I Spent Valentines Day Making The Most Matronly Nightgown In Existance

I haven't been around for the last two weeks because I was moving my entire life into my parents garage. I have far to much stuff, especially fabric, and even if I get a flat reasonably soon I'm going to have to jettison a good deal of it. Most is stuffed behind the futon and piled up high so it literally hangs over my head while I sleep.

It doesn't look like much but it'll do the job just fine and I don't have a load of uses for blue gingham. My dad saw it and though school uniform just like I did. I don't think anyone who's gone through a british state school wouldn't.

My next project will be my new pattern of the month, a nice, simple shirt. I counted my patterns today and found out if I keep doing one new pattern every month the ones I have should last me well into 2016. That's a bit sobering. Maybe by then I'll have worked through half of my damn stash?

The Red Menace!

I'm a little sorry I didn't post yesterday, but mostly I'm annoyed with myself because I hadn't done anything worth showing. I realised when I went to cut my red fabric that I still needed to pre-wash it and I figured, before I pack everything away for the move I might as well pre-wash everything that needed washing. It'll save time down the road.

I did manage to get some cutting done this morning and it won't be very hard to put together so I should have a complete dress to show you next time. There's no instructions, but seriously, look at it.

I can't believe it's the 9th of the month and I'm about to start my sixth garment. Stash busting extreme!

I was hoping to make my trial run of this pattern out of a lovely white and grey striped fabric that I've had in my stash for a while, but when I got it out I found out I didn't have enough! There's probably enough for a nice shirt but I'm not up for that yet.

I went digging for something else that'd work and found this lovely red poly-cotton. I love red! It's probably my favorite colour to wear, even though purple is my favorite overall, and it fits into my wardrobe like a key in a lock.

If this dress comes out looking good I'm going to make a lovely white version, but I don't think it'll be done for the Little White Dress challenge over at Pattern Review. I'm just too into stash busting to get stuck into one long project. Oh, well. It's not like they won't have more competitions.

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.

Gingham Dress

I finally got my gingham dress finished! It's now too late to wear it outside the house but at least it's not weighing on my mind any more and it'll be hanging in my wardrobe ready for spring.

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this dress. I started it as a stash busting project because I had five meters of gingham and I'm really not a girl who wears gingham. I don't know if it's just a really nice wearable muslin or something I'll actually go out in, though.

Everything seemed to go wrong with this dress, especially the buttons and the elastic. I originally bought black elastic but I was afraid it would show through the gingham and went back for some white stuff. I think I was worried over nothing but it's too late now. Turns out the white elastic and the white bias binding where exactly the same size, making it pretty much impossible to sew along the edges of the binding and leave enough room inside.

I ended up sewing along the crease of one side and then wedging the elastic in as far as it would go and going along the other edge with my zipper foot to try and make it even. I think I did pretty well but since my bobbin tension's been acting up it doesn't look very good. Thank god it's hidden by the gathering.

This dress has put me off buttons for at least a year. I first bought both buttons and poppers planning to only have fake buttons, and then I got it into my head that I should at least try and make real button holes. You know what they say about good intentions.

I would have to sort out my sewing machine tension but I also needed a buttonhole foot. I got online and bought the cheapest one on Amazon. Big mistake. It didn't work quite right and the top layer of metal was flaking off when I got it out of the packet so now not only do I not have the buttonhole foot, I have the trouble of sending it back. I looked into hand sewn buttonholes but soon realised I didn't care enough about this dress to do them, I just wanted it to be over.

Then I cried a little.

Turns out I ended up doing exactly what I had planned in the beginning.

The First Idea For SS14

I'm kinda loving planning my spring/summer sewing now because it's starting to get cold here in England. I'm curling up with my hot water bottle and dreaming of days at the beach and pick-nicks in the park.

I've been looking at my pattern stash and I couldn't help but think of NewLook 6705. This top was a bit of a downer when I made it the first time but I'm definitely thinking that was because I made it in a stiffer, heavier fabric than it needed.

I've got loads of light, floaty fabric in my stash and some of it is perfect for summer, especially a piece I've already shown off on this blog.

The fabric bellow is a lovely silky fabric from the bolt end bins at Abakhan and it might be familiar from my ill conceived give-away that no one entered. I've got quite a lot of it so I'll make one and see if I want to make more. I might even use the white lace from the same post, but I'm still undecided.

If things go right I'll be making view A (the photo) in December.

Planning for Cosplaying

I said in one of my first posts that my goals for the year included making a cosplay costume. (There's a few things on that list that I probably won't get done, but lets not talk about that.)

(source)

I've finally decided which one I want to do first.

I'm a big fan of the Teen Titans cartoon series. It came out when I was in the right age demographic, they showed episodes at the right time so I could watch them at my grandparents, (we didn't have cable or satellite) and it turned into a gateway drug for the DC universe.

This costume has a couple of advantages that draw me to it. Firstly, as far as superhero outfits go it's pretty simple. There aren't any complicated emblems or insignia to trip me up. I might try them later but not on my first try.

Secondly, I finally feel like I have the figure to make it work. I know I shouldn't talk like that, a bigger cosplayer having loads of fun will almost always look better than someone the right shape who doesn't put the effort in and enjoy it, but confidence wasn't always my strong suit.

Thirdly, I probably have the supplies for the main clothes, belt, and broach already. That's an important thing at the moment because I'm completely skint.

Lastly, It's been done before and done well. It's always nice to be able to see what can be achieved and how it's been done by other people.

I'm going to try and get this together by the end of the year and then break it out at conventions in the spring, but I still don't know where I'm going to find the shoes...

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.

New Life For An Old Curtain

I cut out the pieces for my Hawthorn toile while my boyfriend was at work yesterday and I've got them laid out ready to sew together. The combination of attached and detached facings for the front confused me a bit but at least I know it'll be easier when I come to do the real thing.

The fabric is a curtain that used to hang in my bedroom at my parents house. The curtain rail broke before I even moved out so it worked it's way into my stash.

In tangentially related news, I finished reading The Handmade Marketplace and it's taught me a thing or two. I'm not at the point where I want to start selling but it's always going to be a dream to quit my current job and do this for a living.

I have learned a thing or two I want to put into practice right away. Firstly, expect to see the quality of the pictures on here slowly increase as I start taking all my pics during daylight hours (a bit easier in the summer), don't just make a little pile on the floor, and try to put more effort in when modelling.

Secondly, I'm hoping to put out more useful content including written and video tutorials when I have something to share and possibly some pattern reviews when I can.

I'm also going to work a bit harder at telling people about my blog. I can't just expect you all to come to me!

I hope you see an improvement! Do you have any other tips?

Another Lazy Day, Kind Of

I've been awake for 40 hours.

I didn't get any sewing done yesterday. I did even more sodding laundry (it's finally all gone now) and then had to go into town to sort things out with the bank for the second day running. By the time I got home my legs and feet burned.

I was supposed to go to a midnight release for a video game with my boyfriend but my legs had gone all wobbly and the poor thing had to go by himself. He bought a four foot tall advertising display for the game.

All I did that was even remotely close to sewing was try on some clothes in town and buy cheap notions. Abakhan had strips of elastic long enough for waistbands (30p each) and bags of buttons for a pound so I splurged a bit. Not buying any new fabric seems to be backfiring a bit.

A Busy Day But Not Much Sewing

Yesterday got off to a bad start when I slept in till noon. Chris stayed up to watch the live feed of the E3 announcements because he's a bit of a video game addict and it went on till 6am where we are so neither of us got much sleep.

I spent most of the day doing laundry and filling a huge bag with clothes I'm getting rid of. I think I've culled half my wardrobe since Chris moved in but it really needed doing. I've got some other items that need either working back into everyday wear or throwing out but I'm giving them a second chance. I'll be showing them to you over the next month or so.

I've finally got to the bottom of the pile of laundry that Chris brought with him when he moved but mine's built up in the mean time and now I have to do that and make sure anything from there that needs to go to the charity shop does. Sigh.

Going through my clothes put us in a silly mood so we messed around with Chris's top hat and cosplay wig. The hat is so big on me that it falls down over my eyes and I'm convinced the wig needs thinning out but it was fun. (I know I look ridiculous.)

That evening I cut the back of my gingham dress and pinned the front down while he sketched. It feels like I'm getting close to the finish line now. I've put up his sketch for posterity because he had a hissy fit and ripped it up shorty after the photo was taken. They've been messing him about a bit at work so he has his ups and downs.

Sleeves And My Charity Shop Adventures

Yesterday I finally cut my fabric for the gingham dress, and it's not even gingham! I cut out the white collar and sleeves but ironing the cloth is still a nightmare because my ironing board is still broken and I'm using an ironing board cover on top of foam on the floor.

Last week I started volunteering at the British Red Cross every Monday, and today was my second day. I officially filled in the paper work and I'm getting a name badge and everything!

The people I work with are great and I'm learning a lot. The thing I think my fellow thrifters will be most interested by is the fact that volunteers don't get first dibs on donations. At least in the red cross shops items have to be on the store floor 24 hours before we can buy them. It seems so cruel when you've been watching something since it came down and someone picks it up that same day but it's all for a good cause.

Personally, I've found that an awesome way to find interesting items is to wait till you're culling the stock (taking down items that have been there for too long and probably won't get bought). You end up looking at every garment leaving and noticing the pretty ones that might be your size then trying them on during slow periods (there always has to be 2 people on the shop floor to stop thieves).

I bought a Batman bed sheet from the shop I work in because I have a thing about Batman and I find if I'm meeting people off forums and need to identify myself a theme comes in handy. I'm planning to make it into a top or a simple dress.

You might have noticed my other picture as well. That's right, I got a treadle! When me and Chris were coming home from registering with the doctor I noticed a shop full of sewing machines. These weren't little home sewing machines, this was an entire building of old machines from factories and a sign offering fixes and tune ups. I went in and gorped for a while then Chris said his mum might have an old metal sewing machine. She brought it over when he moved in and it was a treadle! It's not quite in working condition, the belt is dry and crumbling, but it makes a nice ongoing project.

Finished Tracings And A Change Of Plans

I finished copying out Style 2289 yesterday ready to get cutting. I washed the blue gingham for the main body of the dress and I've also got out the pre-washed white cotton that I've decided to use for the sleeves and collar as of my boyfriends's suggestion.

When I showed Chris the other pattern, though, he told me something I already kind of knew but really didn't want to hear. The Cravat Dress, made of all gingham, would just be too much. it's a dress that really needs block colours and big repeats like on the illustration and I just wanted to get on and make it. I don't actually have a whole lot of block stash fabric in my stash that's eligable for the Stash Busting Contest over at Pattern Review so I don't know what I'm going to do with this one but you will be seeing a Cravat Dress from me before the years end, I promise you that.

A Slightly Unproductive Day

I got a huge total of nothing done yesterday, unless you include buying supplies. I got buttons for Style 2289 even though I'm just going to sew them on the front placard and put poppers on to close the actual dress.

I was hoping for white elastic but they didn't have it in the right size. I'm pretty sure it won't be visible and even if it is it won't look that bad.

I did discover one thing. My boyfriend is a genius when it comes to planning projects. He may be afraid of the sewing machine but I'm definitely bringing him in on the next dress!

Quick Update

I didn't update here yesterday and came very close to not updating today because my relationship needed a little TLC. Chris was in a bit of a funk because I wasn't giving him what he needed but once he was able to tell me it got better. We're both learning here.

In sewing news, I just got a bit of outlining and cutting out done yesterday while I watched Rosemary's Baby.

Getting Things Finished

It's day five of the stashbusting challenge and I still haven't cut fabric. I will by the end of this week, but still. Yesterday I got the last parts of Style 2289 traced off and I just need to darken the lines and cut them out.

That and find the piece I've lost. I had to trace the collar onto it's own piece of paper because I'd run out of space and now that paper isn't with the rest. I know I'll find it but it's still a pain. Oh well.

Gingham: Good Or Bad?

When I first pulled five meters of blue gingham out of my fabric stash I was a bit worried about making a whole dress out of it. I was worried that I'd look like an idiot.

The last time I wore gingham it was my summer school uniform. There's something about blue gingham that makes people think little girls.

(source)

Maybe it was always like that, or maybe it's because of our friend Dorothy? I've never actually watched 'The Wizard of Oz' all the way through.

(source)

Still, since I'm at least a couple of years away from trying for a kid I might as well give it a go.

It might be a little bit late for looking at inspiration pictures but maybe these will help some of you. That and I need to figure out what to do with the five meters of red gingham I have.

Maybe just a top is better for something this striking? Something like this with black jeans? Even if I don't make it up in the same kind of fabric it would be lovely for summer.

(source)

On the other hand, maybe the way to deal with it is to go all out? Embrace the craziness and know that if it's over the top at least it's intentional. I think the dress below is made of printed fabric rather than pieces sewn together but I could see myself doing block work with some black gingham and some red.

(source)

Maybe something a little bit more adult? This dress really looks sophisticated and a little bit south american. If I had something like this I'm sure I'd feel the urge to dance!

(source)

This last dress is a little slice of vintage. It's both feminine and grown up. Maybe you have to go vintage if you're looking for that?

(source)

What do you guys think? Do you wear gingham? How would you use it?

Second Pattern

Yesterday I got about tracing my second pattern, Style 2289, ready for cutting in my blue gingham. I want to cut them both at once to get the pieces laid out as economically as I can.

It's actually quite a long pattern, coming down to my mid calf, so I'm going to have to extend these pattern pieces as well, but it also has a much larger hem allowance. It's 7 or 8 cm and I know I'm never going to have it that long so I'm just going to copy it shorter. At this rate I'm going to have more fabric left over than I was counting on.

In other news, this was my first day volunteering at a local charity shop. I was inducted with another newbie but until lunch it was just us and the manager and he can't be put on the till for legal reasons so I kind of got thrown in the deep end. I think I coped pretty well.

Turns out, at least in the British Red Cross shops, being a volunteer doesn't get you first dibs. The items have to be on the shop floor a day before we're allowed to buy them so that shoppers get the first shot at them if they're a regular. One lady comes in first thing in the morning to get a book about once a week. Maybe if I start doing refashions I can mine the local shops.