Month: April 2014

Me-Made May 2014

1956 Shirtwaist

This dress (a 1956 Advance pattern) is almost complete, it just needs buttons and buttonholes. (And a placket and a couple of snap fasteners.) I’m making it for a purpose – there’s a 1950s night coming up at work, and I wanted to be properly attired. It’s got me thinking though (always dangerous) – once it’s been out to the Vintage Night, will I actually wear this dress again? Of course I want to say yes. I love the fabric, I love the style, it fits me very well… but my dressmaking history reveals that there’s a strong chance of it just living in the wardrobe and only coming out for Dressing Up Occasions.

October 2012

This one (Simplicity 1755) was made in October 2012, for a friend’s wedding. It’s been worn precisely once since then, to a smart-ish occasion at work. It’s comfortable, it’s soft (I saved up for ages to buy the bamboo and cotton blend fabric), it has my favourite raglan sleeves, it even has pockets. It would take me precisely two minutes to replace the annoying hook and eye at the front collar with a few stitches that would prevent it from popping open all the time. And yet it sits in the wardrobe, unloved.

March 2013

I made this dress specifically to wear to a 1940s event (although it’s from a 1950s pattern), but the combination of the fabric being a bit too stiff and Paul telling me that the print looks like curtains has put me off it entirely. I don’t think this one’s ever been out of the wardrobe except for this single occasion, and it’s currently hanging on the back of the sewing room door waiting to be chopped up and turned into zipped pouches and headscarves. Particularly frustrating, as I went out of my way to find a vintage pattern in my size (1950s 18½, as it turns out), and I put a lot of effort into the hand-stitched buttonholes, covered buttons, and french cuffs. The knitted turban though, which I was still sewing together minutes before we left the house for the day, has actually been worn a lot.

Simplicity 3968 (1952)

Even this 1952 pinafore, which I absolutely LOVE for its frankly ridiculous pockets, has only been out of the wardrobe a couple of times. In this instance it’s because the fabric is a linen blend, and there’s miles and miles of skirt to iron before it looks smart enough for work. (And then I sit on the bus for half an hour to get there, and immediately scrunch it up again!)

So what do I actually wear, if I’m not wearing these? Well, mostly I go to work wearing a pair of cord trousers, a jumper and a big scarf. Maybe leggings and a jersey dress. (And a big scarf.) At home I usually pootle about in the World’s Oldest Jeans, and one of the very long jumpers that my Mum knitted for me about twenty years ago.

February 2011

Otherwise, I wear this. Admittedly I’m not usually festooned with small parrots, but I made this coat in the summer of 2009, and it’s been worn endlessly since then. The silk yarn for the hat was a wedding gift, and the resulting Wurm (Silk Wurm, get it? *groan*) has barely left my head. Also featured: the ubiquitous hoody, and of course a scarf. Every now and then I think I should make myself a new coat, but the thought of not having this one is somehow a bit too much. I think I’m going to have to look out for some more pink spotty needlecord, so that I can replicate it when it finally does wear out.

So, back to ME MADE MAY, which was allegedly the point of this post!

I do actually wear at least one item of clothing that I’ve made myself (even if it’s only a knitted hat) almost every day, so that in itself won’t be the challenge for me. What I want to do is pay more attention to the handmade items that I do and don’t wear, and to try and understand why.

Is it too uncomfortable? Did I make it for an occasion that simply doesn’t come around very often? It is too cold to wear for work, too restrictive to wear for a long time, does it make me feel as though I’ve accidentally left the house in fancy dress? Did I make it for myself, or for the Imaginary Claire in my head who’s twenty years younger, two stone lighter, and at least four inches taller than me? Did I actually want to wear this garment, or did I see the construction process as an interesting challenge?

Hopefully by the end of May I’ll have a clearer idea of the things I do and don’t wear, and the reasons why. Perhaps it’ll give me a good reason to get rid of some of the least likely to be sewn patterns from my stash… although it seems more likely that I’ll be inspired to buy some new ones!

Latest Hat Update…

Blue Hat

I haven’t shown you a picture of a hat for a while, so I need to rectify that straight away!

This gorgeous blue one is already sold. I showed a picture of it on Facebook, and a friend popped up and yelled “MINE!!” almost immediately! I still need to work out the best way of adding a custom order listing to Etsy, so that people can choose the colours and flowers that they like.

Lettice's Sophisticated Hat

This one’s also sold – a lovely dark grey (anthracite) hat with guipure lace trim and a velvet button. The brief for this one was “sophisticated”, so I hope I’ve managed to achieve that. This was also the first hat which necessitated making a slightly different size from my blocks, so I hope it fits!

Ivory Hat

This one is for sale, it’s listed over on Etsy. The lace trim is one that came to me in a bundle with all of the vintage haberdashery, and it’s embellished with some little flower-shaped beads. I’m on the lookout for more lace motifs like this (not necessarily in ivory), as I’m really pleased with the way it’s turned out.

Fuchsia Hat

And one more, again listed on Etsy. Fuchsia pink this time, which is turning out to be my best selling colour so far! This one has a wider lace trim, gathered underneath another velvet button.

I had a conversation at the market on Sunday which worried me a little bit – it seems that people might not entirely understand that I’m actually making these hats, rather than just buying them in from somewhere and then trimming them. I suppose I should take that as a compliment, as it means they don’t look “hand made”. But then it also means that customers might not understand the inherent value in the time I’ve taken to choose the colours, choose the block styles, work the felt, and then add every single stitch by hand rather than machine. Believe me, doing all of the sewing by hand takes hours for even the simplest of these styles.

That’s not a complaint, of course – it was a conscious decision I took right at the beginning, to do everything by hand. It just means I need to make sure that people are aware of all that work, and that the hats are reaching the eyes of people who actually value it. How I achieve that is another matter, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

Holiday Germs

Corn Stores Indoor Market

It turns out that my brain’s still full – this time with germs.

I had five days off work at Easter, spent four of them working on the Emporium, and the fifth in bed with a chest and sinus infection. What a lovely relaxing holiday! This is our little stall at the Corn Stores Indoor Market, the first event of its kind. Unfortunately the combination of a quiet town on Easter Sunday and the absolutely pouring rain meant that it wasn’t terribly well attended – but we made a few sales, and had a lovely day chatting to the other stallholders. Hopefully it will be busier next time.

Carters Steam Fair

The following day (despite feeling terrible and having to hobble around with my walking stick), I forced Paul to take me on my annual pilgrimage to Carter’s Steam Fair. We stayed less than half an hour in the end – partly because the weather was terrible, and partly because I should have really been in bed!

Carters Steam Fair

We usually have a go on the arcade machines (neither of us being big fans of the actual rides), and Paul fancied winning this little chap to go with his ever increasing collection of miniatures to paint. Unfortunately the motor had broken so the crane didn’t want to work… until a nice man with a huge chain of keys came along and opened up the machine and poked it with a screwdriver until it sprang into life!

Carters Steam Fair

Paul seems quite happy with his winnings!

Carters Steam Fair

This dapper gent (half soldier, half carousel horse) doesn’t seem too bothered that there’s a giant chicken giving him a funny look…

Carters Steam Fair

…and I think this is the best advice I was given all weekend.

It may not all be going to plan (you may not even have a clear idea of what the plan’s supposed to be!), but if there’s nothing you can do about it, why worry?

(I worry a lot. I’m working on it.)

Full Moon, Full Brain

Full Moon. Allegedly.

I happened to be awake at around two o’clock this morning, and was amazed by the brightness of the full moon. It was absolutely beautiful, and if we still lived right next door to the lake I’d have been very tempted to go for a little walk. I’m not sure why I thought this photo would express the magnificence of last night’s lunar spectacle, but it’s the best one I managed to take! Sad, really.

(It was two o’clock in the morning, don’t forget!)

As always, I’m at least two ideas ahead of myself, and I was lying awake thinking of all the things I’d like to be doing if I had either time or the money – preferably both!

Thing Number One is a cosmetics project that’s been lurking around the back of my brain for a very long time. I’m thinking that some kind of little Kickstarter-type of enterprise might work for this one though, as the thing that’s currently preventing me from doing it is having enough cash up front for certification assessments and a bulk-buy of ingredients. The idea is a (probably quarterly) Cosmetics Club, where you could pay a subscription to receive a lovely box of goodies four times a year. I was originally considering monthly, but several people have pointed out that a month isn’t very long to use up a box full of bath and body products, and also it doesn’t give me much time to experiment with recipes and make sure I’m sending out the loveliest things!

The whole thing would be branded as part of Mr & Mrs Magpie’s Inexplicable Emporium, complete with faux-Victorian packaging and a story to go with each item. I’m looking forward to that part just as much as I am to developing the products themselves! The main question really is where to start. There are three certification packages available:

  1. Lip Balms
  2. Body Balms, Butters & Oils
  3. Bath Bombs, Melts, Milks & Salts

The second two are probably the most versatile in terms of what I’d be able to make following a single assessment cost, so it’s really a matter of which to choose first – and then encouraging enough people to support the project in advance, so I can actually go ahead and pay for it.

Thing Number Two is MORE HATS!
I’ve been having some quality issues with the felt hoods I’ve been using to make the hats. I don’t think it’s a problem with my current supplier, I think it’s just a problem with machine-made felt in general. I have a number of experiments I want to try out in terms of making my own felt:

  • Will the merino tops I’m using to make all these flowers be too soft to make a good hat?
  • Will it look too “home made”, as opposed to fabulously and uniquely hand-made?
  • Can I get an entire cloche hat out of one carded batt of more hardwearing fibres?
  • Do more hardwearing fibres only come in “sheep colours”?
  • If so, can I dye enough wool myself, using natural dyes? Or will they be too muted for my liking?

You can see I have a lot to think about! This one’s a bit easier than the cosmetics project in that the materials are a lot cheaper, and I have enough fibres already to answer at least two of these questions without having to buy anything new. I just need to find the time to do the experiments, and risk ending up with a little pile of horrible hats if it doesn’t work out!

Thing Number Three (did I even mention three things?) is also hat-related, and it’s MORE HAT BLOCKS! Today I received an email from Guy Morse-Brown with the preview details for their newest hat blocks.

Oh. My. Goodness.

I’d been pondering how to make some different cloche shapes by re-shaping the hats as they came off my existing blocks… but now I find I can buy not only two new sets of brim blocks which are already exactly the shapes I wanted (and which will fit together with the blocks I have already), but there’s also a single-piece cloche block which is simply STUNNING. The down side, of course, is that I’m going to need to find the best part of a thousand pounds in order to buy ALL THE THINGS, which obviously I don’t have. (Or less, obviously, if I don’t try and buy it all at once.) But I’ve been mentally designing hats for exactly these blocks for a while now, so it’s very exciting to discover that they’re actually available!

The plan for right now though, is to concentrate on getting as many hats as possible ready for my Indoor Market on Sunday. Anybody local to Reading, it would be lovely to see you at the Corn Stores! I’m bringing along a nice big mirror so you can try on all the hats, and I’ll be taking orders too.

I will be closing the Etsy store for the day, just to make sure I don’t accidentally sell anything twice, so don’t panic if you try to visit and find me gone! I’ll be back on Monday, once I’ve updated the listings for anything that’s sold.

Felted Flower Experiments

Cut-and-sew felt flower

Whilst the feedback on all of my hats so far has been very positive (thank you!!), there’s one enquiry that’s come up several times now: “will we be able to buy the felt flowers without a hat?” The answer, of course, is yes! But I do need to work out the best way of doing that – both for me in terms of making the flowers, and for you in terms of offering lots of choice.

Cut-and-sew felt flower

So, to that end, I’ve been doing lots of felt flower experiments. The two pictures above are of my attempts to cut out petals from a wet-felted sheet, and then sew them together again to make a flower. This did not go well. It turns out that if I’m making felt, I’d actually prefer to wet felt the flower itself, in one go.

Wet felted flowers

So that’s what I did next! It turns out I have a bit of a problem with size though… these are all smaller than the monster flower that I made for Nicola’s orange hat, but the smallest one is still almost the size of my hand. They just seem to naturally want to come out big!

This is fine by me, as I think a huge great flower on a brooch or a clip or a hair comb would make a fantastic statement! But of course not everybody wants to show off as much as I do, so I thought I’d better try and make some smaller ones as well.

Needle felted hair flower

So, here’s a little needle-felted flower, attached to a large bobby pin. Much better! It fits in the palm of my hand, and the flower is light enough that it’s not going to pull the clip out of place.

Needle felted hair flower

This is the second one, playing with adding a bit more colour to go with the felted ball in the centre. I have a few of those that I made during a session with the children at work, so now I’m choosing colours and designing flowers to go around them. This one’s already sneaking up in size though, so I need to make sure that these stay dainty and don’t get too big! I also need to practice my needle felting technique, as I’m not quite convinced about the texture of this one. Maybe a finer needle would do the trick.

So, watch this space, as I suspect there will be lots more flowers to come!

Fleecy Things

Fleece bolero

I had another mad day in the Etsy shop yesterday, this time listing three versions of this fleece bolero jacket, and three versions of the new top below. This afternoon I went out and bought some patterned fleece, so I can actually make and then take photos of the patterned versions that I’ve listed.

This is my own jacket, and it lives very firmly in my wardrobe. I love it, and it looks just as good with jeans and a t-shirt as it does with a smart dress. My friend Karen (whose wedding I made this outfit for) has the prototype, which is the same style but plain black. She says it “Makes me feel like some kind of thief/archer elf in a fantasy film!”, which is perfect because that’s exactly what it’s supposed to do!

The one change I’ve made to the design is to replace the hidden hooks and eyes with decorative frog fasteners – though I don’t have any pictures of those yet. The one problem with this jacket is the hooks and eyes slipping open as you move around, and the frogs won’t allow that to happen. Much better.

It’s now available to order in plain fleece, patterned fleece, and organic cotton sweatshirting.

Fleece drape top

This is a new top I made to wear to work, last week or the week before. It’s always cold on the reception desk, so I wanted it to have a high neck at the back to keep me warm. I also wanted to be able to wear layers underneath it without feeling constricted, so it’s longish, loose fitting, and has a draped cowl-style neckline at the front. The edges, like the jacket, are finished with bias binding which is hand-stitched into place on the inside. This top is so comfortable I’m going to have to prize it out of my own cold dead hands to put it in the washing machine… or of course I could always make another one! I’m quite a fan of having duplicates of clothing that you love.

Fleece drape top

This one’s available in the Etsy shop too, in the same incarnations as the jacket – plain fleece, patterned fleece, and organic cotton sweatshirting. I’ve got a piece of bright pink fleece with white spots to make another one of these, so if you’re a size UK 14-16 ish (size M), look out for that popping up on Etsy soon!

I’ve had a couple of requests for custom dressmaking projects lately, to which the answer I’m afraid is still no. I’m trying very hard to concentrate on sewing projects like these, from patterns that I’ve drafted myself, and also on the hats and felting. Because I’m also working part time, I simply can’t fit in anything else. I’m contemplating putting together printable PDF patterns for these items, so that you can go ahead and make your own, but I don’t even have the time to devote to that right now.

In fact, I shouldn’t really have spent two afternoons filling the Etsy shop with haberdashery and fleecy tops instead of working on the hats, but there’s only so much felting my poor arms can take. I’m at work-work for the next couple of days though, then it will be back to felting and hats at the weekend. I have so little free time before the craft fair I’m taking the hats to on Easter Sunday that I really don’t know when I’m going to get anything done!

Vintage Haberdashery

button sample card

Today I came to the startling realisation that my mountain of vintage haberdashery isn’t going to sell itself whilst sitting in a box in my sewing room, so I thought it was about time I listed at least some of it on Etsy!

Above you can see a lovely button sample card, and there’s also another sample card with metal buttons, hooks and buckles.

stockings darning kit

This is the one thing that I was really tempted to keep – a gorgeous little leather pouch with five cards of thread especially for mending stockings! The front of the pouch is embossed with gold writing which says “troubles are ended when they are mended”. I did keep one card which has multiple shades of stocking-thread on it in actual stocking colours (like the ones above), and one which has the most gorgeous pastel colours for mending your silk lingerie. Some things are just too lovely to part with!

Also on the “I can’t believe I’m letting this go” list are an enormous folding needle case, and two pretty little card ones.

embroidery transfers

My enormous stash of embroidery transfers are also looking for a good home – this time as a job lot of around 100 sheets. The oldest one in the collection is the lovely Crinoline Lady above, who is conveniently marked May 1939. The rest are a mixture of 40s, 50s and 60s, mostly pulled out of an assortment of needlework magazines. I’ve been taking them out to craft stalls in an enormous great folder, to very little interest, and to be honest I just couldn’t face the thought of listing every single transfer individually. So a job lot it is! I have kept an envelope full of transfers for myself – mostly the ones that had been torn or cut out in places, or written on, or traced. I also kept a few of the smaller designs, as well as the drunken chickens, of course. I’m never going to part with those!

embroidery transfer booklet

Also on the embroidery front, there are two little books of transfers, and a catalogue for already-printed linens. The booklet above features designs for children, so there are Nursery Rhyme characters and little cartoon animals. There’s another which was free with “People’s Friend” magazine, which is also tiny designs but mostly florals.

embroidered coronation brooches

This one, if I’d been organised, probably would have been snatched up in seconds flat if I’d managed to get around to selling it last year in time for the Jubilee! It’s a really gorgeous 1953 transfer set for making Coronation Brooches, never even been unfolded. I couldn’t get a proper photo of the actual transfer sheet, because it seemed a shame to take it out of the original staple for the sake of a picture! Hopefully it’ll be appreciated in its pristine state.

If you’re not terribly interested in royalty, but happen to like dogs, birds, flowers or yachts, there’s another set containing exactly those designs.

And of course, there’s just one Mystery Haberdashery Box left, just waiting for somebody to be brave enough to snap it up! Mind you, if the thing you really wanted from the box was the slightly frightening plastic doll face, you can now buy the last remaining few all in one go.

I’ve got a couple of stalls coming up over the next couple of months, and I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the INEXPLICABLE EMPORIUM and what I do and don’t want to include in it. Just for once I haven’t been doing that thinking out loud (hence my somewhat sporadic appearances here), but I can tell you that I’m hoping to be around a bit more often from now on.

Another piece of Marcy Tilton magic

Vogue 8975

This is some organic cotton jersey, bought from the Organic Textile Company, oooh, ages ago. It was sold as seconds because it had been dried in a malfunctioning drier, and smelled terribly of exhaust fumes. Thankfully a quick trip through my own washer and dryer sorted that out, no problem at all. But it wasn’t until I came to iron the fabric before cutting into it that I spotted this perfect hand print! Fortunately it’s on the inside, but it did make me laugh to see it. Genuine evidence of the handmade nature of the fabric!

Vogue 8975

The jersey has now been transformed into Vogue 8975, another Marcy Tilton pattern. That woman must be some kind of pattern drafting genius, because I’ve finished making this dress, and worn it a couple of times, and I still have absolutely no idea how all of the pattern pieces came together to make this shape.

Vogue 8975

I used masking tape on all of the cut pieces, partly to identify the right and wrong sides of the fabric, and partly to make sure that I was sewing everything together the right way up. My diagonal seam across the back has ended up going in the opposite direction from the illustration on the pattern envelope, but other than that it all seems to have come together rather well!

Vogue 8975

I did annotate the pattern as I was going along. I found it very important to just throw out all of the things I thought I knew about dressmaking, and just follow the instructions. Where it says “stop stitching at small circle”, you stop stitching at the small circle, even if you have a weird triangle-y piece of fabric sticking out in an inexplicable manner, even if you think you know better, or want to try and take a shortcut. Just don’t. Trust the instructions, and it will all come out fine in the end!

Vogue 8975

Ta-Daa! My only deviation from the instructions was in the binding of the armhole edges, and I wish I’d just followed the pattern. Instead of a smooth armscye, I now have slightly flanged minuscule cap sleeves, which I didn’t really want. This is what happens when you’re trying to finish sewing a dress at eleven o’clock at night because you really want to wear it to work the next day, and you decide that trimming away the seam allowances and binding them properly will “take too long”. (Note to self: It would have taken exactly the same amount of time, and looked much nicer. Next time: Do It Properly.)

Vogue 8975

As with my previous Marcy Tilton patterns, I went down from my usual Vogue size and cut out a medium. This has given me a perfect fit across the top (where I’m smallest), and the shape of the pattern means that there’s plenty of room at the waist and hips. I think my only disappointment with this design (and it’s ever such a tiny one) is that the pockets aren’t actually as big as all that draping makes them look. They don’t need to be huge, but I think I will alter the pattern slightly to make them just an inch or so longer.

I’ve worn this dress a couple of times now, and I’m extremely tempted to make another identical one. It’s so comfortable to wear, and I’m so pleased with how it looks, I’m definitely going to need more than one of these in my wardrobe!