Tricky Seams: Crafting for the creatively inept!

Aztec Prints - Ahead of the trend and on a budget

2013-04-07T19:00:00.003+01:00

Last summer I bought some aztec print jersey fabric off eBay, some in pink and some in blue. It cost me about £3 a metre and I loved the print!

I made myself a short shirred summer dress out of the pink, and used the blue to cheat my way to a maxi dress. It seems that I was ahead of the trend as aztec print seems to be all over the UK high street at the moment and is a massive trend as part of the ethnic/global traveller trend! Now I know a lot of people sew because they want freedom from following trends, but I think that sometimes there can be a misconception that if you make your own clothes you can't be fashionable and I want to show that that's not true! For those that like to follow fashion I've done a few comparisons to show how you can sew your own clothes and stay trendy on a budget, and even beat the fashionistas to it...

My coral pink shirred aztec dress (worn over a t-shirt in this instance):

New Look coral pink midi dress:

Now I could have easily made my dress in that shape but I didn't (and I wouldn't buy the New Look version) because the midi length isn't good for me, nor is that shape of dress, and I think this is a prime example of the versatility of sewing. With a bit of sewing on my part (and neither of these dresses were difficult due to the nature of the jersey fabric and the ease of the techniques used) I've been able to fashion myself a dress in a very similar print that suits my body shape! Another benefit was that I was able to make mine in a way that meant I could wear it as a skirt as well and get double the wear out of it:

For any doubters, I wore this dress a lot last summer, both as a dress and a skirt, and it made a great beach cover-up too. The final plus point of sewing it myself? Mine was made for a fiver!

My aztec print black bandeau maxi dress:

Boohoo.com aztec print black bandeau maxi dress:

I really like both versions of this dress, but it's just another example of how you can beat the fashion industry and make your own individual items that are original AND cheap. This dress from boohoo.com is currently sold out and costs £26. Mine cost about £7 to make and I could whip another up before that boohoo.com one came back in stock...

And another bonus to making your own? Leftover fabric!! I fancied a quick and easy project today and so quickly conjured up this cute little strapless top from the leftovers! (Excuse mess and grumpy face!!)

So have a think about it, sewing your own clothes doesn't have to mean that you can't be trendy and can mean that you can follow trends on a budget without having to fight with the rabble in Primark!

Little love heart blouse

2012-11-13T14:39:00.001+00:00

This blouse should have been finished weeks ago, but I got angry at it when I was so close to finishing and ended up abandoning it and losing my sewing mojo. Today I finally picked it up again and sorted out the 'issues' and got it finished!

Simplicity 1779

Why did I choose this pattern?
I have a lovely purple blouse from Tesco of all places which is a very similar style to that shown in this pattern. It's a sheer fabric with a tie that ties into a bow and little floaty sleeves and I love it, but it's falling apart. So when I saw this pattern and some lovely heart print georgette at Fabric Land, I thought I could recreate my favourite blouse. I was slightly put off when I googled the pattern number and saw that most of the people that had already made this blouse didn't like what they'd ended up with, and I thought a lot of the blouses looked a bit 'mumsy' so I was worried that I too would end up with a mumsy blouse!

What fabric did I use?
I used a dark navy/black georgette fabric with little pink and red hearts all over it. It's a see-through fabric so I'll need to wear a vest under it but I prefer the look of see-through blouses so that was always my intention.

Was it easy to make?
Reasonably, though I seemed to make a few errors along the way and things didn't always line up the way I expected despite using the pattern markings. I'm sure that I just did something silly! The placket, tie and collar are a little bit fiddly but it still went together easily. I used my overlocker for the seams which means no fraying, hooray!

Any difficulties?
When I put the front tie on it didn't line up properly above the front placket and on one side there was a big gap between the placket and where the tie was attached to the blouse. When I tied the tie you could still see the big gap, so I had to do some inventive sewing to get it to line up properly. I'm not sure what happened as I followed the pattern markings but I managed to sort it in the end!

I also originally put the short floaty sleeves on the match the blouse I already had but for some reason I felt that the blouse looked too old ladyish with the sleeves on, maybe the print and the sleeves combined had that effect? Anyway I ended up removing them and am happier with the way it looks in it's sleeveless style.

Am I happy with the finished result?
Reasonably. I'm not entirely happy with the way it fits, it's quite big around the bust and quite low around the neck which meant I didn't even need to bother using buttons and buttonholes because I can get the blouse on and off without undoing it, so I just sewed the front placket together. Let's face it, if the choice was buttoning and unbuttoning or just pulling it on, I would have gone for pulling it on anyway (clearly I'm lazy) so I didn't see the point in adding buttons I'd never use. I think I'd prefer it if it tied higher around the neck so you can't see the vest underneath but as I want to wear it casually being able to see the vest underneath sort of works!

However, despite all that, I'm wearing it at the moment and I think it looks quite cute so I can definitely see me wearing it, and it's not going to be relegated to the back of the wardrobe like I thought it would be when I'd abandoned it!

Pictures

£2.40 Simplicity 1873 practice run that wasn't a practice run...

2012-10-21T20:41:00.001+01:00

I picked up a purple paisley print crepe remnant in Fabric Land for £2.40. It was about 1.4m so I thought I'd be able to do a practice run of Simplicity Cynthia Rowley 1873 out of it before using the more expensive crepe I got for my birthday. It turned out that actually, no, that wasn't going to happen, even for view C (as shown on the model), because due to all the pleats in the skirt the pieces are mahoooosive! So instead I ended up using the skirt pieces from Burda 7739 to make a gathered skirt. It was the bodice I really wanted to check anyway as I wanted to check the fit and practice the invisible zip.

Anyway the modified version of this went together really quickly! The instructions for the lining were really good so the lining went in easily (much better than my first ever attempt at lining at bodice with McCall's M6011, McCall's could learn a thing or two from this pattern) and I had just happened to have read Karen's post about turning darts in the lining into pleats to give the lining some extra give so I tried it out. I'm glad I did as it worked out very well!

This was my first time inserting an invisible zip. I can't believe I've got to this point without attempting one but I always thought I had to have an invisible zip foot and that invisible zips were scary. However after some googling and a great tutorial by Kay of Sew Serendipity, I no longer fear the invisible zip! Considering for a long time I inserted zips without a zip foot, I really should have known that an invisible zip could be done with a normal zip foot!

My first invisible zip!

This is the first Simplicity pattern I've used and I have to say that I wasn't too impressed by the fit. I tried the bodice on before I sewed it up and found that the bodice was going to be too tight at the waist and gaped massively at the top of my back around the neckline. So I ended up having to make some adjustments to try and sort that out (and I succeeded) but the dress still doesn't fit as well as I'd like around the bust. I'm happy with it and I'll definitely still wear it a lot but it could have been better! I have no idea what shape person the bodice was meant to fit but it definitely wasn't Lucy shape.

So here's the finished article. I already had the pattern, zip, lining fabric and thread in my stash so this dress only cost me the £2.40 that the fabric remnant cost and for that reason I'm not so worried about the bust fitting!

This picture shows best the folding I'm getting around the bust where the fit isn't great on me!

I've spent today working on adjusting the bodice pattern and it's been a labour of love let me tell you... I've never even moved a dart before and this has involved moving darts and turning darts into princess seams (because I like the way they look) but that's a post for another day!

McCall's M6503 - My new love

2012-10-12T14:53:00.001+01:00

Foreword: I haven't been around for a while again, you may or may not have noticed. Unfortunately I became ill at the beginning of September, was misdiagnosed several times thanks to my high pain threshold and non-typical symptoms. Anyway I ended up in hospital for a week with what eventually turned out to be a ruptured appendix which had leaked a litre of fluid into my abdomen and caused havoc. Turns out that I was in a life threatening situation, mainly because due to my misdiagnosis' I'd been walking around with the ruptured appendix for 2 weeks AND had been on holiday with it, which mystified my consultant! One emergency operation later, a whole load of antibiotics and then further complications, here I am. I've been signed off for 6 weeks and I can't drive for 6 weeks which means I've had to admit defeat and miss my final year of university because I was told I can't miss 6 weeks and still pass, and my course isn't the type I could study from home. The one positive in this is that I asked for a whole load of sewing stuff for my birthday in September and I now have plenty of time on my hands to sew now I feel more like a human being!

Onto the main post....

I bought some lovely navy blue polka dot crepe de chine fabric from FabricLand (£3.33 a metre) and McCall's M6503 a while back with the intention of sewing it just before I went back to university. Unfortunately I ended up in hospital so that didn't happen but this week I finally felt up to sewing again and so have kept myself free from boredom by working on this.

Originally I had planned to make view D with the ruffle but having googled other people's versions I decided that the ruffle was too flouncy for me and so I decided to make a sleeveless version of view C (the blue one). The construction was relatively easy, the front facings, collar and midriff were quite fiddly but I got there in the end. I decided to use my trusty pinking shears to stop the fabric from fraying and I quite like the way it looks. I did make a couple of amendments to the pattern, the pattern advises that the side zip is inserted about an inch below the armhole, so there's meant to be an inch of stitching, then the zip. If anyone's like me then they find garments with those sort of zips really awkward to get in and out of, so I inserted the zip right at the bottom of the armhole to make it easier for me to get it on and off. For that reason I then decided not to put buttons on the front of the dress as I didn't need them and I preferred the way the dress looked without them. Instead I just slip stitched the front facings of the dress together, which also helped with the gaping caused by my small bust vs McCall's insistence on gathering on the bodice rather than darts. The size 12 in this pattern fits me like a glove and so no size adjustments were needed!

This dress has to be a favourite out of all of the dress I've made, if not the favourite. I love navy blue. I love polka dots. I love the way this fabric feels and hangs. I love the fit. I love the style. This dress just fits so easily into my wardrobe and is a style that I will wear all the time. Not only that but it will fit beautifully into both my summer and winter wardrobes as it's great for layering with tights and a cardigan, but also for wearing alone with sunglasses and flip-flops in the summer!

Styling for Autumn/Winter 2012/13

Follow the yellow brick road....

2012-08-10T10:24:00.000+01:00

I was invited to a fancy dress party with the theme of 'Dead Celebrities'. I'd never even heard of a theme like that and was completely puzzled as to who I could go as that wasn't too obvious or too expensive to create! I thought about Marilyn Monroe (too obvious), Amy Winehouse (a good idea but another obvious choice), I even did a quiz online that told me I should be Lucy from 'I Love Lucy' (ironic since I'm also a Lucy) but it looked too difficult and meant expensive wigs and no-one knowing who I was meant to be! So eventually I settled on Judy Garland which meant I could go as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz! I also knew that this was a costume that I could make very cheaply and I already had a suitable pattern...

Remember the first ever dress I made, Burda 7739? Well, as you can see, included in that pattern were the pieces for a pinafore dress. Now it's actually technically a 'jumper' and is recommended to be made out of knit fabrics, but I just chucked the rules out of the window and made it out of gingham cotton with a few amendments. My other Burda dress is slighly too big so I cut the bodice for this one out in a size 10, which then meant that my existing skirt pieces would be too big, so instead of pleating the skirt as it advises in the pattern, I gathered it to fit the bodice. I also just sewed the straps on rather than making buttons as this is more true to the original Dorothy outfit!

Sorry, this picture was taken after I'd worn it!

I already had a cute little blouse I could wear under the dress (I wasn't going for the high necked look on a night out!) and out of some fabric leftovers I made a cute bow for my hair like Dorothy's in the above picture. And of course I needed the shoes....

Now those of you that have read some of my other recent posts will know that I've recently had a toe operation and this has meant needing to wear open-toe shoes, and they also needed to be flat to avoid putting excess pressure on my toe. After much searching on eBay I couldn't find any shoes that fit the requirements so I ended up glittering my own! I bought a pair of red polka dot open-toe flats in the sale for £4 in Asda, and two pots of red glitter from The Works at 50p a pot. My mum already had some Modge Podge glittery PVA glue so I set about getting glitterfied! I painted a section of the shoe with glue and then sprinkled some of my glitter over it. I then did the entire shoe, glittering a small section at a time, then the other shoe and left them to dry. Once they'd dried I then went over again and did another layer and I then filled in any gaps I found. Once they were dry I sprayed them with hairspray on a daily basis to encourage the glitter to stay on and not go everywhere!! Luckily for me, it stayed and my shoes returned home still glittery after the party!

And here's the finished result! Unfortunately you can't see my shoes or my bow in this picture but you get the idea!

The cheat's maxi dress!

2012-08-09T17:41:00.003+01:00

I've been wanting to make a maxi dress for a while and I bought this gorgeous turquoise fabric in the hope of making one! Unfortunately I'd worked out the measurements wrong and the length I bought meant that I could only make a complete maxi dress out of it if the lines on the fabric were vertical not horizontal, which I didn't want! So I went looking for plain black jersey in the hope of making a shirred bodice and attaching it, but it was all too expensive and I wanted to make this now! So I ended up modifying a top to make this maxi dress and that was the birth of 'The cheat's maxi dress'! I've written a tutorial because this is an ideal project for beginners or someone who wants to make an easy maxi dress on the cheap! Mine only cost £7! I hope you like it, I do!

Easy and versatile dress - the perfect sewing project!

2012-07-18T22:19:00.005+01:00

I mentioned in my last post that I had bought some gorgeous jersey fabric and had another project on the way.... well a spool of elastic thread later and here I am with a quick and easy new garment that I'm in love with! Why am I in love with it? Because not only was it an instant gratification project (and I am queen of instant gratification), it was fun to make, it looks really cute on and it's really simple yet versatile which means I'll get a lot of wear out of it. There are some garments that you make that look really nice on but they only get worn once in a blue moon because they only suit a particular occasion, or they don't go with anything else in your wardrobe, and what you really need is a garment that can be worn in several different ways. No it's not one of those multiway dresses, and you'll probably all think, 'Is that it?!' but if you know me then you know how much I live for pretty everyday dresses!

So I bring you, my shirred summer dress! This is my first time ever attempting shirring, I'd seen pre-shirred fabric before but I didn't even realise you could do it yourself until I came across a tutorial by Disney at Ruffles and Stuff (and finding the tutorial via google led me to her amazing blog/site and creations and her cute daughter Paige) which explained what to do perfectly. She covered every detail exactly and doing what she recommended worked brilliantly for me! I've seen people say they can make dresses using this technique in 20 minutes, well I must be a slow sewer because the whole thing took me about 2.5 hours but that's still good going I think.

My fabric was actually from Ebay and it was just a 1m piece, but was 1.5m in width so enough to make this short dress with fabric leftover! It's 96% cotton and 4% lycra/elastane, so soft but stretchy! I really loved the colour and the print, what do you think?

I also had to buy a spool of elastic thread (mine was white and 10m in length), as well as some thread to match my fabric. The elastic thread actually acts as the bobbin with the coloured thread on the top so it's best to sew on the right side of the fabric so you have your coloured thread on top which will blend in, rather than some garish elastic! I could have chosen to sew an elastic casing round the top of the dress to make it neater but I quite like the shirred effect and so I just sewed a hem round the top and started the shirring directly underneath.

This dress cost me £5.80 in total to make and so is a bargain as far as I'm concerned! The shirring means that it can be worn as a dress or as a skirt and it can be worn in a variety of ways. I'm really in the habit of wearing different garments together and disguising them to look like one garment when actually I'm wearing several and having people ask me where I got my dress from when actually it's a top and a skirt, or a top and a dress, and this dress is ideal for that!

Here's some pictures of the dress, please excuse the grainy pictures (they're taken on my webcam due to the broken camera issue), the fluffy hair and the cheesy grin!

On it's own...

Shirring folded over and worn as a skirt...

Worn with a t-shirt underneath for colder days...

This dress will also look perfect with a cute cardigan or my cropped denim jacket, I can't wait to give it it's first outing! Now just to wait for it to stop raining....

Floaty flutterby skirt

2012-07-17T22:41:00.002+01:00

It's been a while hasn't it? I've been incredibly busy at university, I know that's not really an excuse but I've had exams, two months of placement where I was in four different places each week and then swapped to four other places halfway through and couldn't think about anything other than working and keeping my head above water, but then I finally made it and finished the year! However I then had an operation on my foot which led to pain and then finally some sewing! But only very easy sewing...

Prior to my foot operation I went to Fabric Land to have a look at some pretty fabrics to make things with and I saw this cerise butterfly georgette fabric and couldn't resist, I knew I had to have it!

At only £4.44 a metre I couldn't say no, and I decided to make a quick and easy elasticated waist skirt from it. So I bought some thick black elastic to accompany it and off I went! There are loads of elastic waist tutorials out there but I based my skirt on this 20 minute skirt tutorial and a bit of my imagination. As the fabric was so sheer and see-through I knew I needed to use either a lining fabric or a double layer so I went for the double layer and made one layer shorter than the other to make the skirt a bit more interesting and original. It's the bottom layer which is shorter which works with the see-through effect of the fabric. I also used a more traditional waistband insertion (sewing right sides together) rather than using zig zag stitch to attach the right side of the skirt to the wrong side of the waistband as recommended in the tutorial because I didn't want to be able to see the stitching on the waistband. This was also my first project using pinking shears to stop fraying, though I can't say I'm convinced by them yet!

Here's the finished article, I think it's very pretty and I feel very girly in it!

I really do need to work on taking some better pictures though don't I? Unfortunately my digital camera's died on me so I'm at the mercy of my phone's camera! Thankfully you can't see me rather attractive surgical sandal in these pictures!

Hopefully there'll be more projects on the way soon, I've just bought some gorgeous jersey fabric which I'm hoping to create something with!

The end of another year....

2011-12-30T21:28:00.000+00:00

It's been just over a year since I started blogging here and a year ago today I finished my first dress, Burda 7739. I know I've not been the most frequent blogger or sewer but despite it all I've still accomplished the following:

4 dresses from scratch
3 refashions - a dress, a dress into a top and a pair of jeans into a skirt
2 customised t-shirts
3 skirts
2 hats
4 snoods
1 Dalek

I don't think that's too bad, do you? I've had time to make much more but not really had the motivation or the need for any more clothes in my wardrobe! I started the year on a sewing rampage and that's since changed to all knitting and barely any sewing thanks to knitting being far more portable and easier to pick up and put down so I can do a little at a time when I have a spare moment. I'm really enjoying it at the moment and I have to go with what I enjoy!

Christmas

Was it good for you? I had a lovely time with my family and it's all over far too quickly, as usual! Prior to Christmas I did a little bit of crafting, a while back I said I wanted to make some Christmas crackers and I accomplished that goal, they were so sparkly!!

You'll also notice some Christmas place mats, they were mum's creation! Apparently it's been her dream to make some quilted Christmas place mats so off we went to Fabric Land and bought ourselves everything we needed to make some! They were very quick to make, my mum isn't very good at 'random' stitching and it required some random patterns for the quilting so I sat down and whizzed them round on the sewing machine to make the quilted effect and she did the rest! They're reversible and though these photos don't show the quilting very well you can see the different fabrics used.

Mum was really proud of herself and pleased with them, but threatened anyone who spilled anything on them on Christmas day so we were all on our best behaviour!!

Then for Christmas day I received a few lovely crafty gifts! My aunt made me this cute little needle book, apparently the button is around 60 years old!

She also got me the SINGER Complete photo guide to sewing which will definitely come in handy!

My mum got me a knitting gift, a month or so ago we were in Hobbycraft and on the mannequin was a lovely jumper made of the softest wool and I loved it but I was intimidated by it as I've never made a jumper before! Well for Christmas my mum had bought me the pattern and the wool for me to make it, apparently it's an easy knit so if I can knit a Dalek then I can knit this jumper! It's Sirdar 9493, I've had a look over the pattern and it's not too difficult so I'll update you with my progress.

The final comment is regarding Derek the Dalek, no-one even realised I'd knitted him myself until I pointed it out which was great news and he's now proudly on display in our lounge!!

My excuse for not blogging.... Meet Derek!

2011-12-20T21:29:00.001+00:00

Derek is a Dr Who Dalek, just in case you don't recognise it, and he's been my most challenging knitting project to date! I didn't think I'd be able to do it because it involved a lot of techniques I've never done before such as I-cord and making bobbles but I managed it and he doesn't look too shabby!! He's my dad's Christmas present and I've been working hard on him for the past month with the . My dad is one of those people who's impossible to buy presents for so when I saw this pattern on Ravelry I knew it would be perfect! It's been slow progress, mainly because there's only so many bobbles I can do in one go before I want to kill myself, and partly because I kept stopping to play with him half way through knitting, I'm a bit sad to give him away actually, he's so cute! When I'm suitably recovered I might knit myself my own one, maybe a special pink dalek!

I'm so proud of him and of myself for managing to knit more than hats/scarves/gloves! On that note I'll leave you with one more (blurry) picture of me blowing kisses at Derek...

Creating some Christmas sparkle!

2011-11-30T12:40:00.000+00:00

I mentioned in my previous post that I had bought a plain lace dress to wear over the Christmas period but that I wanted to sparkle it up a bit, well it's definitely more sparkly now and a lot quicker than I thought! I managed to get an enormous pack of sequins in poundland, for (you guessed it) £1 which brings total cost of the dress to £15 which is pretty bargainous I think!

I've gone for a scattering of sequins all over with a more concentrated area of sequins around the bottom of the dress and a line of sequins around the edge of each sleeve. There are probably a good 150 - 200 sequins on there but that won't be that clear from the photos as you can only really see the sequins that the light was shining on at the time. I haven't done anything with the back yet and am undecided about whether to leave it plain or whether to add sequins to it. I'm also not sure whether I should do the same with the hem at the bottom of the dress as I've done with the sleeve cuffs. What do you think?

Anyway, here are some pictures for you!

Knitting epiphanies - When the wrong way turns out to be the best way

2011-11-26T19:23:00.000+00:00

My reading week was spent knitting a load of snoods over the reading week for a craft fair my auntie was doing, I figured they're popular now and people are more likely to buy them (and they did), I just have one left. Here are some of them, note that they are smaller than my snood which is enormous and sit more closely round the neck which is much better!

I love the cabling on them and they were nice and quick to make!! The purple one is still left over though, one lady must have tried it on a million times but didn't buy it :-(

Anyway, I've since moved on to bigger and more challenging things, I've decided to start my most complicated knitting pattern to date, I'm knitting a Dr Who Dalek!! I'm so excited by this project and it's not at all repetitive, it requires a lot of concentration so it's more fun to knit than other things however it involves a lot of techniques I've never used before. I'm using double knit wool and 4mm needles but I think it's still going to be enormous, we'll see...

Knitting this dalek has caused me to have an epiphany, an epiphany related to knitting bobbles! My Dalek pattern has a lot of 'mb' in it, or 'make bobble' and I've never had the need to make bobbles up until this point. So I did what I always do, read up on it, watched you tube videos and followed the instructions on the pattern but my bobbles didn't really look like bobbles and they definitely didn't look like the bobbles on the pattern writer's Dalek. In fact every bobble seemed to look different! So I kept trying and today I came to it and was merrily knitting away at my bobble when I realised that I'd knitted my bobble wrong! I'd knitted where I was supposed to be purling and I changed back to the original coloured wool/yarn a little later than I was meant to. Swearing away at myself I feared the worst and went to look at what I'd done, and what had I done? I appeared to have made a perfect bobble, one which looked like the ones in the pictures! So to check it wasn't a fluke I used my new 'method' for the next bobble and that bobble looked perfect too. So I made a note on the pattern and decided to use my new technique for bobble making instead of the original instructions. Now, I am a person who tends to follow instructions religiously, when I'm cooking, when I'm crafting, when I'm putting together furniture... because I panic that if I don't it's all going to go wrong! So what was my epiphany? Sometimes, just because one way is meant to be the right way it doesn't necessarily mean it's the only way. And sometimes mistakes are a blessing because they open your eyes to a new way of doing things. And finally, just because it's the 'right' way it doesn't always mean that it's the best way. So if you stumble across something which makes your life a lot easier then don't be afraid to go with it because one size doesn't always fit all!

I'm sure I'll be back soon reporting on how my Dalek is doing! I also have another project in the pipeline, I bought a dress today from Asda for Christmas parties and I had wanted a dress with a bit of sparkle but this dress doesn't have any (however it looked good and was too much of a bargain to pass up)! Never fear, I plan to get myself some sequins and sew them onto my dress to make it a bit more sparkly and original! I'll definitely be back with pics.

Snood in the hood

2011-11-06T17:34:00.000+00:00

Ok so officially cheesiest blog title ever, but my snood is finished! Put it on the minute I finished and am loving it, used one skein of cheap wool for it so price wise worked out about £2.50 in price, cheaper than Primark! Excuse rubbish lighting, my uni room is incredibly badly lit!

It's a bit massive but it means it can be folded and I can wrap it around a bit for wearing under my coat for extra snuggliness :-)

What's in my head? A rundown...

2011-11-05T16:40:00.000+00:00

I haven't blogged for a while and that's because there's nothing going on which lends itself to one post on a particular subject, and also because I've been wrapped up in a university essay! So instead I'm just going to write everything down that's going through my head (craft related of course!) just so you can all see what lies ahead.

Snoods: These are EVERYWHERE at the moment. Karen knitted herself one and Jane sneakily got her mum to knit her one! My friend bought one in Primark the other day for £5 and while she was trying it out I was wondering whether I could make one for cheaper. The decision was ultimately 'of course I can'! So I picked up some chunky wool that would go well with the colour of my coat (which is a plum colour so some colours might clash!) and have just started knitting myself one in a simple 2x2 ribbing.

As an aside, me and my friend can't agree, is snood pronounced with the 'oo' sounding like in food or like in hood? I was arguing for it being more like the oo in hood, so I say 'snud' and she says 'snoooood'. Haha.

Christmas presents: It's looming, I even went to the turning on of the Christmas lights in my city the other day (and there were lots of freebies and free wine on offer which makes a poor student very happy!) so I'm aware I need to get thinking about pressies. Last year I bought my mum a cake stand because she was insistent that she wanted one, however since I bought it for her it's never had any cake on it and spends it's life as more of a posh fruit bowl! So I've decided that I'm going to make her some Christmas cupcakes (in the style of mini Christmas cakes) so that she can actually put her cake stand to good use! I might also make her a dress, but am still a bit undecided about that.
For my dad, I want to make him my own version of a sweetie selection box. So I'm going to find a plastic toolbox or tupperware with lots of little compartments and fill it with his favourite sweets.
My brothers probably won't appreciate anything I make so I'll probably have to shell out for something for them as they're of an age where designer labels are the most important thing ever!
My housemates also want to do a Secret Santa and they've decided that we should try and make our gifts handmade where possible, this was decided on the same day I gave one housemate her knitted hat for her birthday so I think I may have swayed this idea! So it sounds like there'll be a lot of sewing and knitting going on in the next two months!

Other Christmassy stuff: I've decided I want to have a go at making my own Christmas crackers. I saw the snaps in Hobbycraft and thought I could have a lot of fun making my own and personalising them for my family members! However my mum usually has a specific colour scheme for the table at Christmas so I need to find out what that is before I get started! Toilet roll tube collecting starts now! ;-)

Sewing: I go home for reading week on Thursday which means I'll finally be reunited with my sewing machine and will be able to make the skirt I've been wanting to make for the past month! You see I bought this skirt from Topshop (well I bought it for 1/3 of the price off eBay!):

However, when it arrived it was a lot shorter than I would have liked so I sold it on eBay for the same price I bought it at and decided I'd make my own longer length version (though probably not identical to this) since it's an easy make! At first I was unsure about the colour and what I'd wear it with but I'm now at the point where I have so many outfits planned around this skirt that I need to have my own version! I haven't found any fabric yet so I'm just hoping I can find the right fabric in the right colour, fingers crossed for me please!
I'm also going on a night out so I might be making myself a dress/outfit for that too, but I'll keep you posted!

Other bits and bobs: I found these amazing Monkey Cop Cosies on Ravelry but I'm struggling with knitting the ears!

The first one I knitted was a bit pointy so I thought maybe I'd make a cat instead but the second one wasn't pointy and so far every ear I've knitted has looked different which is very frustrating so I've put the project to one side for now!

On another note...

2011-10-29T16:46:00.000+01:00

I had been thinking about starting another blog. I've always loved blogging and creating websites ever since I was a teenager when I ended up making some quite successful websites without even trying! My mum's a driving instructor and I designed her website and somehow managed to optimise it so that she is the number 1 listing when you type in any search terms related to learning to drive in our area, which is something I'm quite proud of! So I was thinking that since I don't always have lots to say on here then maybe I should start a different blog which I could use more frequently. However having thought about it some more I think I'm just going to put more focus onto this blog and expand my horizons a little bit and make this blog more about general craft rather than just sewing. I'll keep the name but it gives me more opportunity to blog!

You see, I may not be sewing a lot at the moment but craft is always on my mind or I'm always doing something craft related, whether it's researching presents I can make, making craft items/knitting/sewing, looking at items in craft shops, checking out knitting patterns, reading magazines, going to craft fairs... the list goes on! So I figure that if I can put all those thoughts that are going round in my head into my blog then this blog will be much more interesting, more frequently updated and more fun for everyone involved. I hope none of my followers will mind if I broaden my horizons a bit but I feel that I will enjoy my blog much more if I do!

A copycat hat for my housemate

2011-10-29T16:36:00.000+01:00

On Thursday evening I jokingly said to my housemate (who was on the sofa wearing her anorak, a scarf, socks and a blanket) that I was going to make her a hat because she was always cold, and she replied, 'Go on then, I'll wear it!' It was her birthday the next day (yesterday) so I decided on a whim to actually do it, so I made a trip to buy wool and finally managed to locate some circular needles in size chunky (ie. 9mm) and I spent my whole afternoon knitting! The ultimate procrastination when I should be working on a case study for university but I'm a slow knitter.It's the same hat as I made for myself last week but this one I knitted using the magic loop method (first time ever knitting in the round and I had to use magic loop because my needles were too long!) which was fine once I got into it though I did have a few slip ups along the way I managed to rectify them and all was fine! I chose this hat because rather than going for a trendy beret I wanted to go for a novel but warm hat that I knew I could knit quickly! Put it on to take a quick pic for you all before wrapping it up:

She's a brunette so the turquoisey-green suits her way better than it suits me and luckily for me she loved it!

Hats and hats and hats and hats

2011-10-23T17:47:00.001+01:00

Have I ever told you I love hats? Well, I do. And I'm a hat person, which means that when me and my mum are out shopping she can plonk pretty much any hat on my head and it will suit me. Wedding hats, floppy hats, beanie hats, trapper hats, I just seem to have a head for hats, which I'm quite grateful for because there are some people in this world who will just never suit a hat. I look forward to the day where I'm old enough to successfully pull off a wide brimmed wedding hat without looking like I'm playing dress up. But for the time being my favourite type of hat is the novelty version, take this example as my favourite:

Yep, it's a panda, but I think I can pull off a silly hat!

Since I started knitting I've been desperate to make a hat but I've been putting it off because I wanted to make a chunky hat and haven't been able to find circular needles or double point needles in a big enough size. Yesterday afternoon I was bored, I'd bought a knitting magazine so I was motivated to knit and I wanted to knit something chunky, unlike the wrist warmers which I've been working on for forever, so I decided to screw knitting in the round and just make the hat flat and seam it using a skein of Sirdar Big Softie that I had hanging around. I based it on this pattern from ravelry, it's so easy but instant gratification was what I needed! So I knitted it up really quickly and then seamed it today. At first I went without the pom pom but I decided I needed a bit of sillyness to make it more 'me' so I made myself a pom pom for it. And here we have it, a bright and silly warm hat, perfect for bonfire night!

Two skirts in two days!

2011-09-23T20:31:00.000+01:00

Ok so I promised more sewing and then I got a summer job where I was working mad shifts (and really not enjoying the job either unfortunately, not due to the people but the way the company treated their staff was abysmal!) so more sewing didn't happen. I go back to university tomorrow and I've managed to get myself a weekend job at a very well known department store with a strict dress code! I needed more office wear and skirts which are on the knee or below (I barely own any skirts and the ones I do fall above the knee) so had been hunting round the shops but everything either fit really badly, was awful fabric or was really expensive! So I decided to put my sewing skills to use now I've left my job and went to the fabric shop and picked up some fabric which was a black polyester/viscose/elastane mix - which is what stores like Warehouse and Oasis use for their expensive workwear! I bought 1.7m because the pattern I was using said I needed 1.7m for the longer version - I was only expecting to make one skirt but with a bit of creativity I ended up with two! Click to read on to see what I came up with!

1st skirt

I whipped this one up in a few hours, I have yet to hem it because I'm going to do a blind hem by hand and so I'm saving it for when I'm back at uni and inevitably bored and in need of something to do! I have a week til my first work shift so I have plenty of time to do it. I'm really pleased with how it turned out, especially as last time I attempted this pattern the first skirt was too small and then when I adjusted it it was too big! This time round I drafted my own waistband and it fits perfectly. It's purposely high waisted because I love that style with a blouse!

Let's say that 1.7m of fabric for this skirt was an over estimation, I had a massive long strip left, probably about 0.2m by 1.7m and so I was wondering if I could do something with it and came up with...

2nd skirt (Really awful photo of it (was just trying to show the panels!) scroll down for better ones!!)

This 2nd skirt I'm really proud of! Why? Because it's completely self drafted! And it's not even a simple two pieces sewn together jobby, there's 6 panels to this pencil skirt. The main reason for the panels was because my left over fabric was long and thin and I didn't want to make a pencil skirt with a seam right down the middle and these panel ones look more professional (I think)! When I was planning this I did some googling and came up with a photo of a pencil skirt that Kate Middleton wore on her travels which was a similar style to what I had in mind and I liked the slits in the front so this was my inspiration for the shape:

Having read a tutorial for a really basic 2/3 piece self drafted pencil skirt a while ago I grabbed my measuring tape, a pen and some newspaper and got to work! I measured around my waist, hips and around my knees when my legs were a little bit apart (so it wasn't too tight to walk in!), added a couple of inches to each for a bit of roominess and then the seam allowances (6 panels = lots of seam allowance!). I also measured the distance between my waist and my hips and then the distance between my hips and where I wanted the skirt to end. I was aiming to make a template for the whole of the front/back of the skirt and then add the panels in, so I drew lines on my newspaper, the first for my waist (half of my final waist measurement after I'd added seam allowances etc), then measured 8 inches down (the distance between my waist and my hips) and drew the line for my hips, then measured 19 inches down (the distance between my hips and the bottom of the skirt) and drew the line for my knee measurement. I then joined up the lines to make the basic shape and then drew the panels on afterwards so there was a rectangular panel in the middle of the skirt and a panel on either side. Here's what my pattern pieces looked like (not pretty!):

It was then onto the usual stuff; pinned them onto fabric and cut out (2 of each piece), pinned, basted and sewed all the panels together, I left 4 inches unsewn at the bottom of the front two panels for the slits and space for the zip on one of the side seams. Pressed all the seams. Didn't want a waistband on this occasion so used bias binding along the waist. Put in the zip and did a blind hem and voila!! Didn't require any adjustments or darts and have plenty of room without it being baggy and not clinging to me to the point that I can't move like some pencil skirts I've tried on in shops!
Pics (unfortunately you can't see the slits that well):

Can you see the reason why I can't get pencil skirts in the shop to fit?! ;-)

I'm so chuffed with it, usually if I try pencil skirts on they cling to my bum and make it look absolutely ginormous or lumpy or just horrible but as this was made to my measurements, it works! Next time I would make the front slits bigger (not for practicality, just for aesthetic reasons) and I'd like to make a military style one like Kate's or maybe with different colour panels, but for work I need to be sensible!

So, I got 2 skirts out of 1.7m of fabric, so two work appropriate skirts in a reasonably good quality fabric for £15! A skirt made of similar fabric composition in Oasis is £45-50, ok mine aren't the same quality of workmanship but they fit my requirements and I don't want to pay £50! :-) They were both really quick to make as well, the pencil skirt took longer as I had to draft out the pattern pieces but they were both super quick and easy!

I have an award!

2011-07-11T13:41:00.000+01:00

Tillyflops has nominated me for the versatile blogger award:

Thank you Tillyflops! I both love it and hate it when I get nominated for an award because I struggle to think of seven blogs to pass the award onto and having looked at my feed most of the blogs I love have already had the award recently! Plus since I've only returned to the blogosphere in the last week I'm very limited with the blogs that I read so I don't actually know of seven to nominate! So I'm nominating three (I hope that's ok) two of which I know have already had the award recently so you two, (Hayley and Ashley) feel free to side step doing this all again and just be happy to receive it :)

I've chosen these three bloggers because I feel that they all really are versatile. They not only blog about sewing but also about other crafty ventures and they make a wide variety of things which I think makes them very versatile!
1. Rachel from Love to Stitch
2. Hayley from Hayley goes handmade
3. Ashley from Jellybean's odds and ends
Congratulations all!

Now the other thing is to share seven things about myself. I've shared seven in the past for another award so I'll try and think of some new ones!
1. I've just started to become a tea drinker. I've never really got into drinking tea in the past so I'm having to make an active effort to make myself cups but I know when I go on placement I'm going to be expected to make tea and drink tea as a social thing and I got a bit fed up of everyone being visibly horrified that I don't drink tea so I've started... and I quite like it actually!
2. I help out at the local girl guide group. I was involved in Guiding from the age of 5-16 and then crossed over to Scouting for a little while then had a massive break when I worked full-time. Now I'm back helping at the Guide group near my university!
3. My Myers Briggs personality profile is ISFJ (Introverted, sensing, feeling, judging) and if you read the details of this profile it's me to a tee! I like socialising but need more time to myself than the average person (and quite enjoy doing things on my own), I'm good at working other people out, I live to help people and want a job where I can make a difference but I tend to be rubbish at saying no and have a tendency to get walked over!
4. I was born on the 13th (not a Friday though) but I'm not unlucky :) And when I got to university it turned out my housemate has the same birthday as me, she's the only person I've ever met with my birthday!
5. I'm short sighted and have had to wear glasses since I turned 20. Everyone says they suit me but since I discovered contact lenses I'm a complete addict and wear them more often than I should!
6. I've only been vaguely drunk once in the past year, which is an awful record for a university student but I just don't enjoy drinking and would rather eat chocolate or cake!
7. I absolutely hated my name when I was younger and wished I had a different one, but now I'm quite happy with it!

Do you wear good shoes?

2011-07-08T20:46:00.001+01:00

It's Friday night and here I am pondering about shoes. I know this isn't really sewing related other than you need to be wearing shoes in order to show off your lovely handmade items to the outside world, but I'm going to blog about it anyway!

The reason shoes are on my mind is because I went out to buy some shoes for my new job yesterday. I had originally planned to wear a pair of black trainers that I already had but was informed that I wasn't allowed to wear trainers and having worked in a hospital wearing ballet pumps and ending up with all sorts of things on my feet or soaked into my shoes I decided I'd need to buy a new pair. This new pair would need to be of the sensible, boring variety, they would need to cover the top of my foot (to protect my foot from said undesirable fluids), they would need to be comfortable (I'm going to be on my feet a lot), they would need to be black (have I ever mentioned that I hate black shoes? Not sure why, I just do, I much prefer colourful) and they would have to fit into my student budget. I did a bit of googling first to see what types of shoes came recommended by nurses and found out about the Clarks unstructured range which came very highly recommended and about Hotter shoes. I decided that because the summer sales are on now is a good time to go and buy new shoes from these places which are outside of my normal budget, so off I went!
The mary jane styles that I liked left too much of my foot exposed and obviously all the black shoes that were suitable weren't in the sale, what a surprise!! I tried on a pair of shoes that had been highly recommended by nurses and midwives and fitted all the criteria:

Seriously, I put one of these on and they won instantly, how they looked didn't matter anymore, it was like my foot was wearing pillows! They were so comfortable and no other shoe could live up to them. Only one problem; the price tag! £60 :-( Luckily I am a bargain hunter and somehow I've managed to find them online for half the price which made me very happy and hopefully they'll be with me soon. Though I am slightly worried that I'll never want to take them off...

ANYWAY, all this got me thinking about the shoes that I wear normally. Clarks is an institution in the UK for it's comfortable shoes (though I've held a grudge against them for about 7 years since my mum lovingly bought me a pair when I had a job in retail and the arch support meant that they killed my feet - she didn't believe me until she tried wearing them herself and had the same problem!) but they do have a bit of a reputation as being an old lady shoe shop. And judging by the majority of the clientele in Hotter, so do they. But is it wrong to look after your feet? And is it worth throwing street cred out of the window for the sake of your feet? Maybe it is. I've never given it much consideration before, I've been wearing cheap, thin shoes for so long that I forgot that there are shoes out there which actually provide support and padding for your feet. My shoes generally consist of ballet pumps where the soles are so thin that it feels like you're walking on the pavement and they get soaked through every time it rains and because my feet seem to be wider than the average woman's I end up with them rubbing either my little toe or my big toe. I never notice at first but with prolonged wear it becomes a problem and just recently I've been finding it difficult to find shoes that don't put pressure on the tops or sides of my toes. I've said it before that I've always been about quantity over quality but I have lots of cheap shoes that I barely ever wear, maybe it's time that I cross over and start buying more expensive shoes that I will wear! And despite having always dismissed Clarks, actually, I quite liked some of their shoes, here's some examples:

So my question is this, do you put comfort over style? Do you wear shoes to support and look after your feet or do you wear cheap shoes like me and suffer the consequences?

My sewing mojo is back... big time!

2011-07-06T17:23:00.000+01:00

Since I've rediscovered my blog I've also rediscovered other sewing blogs and have been catching up on all the lovely things that have been made, particularly lovely dresses, as well all know they're my favourite! Now I have major sewing envy and am desperate to get started on my next dress but there's one problem... all my sewing stuff is 150 miles away! I took it all home last weekend as I've been slowly emptying out my room so there isn't much left to take home next week and since my sewing machine is a bit of a hefter (I'm pondering buying a lighter one) it's gone home. So for the time being I'll just have to daydream about what I'm going to do! It's only the beginning of July and I feel like making summery dresses but really summer will pass very quickly so maybe I need to make dresses which will fit all seasons!

Being a student has really helped me curb my spending on clothes. In fact I've bought barely any clothes other the past six months, I did buy a dress from River Island but it was £19.99 and I'd earned £15 of vouchers from a survey website which I had planned to use on treating myself so I but them towards the dress and so it only cost me £4.99! I also bought another dress in H&M but that was also under £15. That's about it! And because I'm not constantly adding new clothes to my wardrobe I find that I'm rediscovering old clothes that I'd stopped wearing and am appreciating my new clothes more and wearing them more frequently than I would have done before. When I used to spend loads of money on clothes I would buy new things and then stop wearing the old stuff and inevitably it would all end up on Ebay. I've also really found that I just don't like anything in the shops enough to part with my money, it seems rare that I find anything I like anymore and even Primark haven't been able to tempt me with anything this year. My mum always says that their clothes look like they're made out of the wrong fabric for the garment and recently I can sort of see what she means, some of their fabric choices are very odd - the fabric isn't the right weight for the garment or the prints are just awful. There's the odd gem but I'm coming across them less and less these days. Further to this, there are so many rumours going around about high street shops going bust and the sheer amount of clothing that seems to be in the sales at the moment suggests that not as much is being sold as usual so it might be quite handy to be able to turn to DIY dressmaking if all my favourite shops disappear!

So all in all I'm quite looking forward to making myself some things that I actually like!

Hello all!

2011-07-04T22:38:00.001+01:00

Well it's been a while hasn't it? I've been such a busy bee, I've had a lot of university work to do, been desperately hunting for a job, broke and for the past four weeks I've been on placement in a primary school which has been very tiring, but the children are so cute! So as I forecasted that has left little time or money for sewing! However, I have found a job (as a Home Care Assistant - I think I'm brave but hopefully it'll be good experience for me) which I start in a couple of weeks and I finish university for the summer next week! My shifts at work will either be early (6/7am - 2pm) or late (4pm - 10pm) so hopefully I'll be able to fit some sewing in since I still have some fabric to use and soon I should have money to buy more!

Just recently I've been doing a bit of knitting to keep me busy when I have time over the weekends as it's more portable than sewing and requires less equipment! I've started on some fingerless gloves/hand warmers and I've made one of them, just one more to go! The wool only cost me £1.99 and is a bit 'colourful' but I wanted something interesting ;-) If I had known I could make gloves this easily and cheaply I wouldn't have spent so much money on them in accessorize! I'm only a beginner at knitting so it's a really easy pattern but I love the stitch. Here's a picture of the glove that I've made:

It was made using this pattern on Ravelry (which is an amazing website in itself)!

p.s - I wore my heart print dress for the first time in a while the other day now it's warm enough to have it fully on display and not hidden under a cardigan and a lady came up to me and told me that she'd been admiring it and how much she loved it! I love a compliment, especially when I made the item in question myself :)

An explanation

2011-03-20T14:43:00.000+00:00

I'm sorry to say that the whole thing has gone out of the window, including me-made march! March has turned out to be completely hectic and so it's all gone to pot, hence the lack of updates. I've been ill, I've had so much university work to do which is taking up every second of my time and it became apparent that I'd entered me-made march with the hope that I could get some more garments made so I didn't get bored of my wardrobe, which hasn't happened due to my hectic schedule and so the wearing of me-made items every day has ceased to happen! I'm sorry to anyone that I've disappointed and I'm a bit disappointed in myself but sometimes life gets in the way. Obviously I'm still wearing my me-made items, just not every day because I just don't have enough items to give me the versatile wardrobe I need for the temperamental english weather and my mad life!

So, at the moment I'm going to be taking a break from sewing and blogging, for various reasons:
1) My mad workload. I just don't have the time to sit down and sew at the moment.
2) Money issues. Money is really tight at the moment and I can't afford to buy the fabric that I need for garments that I'd actually wear, and it seems a bit pointless making dresses out of awful fabric because that's all I can afford!
3) Body issues. I'm trying to lose weight, and I don't want to spend time and money making clothing that is (hopefully) not going to fit in a couple of months.

So I'm putting things on hold for the moment and once some of the above issues are sorted out, I'm sure I'll be back to sewing! I hope you all understand!

More me-made March - Days 5-7

2011-03-07T13:03:00.000+00:00

I'm officially a week into me-made March, how am I doing?

Day 5 - March 5th - The heart print dress! I haven't worn this very often so it was quite nice to wear it and I felt very 50's housewifey wandering around the flat in it! I'm wearing it with my favourite navy cardigan. Oh and look... I have a face!

Day 6 - Sunday 6th March - This is a slobbing around the house outfit, I told you that purple top would show up pretty sharpish! No head in this photo as I'd just changed into this after a run. Wearing my re-fashioned purple top with slouchy bootcut jeans.

Day 7 - Monday 7th March - It's sunny today so I've added a bit of colour to my outfit! I'm wearing my re-fashioned skirt with black leggings, a black vest with a navy lacy top over the top and a bright pink cardigan to brighten things up a bit! I usually buy my cardigans a couple of sizes too big but this one is absolutely enormous, hence the bagginess and the reason the sleeves are rolled up! Very posey picture but it was the best of the bunch.

Saturday afternoon refashioning

2011-03-05T15:59:00.000+00:00

I said I was going to refashion a top this weekend didn't I? And I stay true to my word! I bought this top/dress for 99p off Ebay:

There were things I liked about it and things I didn't like... I liked the bow on the back and the colour (I love purple) so I had originally thought about making a dress with the top part as the bodice of the dress. I disliked that horrible elasticated waist - why do they have to put them in? On a pear shape like me it just meant that the bottom part of the dress was too tight around my bum and the top part was too loose, not a good look. I also didn't like the length, it was not quite a dress but too long to be a top, I've noticed the high street seems to be in the habit of churning out tops/dresses that meet the inbetweeny criteria.

In the end I decided not to make a dress out of it, but instead to make it into a top, read on for what I changed...

I decided to make it more empire line so it came in under the bust, a shape which I know is much more flattering for me. So I marked a line under my bust and cut out the horrid elasticated bit along the line I'd just drawn. The skirt section I had left over was bigger than the bodice so I put in some gathering stitches and attached it to the new shorter bodice, it didn't require too much gathering. I then used this tutorial and my left over fabric to make some ruffly sleeve caps. It would have been nice if they could have been a bit bigger but I didn't have enough fabric left!

2 hours later...

Excuse the lack of ironing, this was taken as soon as it was finished! You can see the gathers a bit better in this pic...

I know a lot of you may have preferred it how it was before, but I know that I'd rather have a cute top than something which doesn't suit me at all! The sewing isn't perfect but for 99p I can't complain! I'm sure you'll see it worn as part of an outfit within the next week!