have noticed I am all talk when it comes to sewing. I have a million ideas milling around in my head, but I don't record them or complete them very much. I plan to sort out my planning and organisation in the coming weeks. But in the meantime please enjoy this project I made earlier (last summer in fact).

I made this apron from a Sew Liberated Emmeline pattern and is reversible. This side is a Michael Miller print. Check out the other side:

It was pretty easy to make but took ages, also I had to make the bodice bit a bit longer so the "waist" fit below my bust. It also involved a lot of top-stitching. I altered the neck strap and added D rings to make it adjustable, in the pattern the neck straps need to tied-up into a bow like the waist ties.

This is also the first time I've had pictures of me on my blog. I hate having my photo taken (all I see in these pics is massive hamster cheeks and frizzy hair, yuk) but if I'm going to have a sewing blog I am going to have to get used to it pretty soon!

Anyway this is what I learnt from my first photo shoot

Don't ask the boyfriend to take your picture 5 minutes after he has started playing a new computer game, this is bad timing and will cause annoyance
Don't spend the following 5 minutes preening yourself in a mirror as this causes more annoyance and leads to questions as to why you disturbed the boyfriend in the first place
Don't ask him to take the same picture 5 times just because you believe you are un-photogenic and think all previous photos were rubbish
Don't get annoyed if he gets bored and starts trying to make "arty" shots by photographing you at weird angles and taking advantage of the "natural sunlight" (that, coincidentally came out just as we started "shooting")
Iron the item you are planning to photograph
Do your hair beforehand!!!
Lose weight (the camera actually adds about a stone!!)
Relax and smile more

What should Laura make with this? No. 1

2011-03-01T20:28:00.000Z

I have a confession to make.

When I first had sewing lessons and actually managed to make a couple of things, I might have got a tad over excited about the prospect of being able to sew. Soon after the course finished I went on a bit of a splurge [read massive huuuge ridiculous splurge] and bought a lot of fabric and quite a few patterns, with no real focus or forethought behind said purchases.

I then hit a few hurdles over recent months, one being having no time to sew due to struggling to find time to study whilst working, the other being an issue to do with pattern fitting which I will cover in another post soon, so have not really made much in the way of clothing (although I have made plenty of other things). As a result most of the patterns have remained untouched, as has the fabric.

I feel quite guilty about this now, as my bank balance is suffering somewhat, and I don’t feel I’ve really justified my purchasing by being productive and actually making things.

A lot of the fabric I bought because I thought it was nice, and had no plan in my head of what I was going to do with it. Now I have banned myself from buying any more fabric or patterns until I have used up some of my existing stash and made use of a pattern or two that I already own.

Therefore in an effort to be more productive with my existing stash I am planning to make this theme “What should Laura make with this?” a regular feature on my blog, and am hoping my readers and followers will offer advice and suggestions of what to do with each item I post about.

Note: simple projects are preferred at the moment, just because there’s more chance I will find time to make them which increases the likelihood that you might actually get to see me post about the finished result!

So for post No. 1 in this series I have decided to start with two lengths of fabric.

The first is a 1/2 metre piece of linen/cotton blend fabric by Echino which I bought in sale at M is for Make.

Pink isn’t really my colour but I loved the design so thought I’d snap it up while it was on offer. I was thinking of turning it into a bag, maybe for my embroidery bits and bobs, as I don’t see me using a pink bag on a regular basis when going out and about. However I have no bag pattern in mind, and am also open to alternative suggestions about what I could do with this. If you have any recommendations of good bag patterns (preferably simple in design and free in price), or other things (home dec, accessories and clothing ideas welcome) please let me know.

The second fabric is 3 metres of medium weight cotton I bought in Ikea back in October.

At the time I thought it would make curtains for the bedroom in our new flat, but for reasons I won’t go into that’s not a viable option (not least because 3 metres is nowhere near enough fabric to cover the windows!!)

The design on this one is quite big, see the pic below for an idea of scale, so its not ideal for clothing – but if you disagree do say so as I am open to all suggestions.

The vague idea I had was to maybe make a bedspread, but I’ve never done patchwork or quilting before and again the design is so big I’d have to keep the fabric pieces quite large. I am keen to hear any ideas here as I think it’s a funky design, also the pinky parts match the colour of the walls in our bedroom (our flat’s rented so I can’t repaint them even if I wanted to).

Right that's the end of post 1. Can't wait to read your suggestions!

Pattern conundrum - advice please!

2011-02-24T07:46:00.000Z

I’ve just started cutting out a pleated skirt and have been halted by an error in the pattern. The issue relates to the placement of the waistband piece on the fabric. The layout diagram shows the waistband (piece 14) placed so that the short edges are parallel to the selvedge.

However on the piece itself the grain line is shown to go across the long edge of the waistband, suggesting it should be placed long-edge parallel to the selvedge.

Which method should I use? Should I place it parallel to the selvedge on the short edge or long edge, so option A or option B, or option C either. As does it really matter in this case?

I'm stylish!

2011-02-23T20:33:00.001Z

Well according to Carly and Lucy anyway, as they have both given me a Stylish Blogger award! Thanks guys.

Apparently I have to reveal 7 things that you may not already know about me, so here goes:

I work in finance but am rubbish at mental arithmetic. Don’t get me wrong I am very good with numbers and maths in general, but I never learnt the times tables at school and calculators were all the rage so I never picked up the skill of counting (or multiplying) in my head.
The only form of exercise I take is hoop dancing. If you don’t know what this is check out this youtube clip for more info [BTW I am nowhere near as good as that]. I hate exercise and am not a believer in “no gain without pain” so avoid the pain as much as possible! Hooping is so much fun, although I do get weird looks in the street / on the bus when I have my hoop with me.
I have a fear of going to the corner shop. This isn’t a specific corner shop, it’s all local newsagents. It all stems from a time when I was young when my mum let me go to the corner shop on my own A big dog was outside, who barked at me very loudly and chased me for a bit back down the road as I fled in fear. Actually my mum may have been there too, my memory is a bit hazy, but the fear was real and even now would rather starve [read: go without chocolate] than go to the shop by myself.
I have an oversensitive sense of smell (and I think maybe hearing too). I am learning this as I seem to smell & hear things which other people can’t.
I enjoy reading comic books and graphic novels. It’s an expensive hobby (graphic novels are pricey) which I haven’t been indulging in much recently. My particular favourite is anything involving the X-men, the Fables Series and I really enjoyed Persepolis.
I studied Psychology at University and love social psychology (mainly group/social behaviour) in particular. I’m also 2^nd author on a paper which was published in the journal Social Cognition titled “Beyond secondary emotions: The infrahumanization of outgroups using human-related and animal-related words”. I don’t get to boast about this much as infrahumanization is not exactly an easy word to drop into conversation!
I love cake. Baking it and eating it. Cake is basically the best thing ever. Whoever first thought, “lets mix flour, eggs, butter and sugar together into a splodgy mess then heat it up and see what happens” was the most amazing persion in the world! I think maybe it stems from being Engish, as there is nothing better on a cold, wet and wintery English day than a cuppa and big piece of cake!

Proof that my love affair with cake started at an early age

Right that’s my seven things. I’m off to find some cake now. Oh yes and I need to nominate 7 people to pass this award onto. Well my nominations are quite tricky, as a lot of peeps whose blogs I admire have just got this award (or sent it to me). So rather than pass on the 7 things aspect, I’m just passing on the award as I like your blog (although you can do the 7 things list if you want). Also apologies if you have already got this award, but it's getting passed around faster than head lice at a primary school (but in a good way)!!!

Marie of A sewing odyssey

Scruffy Badger Time

Natalia of 52 things to make and do

Zoe of So Zo…

Jane of Handmade Jane

Kate of M is for Make

Alana of Lazy Stitching

Big purple bow

2011-02-20T18:14:00.004Z

Recently I have been admiring the trend of having big bows on tops and dresses.

An old issue of cloth magazine had a tutorial on stencilling a bow onto a t-shirt.

Source: Cloth Magazine

I liked this and knew I wanted to put a bow on one of my plain t-shirts, but wanted to actually put a real bow on my top, not just stencil something on.

So then I went browsing at wardrobe refashion, in the hope of inspiration. And low and behold I came across a post by Bethany, and as soon as I saw it knew that a lace bow was exactly what I wanted.

And even better she had a tutorial on her blog [yes!!]. But alas and alack I’m not sure if the blog had moved or been deleted, but I couldn’t find it [Nooooo!!!!].

So I wasn’t sure what to do, as I didn’t quite have the confidence to try and make something up myself. But then a couple if days ago read Lucy’s post on her blog Tricky Seams, and saw she had done something very similar except with ribbon.

Lucy's cool ribbon top

I really liked her version of this trend, and the fact that she had been inspired by the same thing, seemed more than coincidental to me! I was meant to make a lace bow top. So finally I decided, “Enough procrastinating woman, just do it already!”

So I did. I went out and bought some lace. I’d tried to get navy blue lace, as the top I wanted to embellish was blue, but couldn’t find any so went with a dark purple. I’m so glad I did as I don’t think blue would have shown up too well. The top I was using was a stretchy cotton so I was a bit worried about sewing onto it, in case it went all squiffy, but I went slowly and carefully and it went ok.

But anyway here is the finished article:

Close up [sorry I know the pics are rubbish!]:

I'm actually pretty happy with it!

Brighton Craftaganza!!!

2011-02-18T16:05:00.002Z

Ok crafty peeps in the south east, check this out.

Zoe from So Zo... is co-organising an awesome local craft fair in Brighton called Craftaganza. The first one is set to be on the 26th March at Fabrica. Zoe's written a post all about it here. If you're interested check out the Craftaganza blog. Oh and I was lucky enough to get asked to write a guest post on the Craftaganza blog. It's all about Sashiko, an ancient form of Embroidery originating in rural Japan. Check out my post here!

Pique, tricel and other fabrics, what the heck???

2011-02-07T08:39:00.001Z

Ok so I am a novice when it comes to fabric. Before learning to sew I knew there was silk, velvet, satin, cotton, linen and polyester and that’s about it. I never realised how many different types of cotton there were, let alone all the other different fabrics out there! It’s crazy. Therefore I've always struggled when reading the recommended fabrics part of a sewing pattern. It always seemed to contain at least one fabric I have never heard of.

To start with I struggle with names of fabrics that suggest they are made of more than one type of fabric, but I think it just means they have the appearance of another type of fabric. Maybe I am misunderstanding but I do not get these:

Cotton sateen

Crepe back satin

Velveteen

Then there are those fabrics that have the word cotton in them but are all totally different [or are they?].

Cotton Broadcloth

Cotton Twill

Cotton Drill

Cotton Lawn

Cotton Duck Cloth

And so on

Then there’s fabrics everyone else seems to be aware of that I have no clue what they are:

Gabardine

Poplin

Crepe (this makes me think of crepe paper, which is a rougher sort of tissue paper I used as a child when making stuff)

Finally what about these fabrics:

Shantung

Surah

Tissue faille

Challis

Chambray

Courtelle

Crimplene

Tricel

Pique

Eyelet

Charmeuse

Crepe de chine

Jacquards

Can anyone tell me what the heck they are? Most of those I found listed listed on one of my stash of vintage patterns so maybe they no longer exist or are called something else these days.

I think a lot of confusion comes because I think the names for the fabric are there to describe the different style of fabric so you can identify the process used in turning the material (cotton, silk etc) into fabric. For example velvet can be made from silk or cotton or something synthetic can’t it, but the name velvet describes the fluffy pile unique to velvet [I think]. So the name describes the texture, weight and style of the fabric not what it is made from, right? But fabric shops tend to tell you what material the fabric is made from (often in percentages) and only sometimes have a description of the style of fabric. So when I go in a fabric shop the label will say 100% cotton or whatever but it’s totally different in weight and texture to another 100% cotton in the same shop even though they are both made from cotton, the fabric making process was clearly different, and has thus created a different style of fabric. Or am I totally wrong here?

As you can see thinking about fabric sends me off in circles and makes me dizzy. Oh and don’t even get me started on knits vs wovens, or wools or jerseys!!!!

Perhaps I need to invest in a fabric guide book, but what I really want is a book with little samples of each type of fabric so I can really understand what I am looking at. Does anyone have any recommendations on where to start?

Showing off: Look what I've got!

2011-02-05T14:08:00.001Z

It was my birthday recently, and I want to show off what I got.

My mum gave me loads of cool buttons and ribbons, including the smallest ric rac I have ever seen. I don't even know how I would sew this onto anything it's so small!

[I like the reindeer ric rac the best]

And this is what I bought with my birthday money

I have a real thing for sashiko, I love how a simple running stitch can make such intricate and decorative patterns. Yum!

I'm a big fan of Pip Lincolne and have been lusting after this book since it was released. Waiting for it to become available in the UK has been really frustrating! Also one of the things I love about her books is that they have a baking recipe at the back, to provide you with sustenance whilst you sew! It's like she read my mind :o)

Lastly John got me these embroidery scissors (admittedly I did kinda help him with this gift choice). They look fancy though right?

Right that's enough showing off for now! Best make use of some of this stuff instead of just drooling over it.

A blanket for a newborn baby

2011-01-27T21:41:00.001Z

A good friend of mine has recently had a baby boy, who they have named Zachary [well his wife actually had the baby, but you know what I mean]. So I decided to make them a homemade baby blanket to celebrate. I found this really cool Alexander Henry 2D Zoo fabric, which [I know is conforming to social norms] is totally perfect for a baby boy. The other side is a nice soft fleece. Here's a pic of it laid out:

I also decided to applique his initial in felt in the corner and embroider around it. I love blanket stitch!

The felt actually matches the colour of the rhino in real life.

Even though I'm fairly new to sewing, a lot of the things I've made have been gifts for other people. It's so lovely when you can see how much people appreciate a gift you have made them. It makes the whole process 10 times more rewarding.

An explanation of the situation

2011-01-25T19:51:00.000Z

I have a very uncreative career. It’s not that it’s uninteresting, but it does not involve any creativity whatsoever. So I really want to do something creative in my free time, and have been learning to sew this past year, and have recently taken up embroidery and crochet. I want hobbies to have a practical purpose, I would love to be able to create beautiful and practical objects.

As a beginner to all these crafts, gazing at all the beautiful blogs out there I was filled with two emotions. Although hugely inspired by other people’s achievements, I was also seriously overwhelmed. There already seemed to be so many hurdles and challenges to overcome to reach a stage where I could proudly display, wear, use or gift my work. Sometimes when seeing other peoples amazing Handywork online, that always seemed to be created with such ease by the maker, the task I faced seemed all the more impossible.

But everyone has to start somewhere right? And maybe we don't document the beginning of the process because it's not so pretty, but perhaps we should to remember where we started. So my blog is intended to be honest and frank, with the bad bits as well as the good bits making an appearance. I want to show my progress from mess to masterpiece. I’m sure even the most experienced sewer comes a-cropper now and again, or really fluffs something up, I just want to reassure every beginner out there that problems and mistakes are all part of the process of learning. The trick is to make sure you do learn from it and to not be disheartened, oh and to never give up.