Holiday!

Tomorrow I get to go home to my parents place and spend ten days sleeping in the dining room on a futon. I'm looking forward to playing board games, staying in a heated house and slogging books that I won't get around to reading there and back.

 But what about my sewing and this blog? Well, even though my mum has three sewing machines I don't know how many of them are working at the moment and I'm concentrating on knits anyway. I'll just have to wait till I get back home to my overlocker.

Also, I just wanted to point out that the stuff in the picture isn't all of my stretch odds and sods collection. It's about half of it, but the rest is just more velvet in a huge range of colours I don't wear at the moment.

I can, however, get on with copying off some of the patterns I haven't tried yet. I just have to find out if I'll have to bring my iron with me.

If I just fill this blog with pictures of the copied off patterns then it's going to get a bit boring, so I'll try to carry on with the (hopefully) interesting musing on various sort of related subjects.

I'm also going to take the opportunity to get measurements for my family so I can make muslins if I feel like it and bring them home the next time I'm going. (I might move back to the town before I get around to it but that's beside the point.)

Hope you guys have a fun Christmas!

White Lace (New Look 6230)

I put together another toile! I took the pictures with it on my sewing dummy because it's a bit see through but you get the idea. It looks a bit better on me, partly because I fill out the arms better, but one torso is very much like another in a loose knit top.

It's got raglan sleeves that would look great in a contrasting colour to the main body and there's a seam at the back that adds a bit of shaping (but not much).

Now that I've got a couple of T-shirt patterns muslined I went digging through my stupidly big fabric stash and pulled out any peace of stretch fabric too small to be made into a dress. I'm figuring I can make what I can into tops and what I can't I can finally get rid of.

Maybe I'll take one or two more patterns down to my parents house for Christmas? If I can't get any sewing done I can at least get ready.

Bodice

I got so little done on my dress since the 16th I feel ashamed. I cut out the bodice but nothing else and I still haven't started sewing yet.

I do have sort of a good excuse though. Those of you in England will know we've been having a bit of a heat wave lately, and I don't do well with heat. I've gotten used to getting all my liquids via having tea at home and just going without when I leave the house so I thought nothing of wandering into town for a slice of cake and wandering home (an hour each way) without a bottle of water. On one of the hottest days of the year.

To compound the problem I went to a party with my boyfriend that night and subsisted on rum and coke, i.e. alcohol and caffeine. I ended up seriously dehydrated and I'm only now getting over it.

I cut out the bodice for my Hawthorne dress and marked all the buttons and button holes. I did it by sticking a pin through the marks and drawing them on in pencil.

This fabric is slowly driving me nuts. Not only is the weave really loose, but it's taken a battering from being bedding for years. If it was on grain to begin with it certainly isn't now.

I promise I'll get more done for next time. Take care of yourselves and drink loads of water!

Moths: Prevention is better than cure

A couple of months ago my parents had a huge infestation of moths. They caused a lot of annoyance and destroyed almost all of my dads wooly jumpers but we aren't really the kind of family to have a tone of cashmere and expensive vintage so the financial tole could have been a whole lot worse.

The lost item that got to me the most and got me thinking was just another wooly jumper, or it would have been if it hadn't been knitted by my grandmother for my dad over 30 years ago.

The simple fact that the clothes we make take a lot more time, a lot more thought and effort, makes them more painful to loose. That, plus a tendency to hord large amounts of fabric can be a recipe for disaster.

You might have read about it in the news over the last couple of years, but apparently the population of Tineola bisselliella, the cloth eating moth, is on the increase. The combination of warmer weather throughout the year, central heating in winter, and fast fashion leaving us all with piles and piles of clothes that we rarely wear and don't take proper care of has given them the perfect breeding ground.

The first step, don't panic. There are a few things you can do to protect your precious hand made wardrobe and your stash.

Second, don't worry about the moth that's circling your lampshade. Of all the thousands moth species only two actually eat clothing. Those beautifully patterned moths you get on your curtains at night mostly eat foliage and dust. I have to admit, I didn't know that until recently.

The next step might seem a bit drastic, but consider giving away or donating some of your clothes. If you have a wardrobe full of items that you don't wear you're not only making a perfect home for moths, you're also not getting the most from your clothes. It might be better to have fewer items that you truely love, rather than hundreds of 'blegh' items.

Make sure you keep everything reasonably clean. Leaving sweat and dirt on cloths is like putting icing on the cake, and you have to be especially thorough when you put things away in storage till they're in season again. Storing them in plastic or vacuum packing clothing bags is a really good idea.

Air out whatever you want to keep every month or so. Light and movement are your best defense against moth larvae, so bring out your clothes that don't get as much wear and give them a good shake. This disturbs the little buggers.

It can also help to have things stored on shelves rather than shut away in the dark.

Don't forget the good old moth balls! They're made out of naphthalene, or more commonly 1,4-dichlorobenzene (also known as para-dichlorobenzene, p-dichlorobenzene, pDCB or PDB) since it's less flammable. Both work fine, but make sure you don't use them together! They turn into fabric destroying slime when they react.

If you want a more natural alternative then you can always go for ceder balls. They smell much better and if you have pets or small children around they're a lot safer.

The last thing you can do to keep your clothes and fabric safe is to vacuum your house thoroughly (or get someone else to do it) and keep on top of it. Remember to move furniture so you can clean underneath!

If you do get moths, the best thing to do is wash everything in the machine at 50 degrees or higher. If you have anything that won't survive that you need to freeze it for a week to get rid of the bugs, but it's much better then loosing much loved quality clothing.

If you can't avoid it then there's always the choice to call in the exterminators, but they're expensive. If you want to try the cheep way first then you can buy a couple of bug bombs, but make sure you read the instructions! If you use too many it's seriously dangerous!

If you'll excuse me, I'm off to vacuum my house.

The Start Of My Hawthorn

That's right, I've finally cut into the "fashion fabric" for my dress. I'm putting fashion fabric in quotes because I'm making it out of an old duvet cover that I had back when I slept in a single bed at my parents house.

I decided to use it because not only can I not afford to go fabric shopping right now, I have far to much stash fabric that I bought when price mattered a lot more in comparison to quality.

Helps that it's pre-washed as well.

I only got the skirt portion cut out because I was down for a little while with heat stroke and the bedroom, the room where I sew, is literally the hottest room in the house. Fingers crossed The spare room will be usable soon, but the heat makes me much less excited about cleaning.

On a side note, any strong opinions about which side I should have on the outside? I'm leaning towards the one on the left that was on the outside on the duvet.

Fabric Patterns And A New Posting Schedule

The blog needs a bit of a revamp. I'm not changing the template or the layout that much because I'm pretty happy with them but you can expect to see some changes in the content.

Firstly, I'm planning on putting up a tutorial or two. I'll probably only do them when things come up organically but as I explore the world of sewing and fashion more and more things should come to the surface.

Secondly, as much as I love writing every day and it helps me keep motivated, I think I can produce better posts if I have a longer run up time. I'm just changing to posting on even days at the moment, and I'll have two days to work on things at the end of 31 day months instead of switching or doing two in a row. I hope it works out.

On to my other subject!

Have you heard of fabric printing services like Spoonflower? I love the idea! Just imagine, a pretty dress or shirt made of fabric you designed yourself! Or you can browse the ones that are already there by popularity or a colour you like. You can even buy a printed pillow that you sew together yourself like the one below, available here.

I've always liked scribbling patterns and playing with colours in my notebooks and it would be cool to upload them. They might sell if I do them with Paint Shop Pro and it would be cool if someone liked them enough to pay for them but I mostly just want to put a personal spin on my own clothes

On a random note, it's apparently 'Different Colored Eyes Day'. The combination of that and meeting someone at work who had one blue, one hazel eye sort of inspired me to doodle a pattern. It's not as creepy as it could have been.

Hand Sewing And A Competition

Today it's time for a little bit different! I've got the usual update telling what I've been up to, I hand sewed my yoke front together, but I've also got something special. To commemorate my 100th post I'm doing a give away.

I'm giving away five meters of this 150cm width flowery fabric, three meters of button printed ribbon and a whole eight meters of white lace trim. All you have to do to enter is add a comment on this post.

The fabric has really good drape and I tried to take a picture so you could see that and the size of the pattern but I just ended up looking kind of a numpty. I'm willing to ship it to wherever you live in whatever country, and I probably won't get that many entries so it's really worth a try.

The competition ends on midnight GMT on the 28th and I'll randomly selected winner on the 29th. I'll put up my e-mail address so you can contact me and get your prize.