Thursday 27 March 2014

New Look 6144 Progress

If there is one thing that this dress has taught me is that you 100 % need to be in the right mindset when undertaking a project or it's just going to be rife with problems!

Take for example this neckline I must have sat and tried to figure out this double pleat for like an hour and a half! The instructions i felt weren't the clearest - move the solid line to the dotted line (of which there were two dotted lines...) however I feel it was more a case of a distracted mind.


I think though that its looking right now! It just needs another press and im sure when the neckline is turned under it will lie like its supposed to!
The sleeves as well were a pain somehow i managed to sew two the same and as such had two right arms - GAH!! however it was unpicked, restitched and now they are both pinned in place notches matching so hopefully I will have a dress for the weekend!

I really think that next time I'm going to try and create something when my mind is busy and distracted with work (paper was approved by my industrial sponsor and didn't even scrape the edges YEAH!!) i will try an easy project - and one that is not so prone to disaster!

Also meet Diana, my form :-). She was a birthday present - one which I'm sure ill have a lot of use out of!

JCS

Friday 21 March 2014

Progress on New Look 6144

Good Morning! Another week at an end and I cannot wait for the large glass of wine which is waiting for me at 6:30!!

This week has been terible in terms of my sewing productivity! This here is all I have completed in two weeks. Yes two weeks.


One single sleeve of my new look 6144 pattern which came free with sew last week. Also as the picture alludes to I forgot the seam allowance was 5/8" and I initially sewed it at 1/4". All I can do is congratulate myself on that at least the first seam was inside the seam allowance. *phew* however unpicking is in progress and hopefully the other seams will be an improvement!

I thought I would have a go at colour blocking with this pattern so whereas the sleeves will be this nice pinky purple, the main dress will be a much darker shade of purple and look a little like a uniform! haha. :-D

On the plus my research took a step in the right direction. Paper 1/2 was sent to my industrial partner and hopefully I'll get a stateside jolly in September :-D.

Roll on 6pm and hopefully a more productive weekend! Have a good weekend all!

JCS

Thursday 13 March 2014

Perfect Pattern Parcel

So it would appear that I am rather late to this particular party, however over at Pattern Parcel they have a fantastic indie pattern promotion of 5 patterns in pdf form, where you get to choose your buying price!

The five patterns to choose are:

Accordion Bag by Sew Sweetness


 Ava By Victory Patterns


Summer Coincert Tee by Dixie DIY

Dandelion Top and Dress by Seamster Patterns


And finally, one which I cannot wait to get started on and is currently being printed off as I speak - the Lady Skater by Kitschy Coo. I am going to make this up in a dark stretch jersey which I bought last week in the end of the sale!

So the Pattern Pacel allows you to download all 5 of these awesome patterns and lets you choose how much to pay - and if you wish, how much to pay for each pattern. A percentage of the price also goes to Donors Choose a charity which helps with childrens education.

an amazing find indeed brought to my attention by Kelli at True Bias.

Happy Sewing guys!

JCS

Monday 10 March 2014

A Mini Quilt!

Yeah! It's finished. I have bound and completed my quilt. In't it pretty??

So this weekend I managed to finish off my mini quilt - which is more like a topper kind of size (about 1m^2) and also managed to cut out all but one of my pieces for lola.the light started to fade adn as I am still without proper lighting in my flat i think ill do it over breakfast tomorrow. I feel accomplished. :-)


oooh and because i was feeling *really* proud I added this:



Not only did i manage these two projects over the weekend I also dug out my camera and my charger seems to be happier with me so it looks like the awful camera phone is now obsolete! yuss! On the plus tho crappy camera uploads take like 1/10000 of the time to upload as the epic camera!

So onto this week now - I wont have much time for sewing as I'm going to look after my mum for a few days. I have been promised wine and an evening watching the sewing bee! muchos happy! I do however have a small project lined up owl family applique project. should be a quick one and easy to carry in my bag!

I did manage to pick up some tweed this weekend at the SECC craft fair ONLY £10/m - i'll hopefully manage to get my vogue coat(vogue 8346) made up againl this time in a more season appropriate weightier fabric...I thought this weekend was meant to be sunny?!

JCS

Friday 7 March 2014

Completed Book bag

So it's lunch time on a Friday and with only 2 more hours until hometime I think I can safely say i made it through this week relatively unscathed!

This week I had a bit of a bits-and-bobs week! I started off the week by cutting the pattern for my Lola. I had found some really nice fabric the other week and have finally sourced a jumper who I feel can donate its cuffs... I had everything I needed to start this epic pattern


So I had all the intentions in the world of finishing this project this week - the pattern is lying in about 9 pieces on my dining table... HOWEVER I have been promised an overlocker for my birthday so I thought i would wait and use this pattern to test out my new toy!! *does happy dance* woo hoo!

So MEGA excitement aside I moved to a project which I promised for my longtime best friend - a book bag! We agreed that if she bought the fabric and gave me an idea of what she wanted, i would make it up for her! she chose the red fabric and two sets of bows for decorating the handle connections. I got to use discretion for what looked best :-D (Oh and  I went with the black bows in the end). As she lives in London we don't see each other too often I had plenty time to decide how i wanted it to look. I thought... it would seem that I work much better under strict time limits.

So here it is!





I didn't actually have any measurements to go on other than "just make sure it fits a folder" and then after agreeing on this it would turn out that I dont actually have a ing binder at home! oops. So with measurements based on a trusty nigella cookbook and a laptop i think i managed to quite sucessfully create a bag which is suitable for purpose.

I will maybe refine the measurements and make another I think but this definitely worked well. I was even left with some excess from the straps so I might make another little bag with them.

My final project of the week was my greek cross quilt. It's not quite finished -


just some binding to go on now - hopefully that will be a job for Sunday.

Have a good weekend y'all

JCS

Sunday 2 March 2014

Finit! Mes Shorts Chataigne from Deer and Doe!

Well hello again blogging world! This has been a busy old week for me! I had a first draft finished of my next conference paper and am well onto my second. But enough of my day job...

So this week saw me hack my way (literally) through this lovely pattern for some tailoredish shorts Chataigne - brought to us by Deer and Doe. I cannot tell you how long I have been looking for this pair shorts for but when I found this pattern the other week I knew lifes problems were solved :p. I made view A although instead of invisible stitches for the cuffs I opted for some top stitching.


So after finding the patern I took a wee jaunt up town andcame across some wool fabric reduced to only £5/m, I bought 3m of it so expect this stuff to be making another appearance soon! I rather like this fabric and as you can see there is a bit of a pattern in it too.

Well I had 3 best friends whilst making these shorts:





My overlocking foot (the wool was rather prone to the odd frey! (and I dont yet have an overlocker)), my stitch ripper (more on that in a sec) and my invisible zipper foot! So I made a rather slight mistake and stitched one of the pockets onto the wrong side of the front panel... :-\ what a dumbass! haha however a glass bottle (ahem) of wine down I threw a hissy fit and left them languishing for an evening. I also managed to stitch the back on back to front. URGH! so yeah after picking out the stitches they kind of stretched an itty bitty. This kind of caused problems later attaching the waistband to the legs :-(. Im hoping this won't be too noticeable! What does anyone else do when working with wool? I thought of throwing them in the dryer however I didnt want them to frey or anything?!

so yeah that 3rd best friend - the invisible zipper foot. I tried an invisible zipper before but with only a regular zipper foot but if i ever give any advice - SPEND THAT £5er and BUY THE FOOT! ha. how much easier did this make the job.Well chuffed with the result!
I know the edge isn't quite straight but I'll take that!


Also mighty impressed with the end result with the lining in place. Totally going to try more invisible zips. just need a project! so now for the photo shoot...(My living room is a TIP!)











Its kind of hard to see coz its an AWFUL camera! My phone broke and a certain 'Best British Brand' 2014 airline broke my camera charger! Rage. But the fit was great - I cut a 40 and made no alterations.

I will definately be buying more Deer and Doe patterns!

JCS