Undocumented Progress

I did really well this weekend and got all the pieces for McCall's 6614 traced off, but since I left my camera at home there's no pictures. Imagine a big pile of pattern pieces curled up to look like scrolls and you're there.

I went to see the people at the jobcentre today and signed an agreement saying how much I had to do towards getting a job. For those of you who don't know, to get the benefits, a whole £200 a month, you have to spend 35 hours a week looking for work and making yourself more employable. That's 7 hours every work day sending off job applications and practicing my touch typing. Heck, at this rate I might be employable at the end.

Obviously that cuts down on sewing time, but if I find someone willing to pay me for 40 hours of my week then that'll be well worth it.

Holiday's Over

The fun of Christmas has kind of worn off, and I spent yesterday evening tracing my little white dress pattern. I didn't realise it was unprinted and not very well cut. God knows what it'll look like.

The longer seam lines down the body were wonky and the notches were all uneven depths like it had been used before by someone who wasn't used to using scissors but when I get it everything was folded up like it had just come from the factory. I don't know if it was like that originally or if someone used it and then folded it up and compressed it well enough to look new. If they did they didn't use pins, but maybe that explains the wonkiness?

Today I'm going to get to work on NewLook 6150 so I can use it on some of my bigger knit stash pieces. I'm actually excited about making the version illustrated in red. :-)

New Looks For Me!

I've been very good lately when it comes to buying fabric, especially since I live near a great sewing shop. That being said, I have been looking at the sewing patterns.

When I first bought a load of sewing patterns a while ago I went for what looked cool. The kind of thing I'd stick on my Pinterest inspiration board. I didn't really put too much thought into when I'd be sewing and wearing these complicated patterns.

Now that the New Look patterns at my local sewing shop have come on sale again I decided to stock up on simple patterns that I could try making again and again. It was pretty easy to narrow it down to these seven patterns but here's where it gets harder.

I like dresses even though I only own one, the 1940s one I made myself but that doesn't really look very good without a slip. I have loads of leggings to wear under them and a dress pattern that would work fine for a slip so now I just need to get making.

The top two dresses are simpler dresses with nothing cut on the bias, but they're different enough that I might consider getting both.

These two, though, I'm not too sure about. They're both okay, but I can't see myself getting both and I don't know which one to choose. The one on the left, New Look 6093, looks kinda cool but it's a bit more complicated and the inserts are cut on the bias. The other one looks kinda plain though.

I also want this top, even though it doesn't quite come under simple basics either. Wrap tops are one of those styles that seem to look good on almost any woman and I really like them.

And finally, the really basic stretch tops. The one with separate sleeves is a bit more my style, but it looks like it would look best in unpatterned fabric and that really isn't what I end up getting, especially in knit fabrics.

Okay, so I'm indecisive, but at £2.95 a pattern I can live with that.

Embellishments

I've been thinking a lot about ways to personalize the clothes I make lately. I love what I've made but it's not the amazingly fantastical wardrobe that I dream of.

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I've been a little addicted to pinterest lately and I've been making an online inspiration board so that I can put some actual planning into my next project instead of doing the first thing that springs to mind.

It's actually helping me learn a lot about my tastes that I didn't know before and showing me things I didn't consider before (and some I still won't).

One of the first dresses I fell in love with was this one to the left. It's 125 years old and it was made for Ellen Terry, a famous Elizabethan actress, to wear when she played Lady Macbeth. It's covered in hundreds of jewel beetle shells, many of which had to be sewn back on or even fixed when it was restored.

I'd love to try using them on one of my own creations and I even have a plan in my mind. I'm going to make an old Butterick 5967 in green satin with the beetle wings as trim along the neck and edges.

It seems like not many home sewers try out beetle wings (yeah, I'm not surprised either) but the nice woman over at Needle n' Thread did a project with them and helpfully describes how to prepare and work with them. Now I just have to read the rest of her blog. :)

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If I do make this dress I'll definitely be make this embroidered beetle as a hair clip. It was designed by Michele Carragh for a costume for Game of Thrones using references from 'The Stumpwork, Goldwork and Surface Embroidery Beetle Collection' by Jane Nicholas.

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How fancy do you guys let your projects get?

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.

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.

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.

First Steps Of Stash Busting

 It was the first day of the Stash Busting Challenge yesterday and I got off to an okay start. I didn't cut any fabric but since I'm a tracer instead of a cutter when it comes to patterns, even ones I bought new instead of vintage ones, new patterns take a bit longer to get started.

I spent yesterday copying the Cravat Dress from Silver Needles. I've never heard of this pattern company before so I'm looking forward to it and it looks like a dress I'll make a couple of times in this challenge and then again afterwards. If I start trying to sew with silk then this might be the one I start with.

One thing that did make me pause. I was copying out this pattern and got to the bottom, about 10cm from the edge of the tracing paper, when I noticed the little line of writing at the bottom. That's right, it says extend 48.5cm.

I'm used to that kind of thing from pattern cutting but I've never seen it in a printed sewing pattern before. It kind of makes sense.

I traced the other main piece along the long side of the paper instead of the short one and was left with about 40 cm of room to extend my dress. I made it 35 cm because I'm short and not exactly the most modest of people. The other one I just extended with another strip of paper.

I went over the lines with a black pen so I could see them better and cut out everything so when I get to cutting fabric it's all ready.

I'm posting this a little late today because I went to a car boot sale then a coffee shop with my boyfriend this morning. I hate to say it in a place this public but I'm scared if I don't I won't say it at all, I sometimes think we have a different understanding of goals. I've talked about my weight loss before and I've got about a stone to go but every time I talk to my boyfriend about it he talks about the 6 stone (84 lbs) he needs to loose and maybe we should do it together. That sounds great until you take into account our differing motivations. I'm quite happy to subsist on salad and determination if it works and I really want this, but ten minutes after bemoaning his ballooning waistline my boyfriend suggests making a cake 'just because'.

Don't get me wrong, I want my boyfriend to succeed and have shared goals but if he just ends up dragging me back then I'm not going to be too happy. It's the same with blogging. My boyfriend has a letsplay profile on Youtube that he hasn't updated for a month and keeps talking about but when I say 'I should probably update my blog for today' he tells me it's not that urgent. I'm starting to get fed up with it because I'm a rather lazy person and sometimes I need a cheerleader. I'm happy to be a cheerleader for him because he needs it, but I need the same in return.

Maybe I'm putting too much on his shoulders. Maybe I'm trying to stick to an agreement that hasn't even been made. Maybe I should look inside me for a cheerleader and stop looking to other people. What do you guys think? Do you find being in a group helps you or holds you back? Does it depend on the group?

Ebay Addiction

I've been on a little eBay binge lately. I've bought a few patterns, partly because with all the stuff going on with my boyfriend moving in I haven't been able to sew very much. He's finally living with me but he's brought four or five loads of laundry with him and I'm in charge of washing clothes (he gets the dishes) so I've got that on top of everything else. The house is a mess and there are trash bags and boxes of stuff all over the kitchen and the living room.

These are the patterns that have arrived so far:

I'm going to be pulling out some of them for the stash busting but I'm starting with the two bellow. They're both the right size (one multisize and ones just a 92cm bust) so I'm going to copy the pieces off today and try to get at least some pieces cut out. I'm doing them both in blue gingham that I bought at the Birmingham Rag Market. It's maybe not the fabric I'd choose if I was planning this from the start but that's the point. I have it so I'll use it.