easily distracted by shiny things…
Posted in inspiration, sewing, shopping, tops, Uncategorized on Mar 11th, 2011
I walked past my local branch of Hobbs yesterday, and spotted this lovely pink dress in the window. Then I came home and looked in my wardrobe at my pink party dress, which has a very similar keyhole-and-knot detail on the back. Now I don’t need to covet the Hobbs dress, and have thereby saved [...]
Posted in embroidery, inspiration, sewing on Jan 27th, 2011
The trouble with buying men’s shirts is that the sleeves are always too long. I buy them because it’s quite difficult to find women’s shirts that fasten with cufflinks, unless you can afford to shop at somewhere like Thomas Pink. Then it can be difficult to find pretty or interesting cufflinks, but fortunately it’s extremely easy [...]
Today I have been mostly sewing an outfit that I planned almost a year ago, when I was offered my current job. I bought three men’s shirts from Marks and Spencer (lilac, pink and lemon), and bought some poly-cotton and broderie anglais trim from Fabric Land to make three matching petticoats. Here’s the first petticoat [...]
Posted in teaching on Jan 25th, 2011
Given that my current job contract runs out at very soon, I’ve decided to offer sewing lessons. They’re held in your own home, so that you can learn on your own equipment. Unless you’re booking a hand-sewing session, you’ll need to have your own sewing machine. I’m based in Reading, Berkshire, and prefer to teach [...]
This is Butterick 5260, a variant on View A. I only had a very small piece of fabric, so I ended up shortening both the top and the sleeves. It was supposed to be a short dress, but it’s a long top now! I also did away with the little piece of elastic gathering at [...]
A friend of mine collects clowns. He found this one in a charity shop, sadly trouserless. A fat quarter of sparkly gold jersey later, and the clown is much better dressed!
This is Vogue 1161, a Rachel Comey designer pattern. I think this ranks as the most technically complicated thing I’ve ever made (look at those right-angled seams on the front!), and I have to say that I’m rather proud of it. Yes, there are things I’d change (mostly in the fit of the bodice), and [...]
Posted in sewing on Dec 17th, 2010
This is a lovely jacket that belongs to a friend of mine. It came with black buttons, and we’d been chatting about how nice they were, and how difficult it would be to find a replacement if one was lost. A couple of hours later… you’ve guessed it! One missing button. There were no spare [...]
Posted in sewing on Sep 27th, 2010
Yep, it’s another bow tie. I couldn’t resist. Exactly the same as the last one, the pattern is Kwik Sew 3183, and the fabric is “Sew What?” by Michael Miller.
Posted in sewing on Sep 24th, 2010
This afternoon I made a bow tie, using Kwik Sew 3183. This is the self-tie version, and I looked at a lot of instructions for how to tie it, but these seemed the easiest to follow. It’s nowhere near as difficult as some of the instructions seemed to suggest. The tie is supposed to be [...]