Sew I Don't Buy

Yes you can, but....why???

2016-10-05T07:57:00.001-07:00

A short one today - extra fitting has been required for the latest commission, but that post should be up soon.

And so a rant!

I am completely confused by this article: http://byhandlondon.com/blogs/by-hand-london/make-your-own-pashmina

For those not interested in visiting the link it's about how to make your own pashmina. The steps are basically: buy pashmina wool, cut to desired width, finish edges with a single row of stitching and a bit of fray.

Simple, straightforward and, to my mind, utterly pointless. You're not getting anything new or different from this kind of pashmina, you're not using up material from other makes (though I guess you could if you had a very large scrap of something suitable), and you're not really saving any money. The poster is apparently close enough to Goldhawk Road in London to pop in to grab some pashmina wool, but I haven't managed to get there yet and I've been trying for years (juggling life with trip to obscure London location is surprisingly difficult). And if I did it would cost me way more just to get there than to just buy a ready-made pashmina. I've never seen pashmina wool in any local shop and decent wool is generally not cheap so buying online (where you can rarely buy less than a metre in anything other than quilting fabric and there are postage costs) wouldn't be a saving either.

This is definitely one for my exceptions list - though if there was anything different or interesting you were getting out of this make rather than a plain pashmina I might be less scathing. Maybe I'm too practical, but for me making something has to have some point to it....

My Sewing Space

2016-09-14T04:17:00.000-07:00

So I see a lot of posts on the sewing blogs I follow about sewists sewing rooms or sewing spaces. Some of these are professionals who work from home, occasionally the odd sewing studio for someone who's branched out to something a bit bigger, but generally they are sewing rooms (or parts of rooms) of hobbyists like me. Obviously they tidy and clean for the pictures, but these spaces are so different from mine - so pretty and full of pristine Ikea furniture that instead of being inspired I feel like rolling on the floor laughing at how far far FAR I am away from such a mellow, serene "me time" sewing experience.

And so today I shall take you on a tour of my sewing space!

Hint: this ain't it.

My sewing space is a small corner of my living room.

It is there honest.

Aptly squeezed behind the sofa and next to the treadmill, this 1.5m square nook is where the magic happens. Note the baby gate: helpful for preventing the toddler from wandering in and injuring himself, but not actually secure enough that Mummy can sew while he is awake unless she wants it ripped off the wall (again).

Hiding cat is hiding...he's just not very good at it...

In this picture you can see the obligatory cat which comes with the sewing space, lounging under the bespoke (read: eBayed) rickety green baize card table. Gamers close your ears, but the baize works as a plausible table-wide pin cushion. The folding chair is the ultimate space saver - making it just barely possible to get to the treadmill and occasionally sit down to sew as well. The drifts of random stuff among the fabric and sewing supplies seek to make the space seem as small as possible, but as the one place in the room the toddler cannot (currently) reach, the space can become a dumping ground for anything.

Room for expansion...? Sadface...

Storage of "the only bookcase I could squeeze any room out of" - includes, books, patterns, elastic, lingerie making stuff and some larger bits on the bottom. Also random folders of CDs and DVDs since I kinda stole these shelves from them.

There is also one other shelf between the sewing table and the sofa which has threads in little pen boxes from Tesco, but I couldn't work out how to get a picture which made any sense (because, of course, these pictures are all terribly easy to decipher).

Storage solutions at their best.

And then we have the time-honoured storage space of the floor. A cardboard box full of currently in use (read: I'm going to use it soon, honest) fabric and patterns and my two favourite things - my cantilevered sewing boxes. Sadly mostly covered with crap, but quite rigorously organised inside. One is full of notions - ribbons and trims and lace and neat little bits of stuff. The other is full of tools and needles and useful things.

You may notice behind some of these pictures random bits and pieces are also shoved into the shelves around the place and some hanging bags, but not really any significant levels of fabric. This is because all the fabric is upstairs in the bedroom, shoved in the drawers under the bed and anywhere else I can find space - it's spilling out all over, but that's some photos you don't need to see.

But where do you cut out fabric and patterns (I pretend I hear you cry)? The living room floor of course! I've never had a table that I could even remotely fit fabric or pattern pieces on - I'm not sure how I would even cut out while standing up at this point. All my pattern drafting, and cutting happens on the floor which normally means hoovering every time. When you have a toddler who likes to play and snack at the same time there are crumbs everywhere (I assume it's mostly crumbs - I try not to look too closely).

When I see other crafters' sewing spaces I do sometimes get jealous over how neat and organised and spacious they are, but mine does have benefits. I don't have to lock myself away to sew - I can still watch TV or be sociable with whoever is around. It means that when I do have clients they can have a seat or play with Oz while I do iterations on whatever they need. And it means that, since I'm not trying to make everything fit with a particular style or brand, I can enjoy my heirlooms and out of place bits and pieces. Though a bit more space wouldn't go amiss...

Commission - flannel shirt 1

2016-09-06T04:30:00.000-07:00

I have been (very slowly for life reasons) been embarking on something new which I hope will help me level up my pattern drafting and bespoke clothing making.

My dad has commissioned me to make him a casual shirt for the autumn/winter - something nicer than a t-shirt, but not a dress shirt. I suggested flannel and found this fabric:

Oo - another familiar pic...

I've been working with a book called Metric Pattern Cutting for Menswear by Winifred Aldrich which was recommended to me by the lady who ran the bra making weekend I went on earlier in the year. It's very much geared towards students looking to work in the industry and focuses on how to create pattern blocks and subsequent designs for the standard sizes used in retail, but also has a little on how to apply the blocks in this book to an individual.

Admire my fancy tissue bookmarks (unused I promise)

There are are just a few basic pattern blocks in the book from which you can create pretty much any menswear you'd be likely to see on the high street (obviously really out there high fashion stuff is a little different - this is for menswear that a man might actually wear). So there are blocks for formal and casual shirts, a couple for trousers and one or two for outerwear and that's about it. Then it goes into some ideas for how to modify the blocks to make interesting garments.

Casual shirt and knitwear blocks

This is the leisure shirt for Dad and how to create it from the block

This is definitely not a beginners book - while the instructions for creating the blocks are detailed and well explained, the instructions for transforming those blocks are less so. After all, they're mostly just supposed to be suggestions of how you might want to change things so occasionally miss out little bits of detail or assume you have enough experience or desire to experiment that you can work out the finer points of the design for yourself. Also it provides absolutely no instruction on how to sew the finished patterns at all - this is intended for designers who either will have other people sewing it together or who should have enough experience to do it themselves.

I love it. It's slightly scary working from first principles (and hoping I've measured Dad accurately), but I love watching the blocks take shape and then the blocks turn into something recognisable as a shirt pattern. I'm definitely doing a mock up rather than going straight to the good fabric to make sure, but it's looking really credible even with just the paper pieces. And the avenues of design it opens up......I have no desire at all to become a great fashion designer, but I'd love to be able to just create whatever turns up in my head confidently. And it might actually look professional and fit without a million iterations!

So on to Dad's shirt. First the block (apologies for not being very easy to see - perils of using brown paper).

Wow, that's even harder to see than I thought...but you can see it's just two pieces right?

The many pieces of a casual shirt

And these are all the pieces that come from those first two. This has actually already been cut and mostly sewn in the mock up fabric (I'm procrastinating around the plackets....I hate cuff plackets...) and hopefully soon we'll all be able to see how close this actually comes to something Dad might want to wear.

In the next blog post in this series I'll talk about fitting the mock up (and why I use "mock up" and not "muslin" or "toile") and making any adjustments to the pattern.

Technical clothes

2016-08-31T02:43:00.001-07:00

In my previous post I mentioned this hoody, which I was given for my birthday and I thought it would be a good opportunity to explain what I mean by technical clothing in my exceptions for not buying clothes.

Fashionable hoody is fashionable (credit: Sensory Direct)

First a little bit of background to why I asked for and why I looooove this hoody. I have some issues with anxiety (read: have had panic attacks and other anxiety related problems since I was tiny) and find that deep pressure helps me relax. Deep pressure is essentially a firm consistent pressure, which Temple Grandin famously found helped many people with autism cope with the world. She developed a hug machine to squeeze people to their heart's desire, but the same effect can also be felt with weighted products: weighted blankets being the most common. Since Temple Grandin implemented it as a therapy for autism it's expanded to other areas. I know quite a lot of people who find it helpful for their anxiety (though there are plenty of others with anxiety who find it anything from pointless to horrible) and plenty of people with no particular issues who find it comforting.

I made myself a weighted blanket a while ago now and sleep under it most nights (the recent heat and having to be without it was unpleasant), but it's not exactly portable, and if I'm having a stressful day and just want a bit of a top up on my calm while still being able to watch Oscar or sew, the hoody is way more convenient. Also the hoody is much easier to take if we're going away somewhere to sleep under - I can throw it on my legs or my chest and be comfortable enough even in a strange bed.

On to the technicalities! Since I did make my weighted blanket I do have some insight into how I would go about making a weighted hoody and my initial inspections when it first arrived bore out my theories. The weight in a blanket it produced by putting two layers together and essentially sewing little sealed off pockets all over the blanket full of little plastic pellets to create an even weight distribution. Here's a tutorial I looked at before I made mine.

Credit to the lady at the above tutorial. You fill each row with pellets then sew across. Fill, sew, fill, sew....

The hoody is made in a similar way - hidden pockets on the inside of the hoody contain weights of varying sizes made with this method. You can actually order additional weights to add to it, but it's plenty heavy enough for me.

dinky weight

So why not make this myself? It's just a hoody with some weights in. Well, yeah, I could make it myself, but for me there's a couple of reasons not to. The first being that I wanted it quickly (I'm impatient) and didn't want to learn how to make a halfway decent hoody from scratch first. I guess I could have found a secondhand hoody and added pockets, but that runs into all kinds of other problems with making sure the pockets are in the right place and the right size and not visible from the outside and blah blah blah.

Another reason not to make it myself I learned from making weighted blankets. My machine is great and all, but it's still just a home machine and it really really doesn't like it when it hits even small pieces of very hard plastic. There are some things it's really just not made for and dodging flying shards of shattered needles is no fun.

In future as I get better and maybe get better equipment I might try more of the things that I consider "technical" at the moment, but for now I'm happy having a little bit of leeway on not buying.

Commission - Houppelande lite

2016-08-10T05:36:00.000-07:00

I've seen this somewhere before....

You may remember the fabric for this one from my post a little while ago - this was the strange situation where the lining actually cost more than the outer fabric and I was sure that was breaking some kind of rule.

Well if it was it doesn't seem to have done any harm, for here is the completed garment:

LARP-tastic

The costume was for a Dawnish Civil Servant in Empire. The spec for this was something like a houppelande - a voluminous medieval tunic worn by the upper classes with split sleeves often made of velvet with a satin lining and/or trimmed with fur. Only my brief was to make it as if it was being worn by a civil servant rather than an aristocrat, so: no velvet, no satin, not too voluminous and open down the front...but apart from that just like a houppelande.

The good thing about historically based costume is there are some people out there who seriously love historical costume and will go to great lengths to re-create it and document every step for posterity. These are often people doing such things as a hobby so the descriptions aren't always the best, but who cares when you can actually find, at the very least, a starting point. For the not-a-houppelande I found CV's theory on the construction of the houppelande, which looks pretty extensive and super useful if I was actually making a houppelande (is the word houppelande starting to lose all meaning for anyone else...). CV has based his on a circle, but that would be far too voluminous for my purposes and also doesn't have the split down the front and the sleeves weren't really what I needed...so I drafted my own pattern instead.

Here are my wonderful sketches and detailed measurements of my client:

admire my fabulous skills

I vacillate between pride and embarrassment that I can make something that has actually come together really easily and works well from such a slapdash plan. It is a very simple garment, that I've made similar bits and pieces of before, and really I didn't need any more than this, but still I feel like I should have had a mood board or fashion drawings or something...ah well.

I turned the sketch into pattern pieces from the measurements (adding somewhat random bits here and there as ease and extra volume - bonus of a garment that's not supposed to be fitted). Even with simple garments I always make pattern pieces. I used to think I did it in case I needed to make it again in future, but the reality is it's just way easier to work with paper than with fabric. Chinello Bally from The Great British Sewing Bee a couple of years ago really got people into the idea that you don't need a pattern and that somehow this is a good thing, but really it just means you're doing all your working out and drafting directly onto your fabric. I don't know about anyone else, but I make enough changes as I draft that this would go horribly wrong for me, especially with a bouncy fabric like the black crepe for this commission.

I made up the lining first and had the client try it on, basically using it as a toile since any modifications I would need to make to it would be hidden on the inside. Luckily it didn't need any. This was a really quick and simple commission, but, because of the drafting, it was properly satisfying in a creative way. If you'll be at Empire you may even see it on the field.

Sewing machine holiday

2016-08-03T06:30:00.000-07:00

My sewing machine is having it's very first service! Given I don't even know how old it is (I got it secondhand from a friend of a friend) and how much it has been used especially over the last few years it is waaaaaay overdue for a service. I'm dreading the fluff and lack of oil and horrible things they may find inside it (I don't eat while sewing, but I do sew non-standard things now and then...), but I am very much looking forward to having it back all spiffy and working smoothly again. It's been very very slowly getting ropey over the last few months especially with more tangles and snarls and just general sluggishness, so hopefully when I get it back those will be gone and I should be able to have a carefree sewing experience (lol).

In the meantime I have more sashiko (including a sashiko commission - ooo....) to do, some pattern drafting and other non-machine-y things to do. I also have about 4 blog posts in the works, but haven't had much time/energy/will lately. Hopefully I'll be able to get more of them done while the machine is having it's spa time as well.

Birthday sashiko!

2016-07-20T07:54:00.000-07:00

It was my birthday....I was going to say 'recently', but actually over a month ago now (I've obviously not being paying attention). I got lots of lovely pressies, but I have to say the one I was second-most looking forward to was my new sashiko kit!

Yay!

(My most looked-forward-to-present I got early and was this lovely hoody of loveliness, which it is currently too hot to wear, which makes me sad).

I've been intrigued by sashiko for a while and even attempted to have a go without really knowing what it was about, but then I saw the article on it in Seamwork and had to have a go at doing it properly. It's an old form of Japanese peasant embroidery which was used specifically to patch and strengthen work clothes. It was used as a form of boro patchwork which translates as something along the lines of "too good to waste", where any cloth that could be used was used, in multiple layers, to make stronger and warmer clothes. What I find quite interesting is the traditional colour scheme - Japan had very strict sumptuary laws and one of the very few colours the peasants were allowed was indigo. I get the impression this was because it grew everywhere and they would have had trouble stopping them, but I love the idea that a dye that, certainly in Europe, was pretty rare, was what was left for the poorest peasants in Japan.

figurine of a fisherman wearing a traditional sashiko embroidered jacket

The reason sashiko appealed to me is, oddly, not because it's Japanese. I mean I like Japanese things and have been known to get interested in things just because they are Japanese (though I would like to think I've grown out of that a bit by now), but what actually appealed to me was the simplicity of colour and design. I love the look of embroidery, but I find it extremely hard to find other peoples designs that fit what I want and I'm terrible at designing for myself (Vic is the one who's picture artistic, I'm more 3D artistic) whether that's an actual lack of skill or lack of confidence makes little difference. Also I'm notoriously impatient and embroidery can take an awfully long time...

Sashiko brilliantly solves a number of these issues for me. There is a whole book of traditional and newer designs to choose from, but they're all simple running stitch and the length of time it takes is primarily dictated by how dense you want the pattern. They're all pretty abstract so I can pick what flows with the garment, rather than a picture to stamp on somewhere. Even the colours are simplified: these days you can get lots of colours of thread (which I am totally going to experiment with), but plain white to patch a pair of jeans is nice and simple and authentic with minimal decisions.

Speaking of jeans:

one side of this is not like the other...

These jeans fit brilliantly, but are wearing through all over the place so I decided a while ago to make them my sashiko jeans and just keep patching them wherever they broke. Can you tell which patch I did before I got the kit versus after I got the kit? Yeah...so the darker blue side I may just have known what I was doing just a little bit more. I've already re-done the other patch you can see here and one knee which started out like this:

not bad...

Has already had to be patched again. I've got the other knee and where my phone has rubbed through the pocket to do before I can call them done - at least for the time being. I'm sure they will be worn enough that they'll need even more patching eventually. I can't wait till they look like more patch than original jeans.

Pattern and Project Organisation

2016-07-14T02:20:00.002-07:00

My parents will be so proud to hear that, at heart, I'm an information manager. After all, that's what we do for a living and that's what they pay me for. Mum's tendency to draw up itinerary's for our more complex family days together has totally rubbed off on me and even Dad was horrified that not only did I have four packing lists for my last holiday (one for each of my family and a list of what had to make it to the car), but they were, in fact, colour-coded in multiple colours...

So it may not be a big surprise that I manage my sewing projects with a project management app called Trello. That makes it sound a bit more impressive than it is - Trello really just gives you a place to have a series of structured lists for each project. I have this blog as one board, my serious experimental/development projects each have their own board and then I have one board keeping track of repairs, works in progress and inspiration/ideas (no prizes for guessing which of these is the longest list).

A couple of Trello lists in my Bra development board (more off to the right)

I'm also in the process of putting all my patterns in a database. Mostly because if you find yourself in a fabric shop (doesn't happen nearly enough in my opinion), having an idea of what patterns you've already got and what their requirements are is seriously handy. Also because I'm starting to get so many patterns now that looking through them all to find whether I have one that fits what I'm trying to do is getting tricky. I've chosen to use Memento Database - a full on database app for android with an amazingly simple user interface given how powerful this app can be. It can not only do anything MS Access can do, but quicker, easier and a fair bit more besides. I feel a bit bad that I'm just using it to store pattern data rather than something that can use more of it's functions, but it certainly does the job.

Some say dull: I say data

Or, well...just about. You see this is where I have to hang my information manager head in shame. I figured, I'm the user and the developer: I know what comes on a pattern envelope, I'll knock this database up in no time and it'll be great! And it is, kinda, but I really should have actually taken out a few pattern envelopes to look at before I set some of the data validation. It works, but there are definitely some bits I have to squiffy to fit. It doesn't help that some patterns contain an awful lot of options. Take this one:

Front - one variation cutout for wedding scrapbook

Back - alllll the details (and in bonus French!)

For those of you unfamiliar with sewing patterns, they come as paper pieces in an envelope. The front of the envelope gives pretty pictures and/or photos of what they might look like finished (lol!), while the back gives all the details of what you actually need to make it. This pattern contains three different top patterns plus two different skirt patterns with lining and giant petticoats. How do you classify that? And what fabric length do you put down? The tops don't even need a yard of fabric, but one of the skirts takes almost 5 yards. And what notions do you put? The tops need boning, but obviously the skirts don't. I've taken the lazy way out and noted down the largest quantity's for each pattern (most don't vary anywhere near this much) and the notions for everything on the envelope (since it's generally pretty obvious which ones are for which).

But still....info manager shame. I should really improve my database or do it over from scratch, but this is good enough for my purposes.

Next task will be trying to find some way to catalogue my fabric stash in some way that conveys all the attributes of each fabric...and, judging by how we're running out of room in the bedroom, that is going to be a very long task.

Stompy Mammoth!

2016-07-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

Stompy!

Yay mammoth! I love this little guy - I made it for M to give as a present and it's totally adorable! It's a modification of the elephant pattern from a book called Stuffed Animals: From Concept to Construction. M saw me make the elephant project and asked if I could make a mammoth version - some long fur fabric, a re-draft to bigger tusks and this is what we get:

I told you that elephant pic was a clue.

Before you remind me how I dislike books that just have projects: this one has a handful of lessons for each project building up the theory and techniques that go into designing and making stuffed animals.

The main lesson for this project was about body gussets - adding an extra piece to provide more width to your softie (as they are referred to in the book). In this case it's so that the elephant can stand up - there is a gusset running down his tummy and the inside of his legs. The clever bit is the dart in the gusset so that the legs don't splay out to the sides. This is something that is explained and illustrated really simply in the book, but something I wouldn't have thought of myself without a lot of experimentation.

This guy was definitely more challenging than the elephant. I've worked with fur fabric before - even really long fur fabric (see Vic's insane shrug in the Gallery), but not on this kind of tiny scale. The large body seams weren't too bad - I added a touch of extra seam allowance and didn't mind fishing some of the trapped fur out of the seams once he was turned - but sewing on the details was really tricky. His eyes and tusks are sewn directly onto the otherwise completed mammoth, but it's really hard to tell where the fluff end and the actual structure of the fabric begins. The eyes have so many layers I'm sure they're on securely enough, but there's so little surface area of tusks to mammoth that I'm not so sure about them.

off on the trail together...

Some day I'd like to design my own softie from scratch, but I think that's a long way off...especially with all the other things I want to learn too!

Socks!

2016-06-29T16:00:00.000-07:00

Socks!

OK, to me this seems like completely ridiculous sewing, but I have made socks and it heartily amuses me. They are green, because I had some hanging around, and because what's the point of sewing if you can't make something that you'll never find in the shops. You may also notice that they don't match - the reason for this shall be revealed.

I had originally planned to exempt socks from my "no buying new" regime because I thought the only way to make them was to knit them and while I don't mind knitting I have no particular desire to spend that much of my life just making sock after sock after sock. But then Craftsy had a sewing blog post on the best sock sewing patterns and I had to try it.

After looking at the pictures the basic structure seemed easy enough that I thought I might as well make my own pattern rather than buying one. Most of the patterns and tutorials are for basic tube socks which I find fall down all the time so I added some shaping to my pattern, but kept one of the tips to help keep them up (added elastic round the top - jersey material is stretchy, but not that stretchy).

Some looking at, and drawing round, my best fitting pair of socks later and I get this:

This pattern looks weird....

The wibbly bit is the bottom with a fold over at the toe so I don't have a seam running right along my toes. The rectangle is the top.

And the seaming is why my socks don't match. Commercial socks are knitted much the same way that homemade socks can be knitted only on machines and in much much thinner, stretchier yarns. Sewing socks means seams, which means potential for them to rub or at the very least be annoying. So I made one sock with the seams on the inside and one with seams on the outside - otherwise they're the same so it should give me a good idea of which method is more comfortable. Seams on the outside may not look quite as nice (even in green), but if they're more comfortable I'll definitely be making my socks that way.

After a day of wearing them it turns out they're actually really nicely comfortable. The seams at the toe end curve just a fraction too far over so that I had a bit I kept fiddling with with my big toe, but there was no real noticeable difference between seams on the inside or the outside. The fabric was super comfy, but unfortunately I didn't use the best needle for it so the seams are pulling a little bit and this first pair probably won't last long, but all in all I'm well pleased with my first socks.

Hobby burnout

2016-06-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

I don't want to post too many pics of O here, but this is one of my favs ^_^ The toy moved every time he breathed and he was completely stunned by it.

I was reading this post from Noble and Daughter on Unheathy Sewing recently and could really relate.

Sewing became my sanity saver when O was a little baby - he had tummy issues that meant he had a lot of trouble sleeping and I was a very fraught and anxious new mum. In that blissful ignorance of the not-yet-parent I had promised to make my sister's wedding dress for early December 2014 (O was born in at the start of June). It wasn't a complicated dress, but when O was born we hadn't even really decided the design yet, let alone started making it.

But I had promised and I was going to make it so I worked on carving out whatever time I could to sew...and found plenty. Much more than I thought I had when I was in the throes of tiny baby time. Since I had to find time to sew it became a refuge: a completely valid space to have time to myself without new mum guilt.

Once the dress was done and the wedding had passed I still made a point of carving out time for sewing and found plenty of reasons. M needed costume or I wanted to make birthday or Christmas presents for people. I needed just the right coat or dress or whatever and had to sew. Then people started requesting things and I was only too happy to oblige. By September 2015 I had 4 Christmas presents, a coat and god knows what else that I felt I absolutely had to sew. Between September and Christmas I don't think I had a day off from sewing - every minute here or there I'd pick up something to pick at.

The dress, complete with crazy fluffy shrug

Needless to say this did not turn out to be terribly healthy.

I started obsessing over how much sewing I had to do and yet piling more and more projects on at the same time. It stopped being a way to relax and keep my sanity and turned into...well the exact opposite.

Thankfully I realised that and I've been taking steps to sew for pleasure and not as a horrible grind - it's my hobby after all. I love it and I want to keep on loving it. I still have projects I'm doing for people (will be posting about a couple soon hopefully) and the list of things I want to make for myself grows far far faster than I can possibly make, but that's ok. I'm always going to have more things I want to make than time to make them no matter how fast I learn to sew so there's no point pushing and pushing myself till I get stressed.

This may be a clue to a current project...

Of course I still do sometimes obsess over how much sewing I feel I have to do, but instead of being weighted down I'm trying to focus on all the possibilities stretching out in front of me....it's going to be so cool!

Rolling in fabric

2016-06-17T07:43:00.000-07:00

Ignore any and all cats you may think you see in the picture

Today has been a very good fabric day ^_^

A family friend posted me three dresses and a waistcoat that were surplus to requirements AND I just so happened to get some the last of the fabric I needed through the post for two commissions.

I looooove fabric. M laughs at me because I have been known to literally roll in fabric - just lay it out the floor ready to cut (I always cut on the floor - it's the only space I have big enough) and roll around on it a bit before I get down to work. It's just so...so...fabric!

I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok...

This I think is my favourite one I got today. It's a rust and black flannel from Croft Mill for an autumn/winter shirt. Buying fabric online can be a bit random - even if you can manage to get a sample they tend to be too small to tell much more about the fabric than the colour, but this is really nice. It has just the right weight to it and with a good wash I think it will lose its little bit of stiffness to give just the right drape for a man's shirt (i.e. not very much but not completely rigid).

Over brightened photo is too bright

These two are for another commission. The red lawn I got today (also from Croft Mill), but the black is a crepe from eBay and came a few days ago. This is a really weird situation where the lining (the red) actually cost more than the outer fabric. I think I've made the right choices, but it kind of goes against some kind of natural law...

Rollrollrollrollroll

First dress! Most people who know me these days won't know this, but I went through a total black velvet phase when I was a kid. Black velvet trousers, shirts, hats. I could wear top to toe black velvet very easily. This may not be black, but it has great stretch and weight to it that makes me think it would be super comfy (though maybe not the most breathable...). I'm actually tempted to make some loungewear (i.e. comfy, slobbing about the house wear) out of it. I may have hugged it slightly....

M and I worked out the (mostly see through) skirt starts just above crotch height...not entirely sure how you're supposed to wear it...

This dress....I have no idea. I totally have to use that skirt for something (it's just too random not too), but that's going to take some thought. Maybe some kind of bustle....

Scones anyone?

A Laura Ashley waistcoat. It seems so wrong to do anything with this - it's so classically Laura Ashley that I'm not sure I can cut into it. I like the idea of linen and cotton waistcoat though - very summer tea waiscoat. I love waistcoats - they were one of the first things I ever made.

And last, but definitely not least, this beauty. It doesn't come across in the photo, but the middle layer of this (there is an organza top layer that I've moved out of the way and a standard poly lining) is made of a really interesting viscose/acetate blend (I had to find the label). It looks like it should be a basic poly satin, but the viscose blend makes it that bit more silky, while the acetate makes it crisper. As it's a bias cut sheath dress (my favourite kind of dress and one I'm desperate to have a go at making) I'm guessing they wanted the acetate to help it keep its shape a little better. While viscose drapes like a dream, I imagine it can have the problem of bagging out in unhelpful places if worn in a close-fitting garment (it's typically made into floaty drapey garments) and the bias cut is only going to exacerbate that.

The issue with this dress is that it is a bias cut sheath dress and it may even fit me. Do I just tidy it up (probably shorten it for more of a day look) and wear it, or use the fabric for something new? I really can't decide yet - what do you think?

Sunflower patch

2016-06-15T13:34:00.000-07:00

With summer hopefully inching it's way here I'm really glad I found these trousers again and finally got around to patching them. I've been wondering whether to darn or patch and what kind of pattern to go for since last year!

These are some well worn linen trousers that I've had for a few years now. They're great for summer because they're nice and airy while still covering me up (I burn like a very burnable thing). Unfortunately the light material means that the hard wear I've put them through was a bit much. I have a coat that I made last year for the summer with embroidered flowers on it and I thought I could do similar flowers when darning these trousers.

These are the cuffs, there are also great big red flowers in the same style on the coat tails.

The thin linen of these trousers thought makes darning them a little more complicated as it may well just make a series of smaller holes around the problem area as the threads of the embroidery are stronger and may pull the fabric apart during wear. Also, although I love the way these flowers turned out on the white of my coat, they didn't seem quite right for the beige of the trousers.

A quick ferret through my stash and I found some gold polyester taffeta (side note: I love that I now have the kind of fabric stash where I can randomly find gold taffeta :)) that looked just right for a slightly jazzy sunflower.

A quick sketch and some brown cashmere blend later...

Raw materials

I use Frixion pens to mark my fabric wherever possible - they don't rub off like chalk, but disappear under an iron or steam.

Ready for sewing

The white material here is sew-in interfacing. I put that on the inside of the hole and then sewed the patch on the outside through all the layers for extra strength and stability. I decided to hand whipstitch the sunflower on, but now that I've worn them a couple of times I'm actually going to try going back over with a tiny machine stitch. I did it be hand originally because of all the tight corners, but I did my stitches a bit too tiny and they're starting to come away a little.

Done!

A pretty (and very shiny) patch!

The Great British Sewing Bee and the "Easy Button"

2016-06-08T12:21:00.000-07:00

Bee!

The Great British Sewing Bee is back! It's one of those shows I love to hate - it does everything wrong and yet I enjoy watching it every week (though mostly to yell at the screen about how they're DOING IT WRONG!). I've been getting increasingly frustrated with it this time around because my favourite section of Waterstones in Cambridge has disappeared - this may seem a bit tangential, but trust me the two are connected for reasons which will become clear.
The main reason GBSB annoys me is because it announces itself about being about the best British sewers and about how much they learn every week as they are forced to do the various challenges. These people may be learning some bits and pieces, but trust me: they are not the best sewers and they are not learning in any kind of meaningful sense. We have a fantastic heritage of sewing in the UK and these people are not good ambassadors for it. Don't get me wrong: they do some pretty cool stuff, and under pressures that are kind of insane, but that just doesn't compare to the centuries of artisan sewing we have in our culture. To have a "children's week" where they do three challenges and that's it on children's wear? Being able to do those challenges does not mean you can make children's clothing. It means you can think and act fast under pressure and have a handful of basic skills and that's about it. There is so much more to learning about how to design and draft and construct clothes and infinitely more work that's needed to be truly skillful. I consider myself a rank beginner next to even the apprentices of Saville Row and they will spend their entire careers becoming masters of only one type of clothing.

Generic sewing image - because sewing is just needle, thread and fabric right?

This has been particularly getting me down recently because with the new series comes the new book. It's full of projects from the series that you can do at home! Yay! Be just like the sewing bee'ers! Buy yet another book of sewing projects where you'll maybe get around to starting one or two, maybe finish one, and have a pretty book on the shelf that you mean to get around to doing honest. It's not even that most people who buy the book won't make anything from it - it's the fact they they're not teaching you how to sew, they are setting out steps for you to follow to make very specific items. This is fine and dandy, but there are a million and one of this type of sewing book available - we really don't need any more and certainly not a new one every series.

You can actually buy this button from Staples from your home or office....though no one knows why....

I was reading a post on Modern Retro Woman (totally awesome blog about taking the best bits from the lifestyle of mid last century. I wish I had the confidence and energy to try more of these ideas) lately on "How the Easy Button Hurts Us". If you're not interested in reading the post it basically goes into how getting sucked into the mindset that you can do anything in "three! easy! steps!" encourages us to make grandiose plans with no real idea of how to get there and then when we hit road blocks we give up because our resilience has atrophied.

"For example, before I could make a tailored blazer when I was working on my custom sewing certificate, I needed to learn how to do things like, sew a seam, do pad stitching, roll a collar, master bound buttonholes and pockets, etc. Each of those skills were tedious to learn but they were necessary for me to get to my final goal." - Modern Retro Woman

This perfectly illustrates my problem with the whole of GBSB and the project style sewing books. It's the mindset of "follow these steps and you'll have this gorgeous thing" without any of the knowledge or skills to back up what you're doing. For someone who has the knowledge and skills they're mildly entertaining, but not something you're going to spend any time or effort on because the projects have been specifically pitched to casual sewers.

Just a needle thread and some fabric....right?

So how do you learn those real fundamentals and build your sewing knowledge through to intermediate and advanced work? There aren't college or university courses for sewing - fashion, yes loads; sewing, no, at least not in any coherent fashion. The best I have been able to find are courses dotted around the country: creating a skirt block here, bra making there, couture finishes somewhere else, but no coherent path through learning how to sew at all. The only way to get better at the skills of sewing is through teaching yourself with books or the internet. The down side of that is you're still picking up odd bits of information here and there, never really even knowing what you should be looking for.

And that's why I'm annoyed at sewing bee and Waterstones. Cambridge Waterstones was my favourite bookshop because it actually had a decent sized section on books that taught you skills rather than had steps to create projects. And now it's gone: squeezed out by more three! easy! steps! books and a much much bigger fashion section. Amazon exists to buy books once I know what I'm looking for, but it was so useful having a section to browse. It was there that I would find books that made me realise I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what's possible in sewing.

I don't want to use the easy button, but sometimes it feels like the world is conspiring against me.

Bespoke - Wedding Dress

2016-06-01T13:25:00.000-07:00

This is the thing I am most proud of making at the moment and I think it will be my best for a long while.

(Thank you Carrie and Seb for letting me use a couple of wedding photos!)

A friend was looking for a wedding dress when I mentioned on Facebook that I do bespoke work. She asked if I could do a wedding dress and since I had done mine and my sister's I said I was at least happy to see what kind of thing she wanted. She sent me some ideas and we had a chat and it seemed pretty feasible.

What she wanted:

Full length
Swishy/floaty and nice to dance in
Comfortable
No boning or corsetry
And preferably cornflower blue to match the dress she was wearing on their first date (awwww....)

With a helping of extra cute!

We spent a day in London going to department stores trying her in every dress we could find. Some of them were fine, others were hilariously terrible (yes I do still have reference photos from the day.....no I'm not going to be posting those), but it was really great to get to the nitty gritty of what did and didn't work for her with these dresses.

I'm really glad too that she said it was one of the best days she'd had shopping for clothes, even though we didn't buy anything. It's the way shopping should be: really thinking about what you want, what's available and what works for you specifically. But that's a rant I'll have some other time.

We ended up with a spec for a cross back, empire line dress with a split layered skirt in different blues so that the different tones showed through as she moved. Lace as the top layer turned it from "dress" to "wedding dress". The cross back was a great compromise between sleeves and sleeveless - it was comfortable and easy to wear without the restrictiveness of sleeves, the fuss of straps falling down or the dress needing an occasional boost. I actually made the straps as tubes wide enough for her multiway bra straps to go down inside them, so no worries at all about visible underwear either.

Pretty......

The key to really nice garments is definitely the fit and the fabric - this wasn't a complex or particularly impressive design, but she was willing to pay well for the right materials and that's what really made it work. Finding a cornflower blue silk was definitely the hardest part. After a very very long time trawling through the internet I found Beckford Silk and I have to said I'm really glad I did. Their fabric walks the fine line between insanely good and insanely expensive - the quality is better than anything I had ever dreamed of working with and the prices (though definitely bridal rather than day wear) were at least feasible. They had cornflower blue silk crepe, but they will also dye to order for a price, so the possibilities are endless. Next time I get the chance I would love to buy more from them, though I probably can't afford much more than a camisole's worth.

The corded lace was another matter entirely: around twice the price of even the silk. I looked everywhere for cheaper options, but honestly it's just not possible to cut corners with this kind of lace overlay if you want any drape at all. In the end though it was completely worth it. It had the perfect balance of drape, texture, pattern and opacity. I have some little bits of the scalloped edge left over which may show up in future makes.

I was originally planning to modify an existing pattern as I've not done pattern drafting from scratch before, but as we discussed it and made more and more changes it just made sense to draft it from scratch. The first mock-up of the dress in muslin and calico went really well and I perhaps got slightly over-confident as the second fitting....not so well. But a dash of terror at the thought that I might ruin their big day, and actually not nearly as much extra work as it had seemed during the fitting, and by the final fitting all was well.

On the day I packed a mini travel sewing kit just in case (professionalism or paranoia? You decide), but I actually left it in the car. I knew she was going to look awesome, but I hadn't realised quite how lovely it would all look together. In the full outfit with make up, hair and jewellery she looked absolutely stunning and I can only feel grateful that I got to be a part of that.

And the first dance put all other first dances to shame!

Swish!

Congratulations Carrie and Seb!

Bespoke - Kimono Wrap

2016-05-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

This is a make that I actually did in September/October time for a friend I met through the anime folk in Cambridge (so many anime enthusiasts and artists in the Cambridge area: it's awesome). She had a kimono-style wrap/robe she loved the style of but not so much the fabric. It was a bit too polyester and while she liked the pattern of the fabric she preferred different colours.

I mentioned on Facebook that I could copy any existing garment without damaging it and that was just what she was after - she didn't want to risk losing the one she had, but she wanted something just like it.

The Original

She didn't know exactly the fabric she wanted so I offered to have a trawl around for something appropriate: kimono/japanese style, but in cotton or poly-cotton for breathe-ability and preferably turquoise.

To make a direct copy - same fit, same facings round the edges, same everything - I used a technique called the "rub off method" (though the version of the method I use uses pins instead of chalk so no rubbing is actually involved). The basic principle is to stick pins in the original garment on each seam, one piece at a time, into a sheet of paper, thereby creating an outline of the piece, though it's not as easy as it sounds. I don't have any in progress pics of this particular make, but here are a couple I just did for one piece of a pair of pants (for reasons which will become clear in a subsequent post).

The setup

I use the floor for most of my cutting out as it's the only space I have that's big enough, but it has an extra benefit for this method as I can stick the pins all the way into the carpet and they stay put...probably shouldn't, but it's really handy. My son's blocks are the best pattern weights I've ever come across.

With pins

Sorry this isn't the clearest photo, but hopefully you can see the pins stuck round the back piece including the curve in the back seam.

Final pattern piece

I thought black pen on brown paper would show up better than this...that's a learning experience for later photos... But here's the final pattern piece: once you take the piece and the original garment of the paper it's just a matter of connect the dots as long as you haven't had to move them around too much. I have to put a big notice to myself though - no seam allowance! I'm used to using patterns with seam allowances included so I actually tend to add a 10mm seam allowance to the pattern pieces I create before I cut them out, but for these pants I wanted the ability to add a variety of seam allowances on different cuttings.

Looks pretty easy right? And for a pair of pants it is - where it gets complicated is when your garment has darts, or pleats, or cuffs, or awkward inner curves, or anything else that makes a garment a garment. For the kimono wrap it was relatively straight-forward in terms of the shapes of the pattern pieces (kimonos are typically made with straight seams, although western copies like this one one take some license with this and add some minimal shaping with curved armholes and sleeve caps), but the fabric was very drapey. Fantastic for a lovely look when worn, but determined to bend and twist and stretch when trying to pin it to floor.

And the final wrap?

Newer and bluer

Not quite turquoise, but a lovely fabric nonetheless. The photo doesn't quite do it justice - it actually has accents of gold on the edges of the flowers and some lovely rich colours. I'm pleased to say the owner of the original was very happy with it.

If you have a garment you would like a copy of please contact me at jen.m.denton@gmail.com or Skype name jen.m.denton.

Satisfaction of repairs

2016-05-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

Doing a big bunch of repairs is so satisfying. Sometimes I find it hard to get around to the repairs hanging around the house, but once I do it's always faster than I think and suddenly a big long to do list is down to almost nothing.

Repairs done in the last batch (about 45mins):

Button and vent fixed on M's coat
Zip repaired on wiggle dress
Handle and zip fixed on sheep bag
Strap reattached to latest version of bra (I'll be posting about my attempts to make a perfectly fitting bra soon)
Finish a little bit of an experimental patch on the back of my jeans.

Boom! Repair list down to one item...which is going to be horribly fiddly and I'm dreading, but still: progress!

Next step: to get the red skirt I bought at the vintage fair adjusted.

This skirt

So the problems with this skirt were:

it's too long, and
it's a wrap skirt with the fun of being able to blow open at any moment.

Easy peasey. I sewed up the side to make it into a rough tube first and then held my breath and cut off the ties. I always hate cutting bits off a finished garment even if it's to improve it. There's always the chance that I could be making a mistake...In this case even if I had made a mistake cutting the ties off they would have been super easy to re-attach, but I still brace myself every time.

Anyway. Ties gone, I folded over the waistband to create a tube for the elastic. Since the length was also a problem with this one I folded over twice to bring the hem up a bit without having to cut the skirt anymore than necessary. Quick edgestitch round the casing and then I actually unpicked the seam I had just made in the side a teeny bit to fit some elastic through. Once the elastic was in, I hand stitched that closed and ta dah!

So skirt. Many wow.

I think it makes me look taller....

It was such a quick and easy alteration I did it with this one that's been sat around in my wardrobe for a year or two too.

Black!

This one was even easier as it didn't need shortening and already had a waistband I could feed elastic through and sew back up. The waistband on this one also has belt loops so I've kept the ties and sewn them together into one belt. It's not necessary to keep it up, but is kind of in keeping with the boho feel of it...and I won't have to brace again myself to throw them away...

The Cambridge Affordable Vintage Fair

2016-05-11T11:56:00.002-07:00

This weekend was the Cambridge Affordable Vintage Fair! I love it so much - I've been trying to get back to it since my first visit for the November event, but various life things have been getting in the way since then, so I was determined to get there this weekend.

I've really got into buying second hand and vintage the past couple of years, though I've always had a tendency to "inherit" clothes from family. There is near endless variety since you could find anything from the last 60 years and the quality is generally significantly better than what's new in the shops at the moment. If it wasn't it wouldn't have survived to be second hand.

But on to the vintage fair.

The reason (if I needed one) for this particular outing was to find something to go with this dress:

It's a cute sixty's high neck thing with a lovely flare to the skirt given by the pleats. It's vintage, but I actually got it off eBay (it even came with the original hanger!). It's made of a really strange canvas-y stuff, but fully lined so it's comfy to wear. Unfortunately I'm very fair skinned and it's sleeveless, so in the summer I'm going to need something to throw over to cover my arms if I start to get crispy. It came with a jacket...

...but yeah - not overly helpful and, to be honest, I look daft in it. The problem is the dress is high necked, so my go to solution of "throw a shirt over it" doesn't work. But the weather was gorgeous, so I put on the dress and off to the fair I went!

I could spend a loooooooot of money there. Take a look at these photos of the day. That's only a tiny part of it. I was worried my first time that "affordable" was going to be a bit optimistic, but actually it really is. Some of the shirts and other tops I was looking at I would expect to pay a minimum of £25-£30 for in the shops (not that you could find anything quite like these at the shops), but were going for around £15 at the fair.

I was surprised the first time I went to find that a lot of men go too, and there's a lot of menswear on sale. It's by no means 50/50, but maybe 60/40 women/men who were there. I had assumed something quite so fashion oriented as a vintage fair would be a fairly female preserve, but it makes sense. Menswear in the shops at the moment is pretty dull unless you're into very particular sub-cultures. Very much the same selection of shirts and trousers over and over again in slightly different colours, whereas the fair has pretty much anything you can think of from the fifties onwards...as long as you don't want trousers. I've never seen a pair of trousers (men's or women's) at this vintage fair, but no one seemed to mind.

But I had my own mission! Which kinda failed. I didn't find anything to go over my dress. On the other hand I did find this gorgeous wrap skirt.

The photo doesn't do the colour justice - it's really rich and vibrant. I wore it to Vicki Dalton's birthday shenanigans yesterday and decided that it's a little too long. Also, because it's a wrap skirt, I fear every gust of wind is going to blow it open, but that's easily fixed. I'll sew up the side, fold over the top for an elastic casing and it'll be a perfect maxi skirt. I'll post the final result once it's done.