sewcialists

Got five minutes for a quick natter?

| Hazel

Well Hi there

Fancy seeing you here having a little read of my blog, well I’ve been a busy bee again this last week and I’ve got one or two things to show you!

On the weekend I went to London, mainly for a visit to the infamous Goldhawk Road.  I’m sorry to say it, I was dissapointed.  It was fabric heaven, don’t get me wrong, I think there was 14 fabric shops on one stretch of road, however, cheap it wasn’t.

I may have had my hopes too high after going to the rag market in Birmingham and coming home with a huge haul but I only managed to pick up three meters of Printed cotton in Goldhawk Road.  My poor trusty tote was nearly empty!

I did however see some lovely things, I was mainly shopping for wool for a coat I’ve got planned but didn’t want to stretch to the £25 a meter it was being sold at!, I also saw some lovely hand embroidered lace which was beautiful, but also eye poppingly expensive at £49 per meter!

A lot of the printed cottons I came accross I had already seen at Fabric Land for at least £1 a meter cheaper.

Dissapointing.

The rest of the day was much less dissapointing, I went to Harrods, because you have to when you go to London and got some super cute dolls from the Disney Store and then hopped on the tube to the Tower Of London where we saw an actual joust and then had a womble around inside where we saw the real life crown jewels.  I didn’t manage to snaffle any though as they were all in a glass case.

Anyway, Sewing.  For my trip to the capital I obviously needed a new dress.  I picked up this fabric from Frumble

and rustled up this little beauty

Predicatably it’s a By Hand London Elisalex bodice with shortened sleeves and a pleated skirt.  It was going to be a gathered skirt but I decided that it was too much of a faff and therefore I worked out how to make a pleated skirt.  It was ridiculously easy, I just made one pleat, pinned it and then used that as a template for all the rest, ran a line of basting stitches along the top of the skirt and then attached it to the bodice – and Bobs your uncle! What do you think?

I got to meet this little dude in Harrods as well

Look at my happy little face!

I’m on half days in work at the moment as the summer holidays is a really quiet time for us so yesterday I pained my sewing desk a predicatable shade of pink

I’ve also just purchased the Watson Jacket pattern from Papercut patterns

https://instagram.com/p/5-VJtZrDT7/?taken-by=insta_hazel

so I’m pretty excited about having a go at that one – my hunt for wool continues, anyway I have to do some work now so speak to you later 🙂

Shopping for Ruby!

| Hazel

Morning reader!

Today’s the day we go shopping for our Ruby Supplies.

Now there’s a couple of things you will need to pick up

– Sewing Machine 

  • If you haven’t already got one of these, today’s going to be an expensive day for you, I’m not going to go into which machine you should or shouldn’t buy here, because I’m not an expert! But this is mine
I may not be an expert, but I do know better than to advise you get this one.
I may not be an expert, but I do know better than to advise you get this one.

– Sewing Machine Feet

  • You’re going to need a couple of feet for your machine to make this dress Essential ones are a straight stitch foot and a zip foot, but a blind hem foot might come in handy as well if you’re not a fan of hand sewing, you’ll find LOADS of information on feet Here

– A quick unpick

  • you might call this a seam ripper, either way, we’re going to make mistakes, and this little fella is essential.

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– Scissors

  • You’re going to need a good sharp pair of scissors, don’t be tempted to hack away at your lovely fabric with a random pair from the kitchen draw, that’s not going to work out well for you, trust me, You can get special super sharp dressmaking scissors from most fabric or haberdashery shops, I use these ones.

–Pins

  • Tonnes of em!  you’ll need pins for cutting out, and holding your fabric together to sew it, I use glass headed pins because you can iron over them without them melting into your fabric, a pin cushion would be handy at this point too, or your’re going to end up stabbing yourself, using your boobs as a pin cushion or even worse, you might be this woman, definately use a pin cushion – this is now the law – I’ve decreed it.

–Tailors Chalk

  • Or any other kind of fabric marker, chalk is great because you can just brush it off, you can also buy special markers and pencils, or if you can’t find anything, and you’re using dark fabric, use a bit of soap, does the same job!

– Thread

  • Make sure you get a good quality thread, or you’re going to be spending your sewing time picking out knots from your machine and re-threading it, not my idea of fun, I use Moon Thread or Gutterman.

– Iron on Medium weight interfacing

  • This is the stuff that makes some parts of your fabric stiff, you’ll need this for a professional finish, you can pick it up in your fabric shop, get a metre, you wont need it all but it’s handy to keep at home

–  16″ dress zip

  • You can get zips in a rainbow of colours, there are two kinds, regular or invisible, I’m going to use the regular zip for this tutorial, but go wild, get an invisible one, I’m not the boss of you, except when it comes to putting pins in your mouth, then I’m in charge.

– FABRIC

  • The best part!  the pattern calls for 2.14 meters of fabric which is 55 – 60″ wide.  I’m a renegade so I’m going to get three meters because I want to make the skirt longer, if you’re happy getting your gams out feel free to get 2.14m, but the world does not need to see mine.  This kind of dress is going to work with lots of different fabrics, Cottons and satins will probably be best though, pop along to your fabric shop and pull out the rolls to see how the fabric falls, your going to want something with the right amount of drape so hold it up and see what it’s like.

Drape

Drape is the term used to describe the way a fabric hangs under its own weight. It has an important bearing on how good a garment looks in use. The draping qualities required from a fabric will differ completely depending on its end use, therefore a given value for drape cannot be classified as either good or bad. Knitted fabrics are relatively floppy and garments made from them will tend to follow the body contours. Woven fabrics are relatively stiff when compared with knitted fabrics and they are  generally used in tailored clothing where the fabric hangs away from the body and disguises its contours. 

I’m probably going to use a quilting cotton because I like the crazy prints and also the way the fabric handles, if you make a mistake with cotton you can generally unpick it without too much bother as well.

Music and a cup of coffee

  • Last thing of all get a decent album on, I’m feeling something by Fleetwood Mac today with a decent cup of coffee but y’know whatever you like.

Right I’m off to visit my natural habitat, Fabricland, I’ll see you when I’m back.

Hazel.

Forget Ski Sunday – Sew Sunday’s where all the cool kids are at.

| Hazel

Hello Reader

How’s your Sunday been?  Did you watch Glastonbury last night?  If you did maybe you can tell me why Kanye West turned up in his painting clothes? Was he planning on giving the ceiling a quick once over when he got off stage?

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I’ve had a bit of a productive weekend, I’ve finished my 1950’s style circle dress ready for the wedding this week – more on this later –  and also added a record three more dresses to my bulging wardrobe!

I’ll kick you off with this flowery Elisalex that’s been sat on my rail of shame awaiting a hem for a little while, I’ll level with you, I made this as an emergency dress to wear to the wedding as I wasn’t entirely confident that I could pull off my circle dress competantly so I ran up another old trusty just in-case, well now my circle dress is such a triumph, this will be a work dress.  It’s made of a sort of stretch cotton so I can just pull it over my head with no zip – WINNER.  The Fabric is from Fabric Land and I got this whole dress out of 2.5 meters.

Next up, are you sitting down?, I made a different pattern.

Quick have a cup of tea for the shock then come straight back to me, I need to tell you all about this.

Have you recovered?  Good.

This is a Simple Sew Bardot dress.  I got the pattern free with Love Sewing Magazine and it instantly joined my ‘to sew’ queue.  I was pretty amazed with how easy this was to put together, half way through I thought I must have made a mistake because it was going together so quickly!, In total this one took me about 2 hours to make. There’s no lining or facings to faff around with but I did learn how to make my own bias binding for the neckline which is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while and now I want one of those snazzy Bias Binding machines then I could Bias Bind everything!, the whole world!

Snazzy Bias Binding maker
Snazzy Bias Binding maker

So here’s my effort

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The fabric was one of my Bargains from Birmingham Rag Market it’s 100% cotton and was around £3 a meter, The pattern said you needed 3.45 meters but I’ve made this out of 3 meters with about half a meter to spare.

Last up is a bit of a sensible one for me, Well as sensible as Hazel gets.

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I thought you might be getting a bit fed up of me making Elisalex’s so here’s …………… another Elisalex, but with a twist – I added a collar and I made the top and bottom from different fabrics so it kind of looks like a 2-piece.

With my new collar adding skills I learned from making the Dimpsy last weekend I decided to draft up a sort of Peter Pan collar to fit the Elisalex, If you would like to learn how to do this too, I’ve written a little tutorial here

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I’m shattered now and I’m back in work at 7am :/

Nunight

Shiny disco balls

| Hazel

Hello reader,

Hope you’re fine and dandy this evening.  I’ve had more calamities this week than Calamity Jane.

To start the ball rolling I fell down the stairs on Tuesday resulting in a very bruised bottom.

Basically I look like I have the butt of a smurf

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Today after proudly declaring yesterday that I’d never smashed my phone, I smashed my phone.  Great, nothing says – accident prone like the shattered screen of an Iphone.

Enough moaning there’s sewing to share

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I’ve been going to classes the last six weeks with Laura here in Bristol to learn to make underwear.

I find it hard to get nice, well-fitting, undies that don’t cost a months wages as I’ve got quite big boobs so when I saw this course advertised it was an obvious choice.

I don’t know why it had never occurred to me that you can just sew your own, it just seems like something you need specialist equipment for but you can indeed whip up your own over-the-shoulder-bolder-holder in the comfort of your own home.

The pattern we used for the course was this one which I’ve found available here,

Why does the lady have 5 o'clock shadow on the illustration?
Why does the lady have 5 o’clock shadow on the illustration?

It was actually simpler than you would think and the pattern fitted me just fine without any alterations.  We made a sample bra first, mine was atrocious, think horrible granny stretch white lace with red stitching.  We had to stitch in a contrasting colour in case we needed to make alterations so we could see the stitching easier – it all made sense but wound up in a horrid mess of rankness.

When we came to making our final bras I could see the point though as it did make me super concerned with neatness.

I’m not going to be modelling them for you but, here’s my snazzy new undies

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They are made from green crepe back satin and black glitter powernet, all from good old Fabric Land.

You only need a fat quarter to make a bra so I can see some super extravagant numbers in my not so distant future, but for now, I’m pretty happy with my glitter boobs!

dolly-parton-dance

I haven’t got any more courses on the horizon now until my pattern making course in September which I’m really looking forward to, I love the random ones and I’ve now done beginners dressmaking, corsetry, I’ve made a bad ass winter coat, a tea dress and now undies.  If you’ve got sewing classes near to you get involved – you might learn something amazing.

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Over and out

Sewing club, isn’t that for my Nan?

| Hazel

Sewing club, didn’t sound like something I would have ever dreamed of attending even 12 months ago.  It sounds like a pretty dreary affair.  For me it would conjure up images of Mrs Thomas and Mrs Jones from the WI  sipping tea while whipping up a Princess Diana memorial quilt and discussing the hussy at number 39 – ‘the gas man spent a bit too long in there the other day ‘nudge nudge wink wink.

So, what the heck got me hooked?  Well, the obvious draw is sewing, about 10 months ago my mum got a new sewing machine and asked me if I wanted her old one, previously I had a machine from Amazon which cost the princely sum of £20.  I had sewn up a cushion but then promptly gave up when the bobbin ran out, I couldn’t be bothered to wind one by hand and the machine didn’t do it for me. That was me and sewing done.

But then came along a sewing machine, for free, that would wind a bobbin for me! I jumped at my mum’s offer, but, didn’t know how the heck to make anything so I booked onto one of Laura’s beginners dressmaking courses – I was hooked, I wanted to sew all the things, but I didn’t ( and still don’t) have the skills, so rather tentatively I gave sewing club a go, I knew Laura and I knew she liked Nashville on the telly so we had something to talk about.

Let me tell you this – it doesn’t happen often, but, I was wrong!  Sewing club is about as far from a WI meeting as sewing clubs can be, everyone is friendly, there’s no know-it-all people to look down on you if you make mistakes, everyone I’ve met so far has been a really colourful character, and there’s tea and cake to boot!

Sewing club has given me the confidence to try more difficult patterns or techniques than I would have otherwise because if I mess it up I know I can always pop along to club and have a cookie while Laura helps me out of whatever pickle I’ve got myself into this time.

I reckon whatever you’re looking to sew Laura can probably help you, I’ve seen people whipping up all kinds of different things there from Viking costumes to party frocks.  Also, you get to meet other people whose eyes wont glaze over when you’re discussing patterns and that pretty, pretty fabric you just had to have, win!

If you’re a beginner, or even someone who has been sewing for years I would really recommend you popped along and had a nosey – try one of the peanut cookies – they’re amazing!

If you’re in the Bristol area why not pop along next Monday ?

https://bristolsewingclub.wordpress.com/