Tel 1/07/13 - Jammies!

Recently added to the finished pile was a pattern for a pair of mens' pyjama trousers from The Great British Sewing Bee book based on the tv show. The book was bought on a recent fabric hunting trip Lindsey and I made to Birmingham.

Although it claims to be a simple pattern to make, I tested it out on some really cheap fabric first - aka a striped cotton single fitted sheet from Primark. Some of the sizing didn't work out (too small) on the trial run so off to Primark I went for the second go at a muslin.

Now the idea of a muslin is that it's a test garment, so having read somewhere that all dressmaking patterns average out much smaller than the equivalent ready made size, I went a couple of sizes up intending to readjust to fit. Success!

After a little bit of reducing, the muslin fitted a treat and I was then informed by the SO (significant Other!) that he liked the fabric so much that I was to finish off the muslin so he could wear them. And here's the handsome chap modelling them. :-)

 I've now had a request to do these in a burgundy coloured fabric.

Malvern Quilt Show, May 2013

I generally to go to two quilt shows a year - the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham in the autumn, and Malvern in the spring. The shows are quite different from each other, Malvern being smaller and more intimate, while Birmingham you need several days there to get the best out of it.

With shows, I sometimes have a small shopping list of obscure quilting 'stuff' I might be able to find, but the real joy is discovering (and buying!) things that are completely unexpected. There are two Malvern quilt shows each year, one in the spring, and one in the autumn. As my mother lives 10 minutes' drive away, we can have a mother and daughter trip round the show, a walk in lovely Malvern Hills, followed by tea and cake.

This year, the show had a proper printed catalogue. I love these. I keep them as a record of the event, and I also like to make notes as I go round so I can follow up people or products afterwards.

Going round the halls, there were some beautiful quilts on display. I did take photographs, but according to the catalogue, you can't put photos of the quilts online, so they'll just have to be for my reference only. I bought four books (eep!), two of which I was able to get signed by the author, which was nice. And although I never intended to buy fabric, I couldn't resist a kit from Patchwork Corner. It's an almost monochrome quilt, made from irregular blocks, and the fabric is a thick linen rather than cotton lawn. Among all the batiks, Moda, and general girly fabrics and designs, it really stood out. They also sold some sweet ribbon, with a delicate crocheted edge, so I bought a few yards of this too.

Another shop I'd not come across before was The Button Lady, who had an amazing selection of decorative buttons - I especially liked the wooden ones.

There were racks and racks of patterns on sale, more than I have ever seen before. I bought one for a sweet little folded sewing case from Antique Angel. On the whole, though, I'd rather buy a book with a variety of projects in it.

After several hours wandering round, I was just on my way out when I made the mistake of slowing down imperceptibly while passing The Cotton Patch stand, where they had several long arm quilting machines on display. While I'm happy with the walking foot on my sewing machine, as my quilts get bigger, I'm finding it harder and harder to roll them under the throat of the machine while I'm quilting. And while I don't think I'd ever want a standup machine, on a frame, I have had my eyes on the Handiquilter Sweet Sixteen for a while, as it seems like a natural step up for my quilting needs.

The very nice Mr Geoff Sewell persuaded me to 'test drive' the Sweet Sixteen, and despite my initial reservations (it looked a bit scary!) it proved to be much easier to use than I anticipated. After some tweaking to the speed, to make it match the speed I was moving the fabric, I found it very easy to get on with. Because the speed is even, I was just able to concentrate on 'drawing' the design, without having to worry about keeping an even stitch length. Once we have the stable sorted out, I'd be extremely tempted to buy one of these; it was gorgeous.

 

 

 

Tel - 29/5/13 Cookies!!!

Sewing has been put on hold temporarily due to my dislike of the Toyota sewing machine. Way too clunky compared to my Interlude 445. The Toyota has now been returned to Argos and the Interlude is now being fixed and should be ready to pick up on my afternoon off. Yay!

In the meantime I made cherry and chocolate biccies.:)

Tel - 12/5/13 - New Look 6808 step 1

After a very busy week, I've managed to get started on the New Look 6808 top B pattern. From watching Sewing Bee, reading various (numerous!) blogs and just generally from a desire to reuse this pattern time and again, I decided to draft a copy of the pieces I would need to make the top. So this afternoon has been all about the first stage of that - the tracing...

These five simple pieces took an hour to produce - an hour! Five simple pieces to find amongst three massive sheets of pattern paper - all of which were taller than me when they were unfolded. We won't speak about the folding back together of them. They went back into their envelope - let's leave it at that.

Now, having had the BF check my measurements, I know for a fact I'm going to have to do a bit of creative drafting to get this to fit. Like most normal women, I do not conform to one dress size all over, so there's going to have to be some letting in at certain bits and letting out at others. Thankfully, my significant other got my old dressmaking dummy from out of the actic so I can now transfer my measurements onto that, and work from there.

Once the traced copy has been cut out, my next thought was to produce a muslin from it, probably using the copious quantity of Ikea roman blind fabric I bought a couple of years back to use for my freestyle embroidery project. It's not too thick, doesn't fray and I have loads of it incase I need to go back and revise what I was doing.

That is likely to be Friday now - day off! :-)

A TALE OF THREE BAGS
It was lovely sunny weather last week, so I took a stroll down to the local Laura Ashley at lunchtime. My idea was to check out their fabric range, as they sell the most lovely stripes and florals. And while they do indeed stock the most beautiful fabric, at around £32/metre, it wasn’t cheap. Luckily I spotted a wicker basket full offcuts, which was exactly what I was looking for. My local quilters’ guild is in need of small, handmade gifts to sell at their exhibition in October. While I could use fabric from my stash (but, but...) I’ve been on the lookout for small pieces of slightly more heavyweight fabric to make some little bags from.

I found three pretty pieces of fabric, each about A4 size, apparently unwanted fabric samples, all individually packed in plastic bags. They cost 50P each – a bargain! Next, it was down to Coles sewing centre for some zips. They have a bewildering choice there, so I bought a variety, ranging in size from 8 to 12". The zips cost about £1.50 each.

Back home, I took the fabric swatches out of the bags and discovered they were all very different; a fact was wasn’t apparent before through the plastic. The first fabric was a sort of plastic-covered cotton (like you use for table covering). The second was a thick cotton slub, and the third was a silk/polyester blend with a gorgeous soft sheen to it.

Entering ‘how to make a simple lined zippered bag’ on Google yielded many excellent tutorials. Interesting how many ways there are to describe the same method of putting things together! To get into the swing of things, I decided to make an unlined bag first, using the plasticized fabric. On a purely practical level, I thought the whole ‘turning it all inside out’ process might be tricky if I had decided to line it because of the stiffness of the fabric. The process was far quicker than I anticipated, and within about quarter of an hour I had a nice little 10" zippered bag!

The next step was lined bags, a more tricky technique as you have to get the inner and outer fabrics the right way up and aligned to the correct edge of the zip. Once I figured it out, they didn’t take much longer to make. The most time consuming part was hand-sewing the bottom of the lining prior to pushing it back inside the finished bag.

So, after one afternoon, I had three 10" bags, all different, two lined, and felt quite pleased with myself. Financial outlay per bag, about £2 for the fabric swatch and the zip.
 

Tel - 05 May 2013

Inspired by the show 'The Sewing Bee', and also all the amazing quilts Lindsey keeps finding and making, I've decided to start sewing. My particular distraction will be dressmaking. And with that in mind, here's my weapon of choice...

And what I'm going to make this lovely bank holiday weekend - New Look 6808, the blue one in the middle of the top row, but I'll probably make them all...