Vintage Pattern Pledge

A sewing pledge.

During 2014, I Jennifer Catherine Shaw of Jennifer's Sewing Space pledge to make at least 2 vintage patterns.

eeeep! I'm gonna make up some vintage patterns this year!

The two I have in mind are two simplicity patterns which I picked up at a steal the other week...

An awesome 1950's dress - I have grand plans for view B

And a  40's Dress. I saw some great liberty fabric which I'm gonna use for view A.

I picked these up with no real timescale planned. I'm still building up a collection of stuff so I thought 'why not?' and now I have found the challenge, they have gone right in at the top of my to do list...

Check out the button on the side for more info...


JCS

 

Completed! Vogue 8346 Coat

Meet the newest item in my wardrobe....My vogue jacket. Style 8346 in view A.

So before any more is said - lets address the rather large elephant in the room - this jacket is flowery as hell!

But I like LOVE it! I cut it in a size 12 - 16(ish) a 12 across the shoulders and the bust and graiding to a 14.5 at the waist and I'm mostly happy with the results. I just wish the sleeves were a wee bitty longer. It's not that they are particularly short however i just love long sleeves that you can hide your hands in :-) and its roomy enough inside that I can get a jumper on underneath and not freeze in the traditionally 'boiling' Scottish spring!

I really wanted to make this jacket in a herringbone tweed but there were two problems with this
1) Having never made sleeves or a jacket before I wanted to try the pattern out before I cut into £20/m Harris tweed
2) I couldn't find the colour that I wanted and at that price I wasnt going to settle for second best!

 So off to the sale shop and the cheapest fabric I could find was £2/m in this awesome flowery print so I decided that if i did like the finished article it wouldn't be a waste of material and my time. I think it paid off because the shape is awesome and the resulting coat is quite summery.

I had never attempted sleeves before and were they a pain to put in or what??? I'm sure there must be an easier way than the 'hope for the best' method I used however there's only a little visible tuck on the outside and as the pattern is so busy then its not really noticeable!

 

I thought it looked ok across the shoulders too. Another small irk was the bottom hem - I wanted to test public opinion of it so i just did a quick double fold hem. It will do for now.

 

The light was better in this room so I tried to get a better picture. I think this picture also shows the shape off better. Also note lack of confused expression!! haha

I even finished off the job with some covered buttons! The pattern called for snap fasteners but i wasnt so keen on that idea so went with the button approach.



So now onto a new project - I think ill leave the tweed coat for now maybe move on to my Doe and Deer shorts. My local fabric shop had an epic sale on so I got some black wool for only £5/m
ULTIMATE BARGAIN!

JCS

The Stitchery Competition

I'm going to enter my first competition!!

The competition run by the stitchery is a sew along running in line with the Great British Sewing Bee!

The competition is to make your own zinnia skirt!

Image from and available from Colette patterns (https://www.colettepatterns.com/sewing/zinnia)

The competition starts in earnest next week so I have the weekend to finish up on my current project! (and for my pattern to wing its way to Glasgow...

Excited much!  The first week involves fabric selection so hopefully I can pick up some awesome tips on how to select the right fabric for my project!

JCS

Onesie Be gone :-)

Well last night I never quite got round to finishing of my jammy bottoms - coz lets face it it was too darn cold to go out to the shops to buy ribbon :-(

I did however spend an eternity overlocking the edges for the waistband. I would Deffo recommend an overlocking foot - it makes for a far easier job.

and I managed to complete that patch pocket, YAY! i was super amazed by my pocket.

the bottom left edge looks a bit wonky however i managed a slight hemmingweb related disaster  so all in i think it looks not too bad! So also the colour is apparently off in my pictures. I am a firm believer in LED lights. shame about their illuminating qualities eh?
I also readied the waistband and at lunchtime today went and obtained some awesome black and white ribbon.

Tonight I shall fight the cold!

JCS

I didn't think that this deserved another post so here they are in all their pink fleecy glory!!

What beauts! 

So Long Onesie!!

So like maybe 3 years ago I for some reason decided that I would purchase a onesie. I have no idea why!! I looked like a pink Donnie Darko wearing the thing!

So yeah its pretty uninspiring, shapeless and altogether dull plus it has spent the last 2 and a half years lurking under my bed. So instead of binning the offending item of fleece construction i decided to put it to a more appropriate use. Jammy Bottoms. You can never have too many pairs of pyjamas! (excusing the photo - in the middle of a clear out - part of the reason I found the onsie in the first place!)

now let me tell you I had great fun in taking a stitch ripper to those feet! and then with them gone I took a huge pair of fabric scissors and took great joy in cutting the legs away from the top.

Already it looks better! Last nights task saw me sew together the area the zip used to reside in the front and pin the huge ass ass to make something slightly less HUGE!

oh yeah in my haste to remove the legs i kinda cut off the washing instructions. oops!!

So hopefully tonights progress will see me finish the waistband with a ribbon of sorts and some elastic and then make that motif into an awesome patch pocket!

JCS

So Um Hello World!

So this is my wee space where ill be keping records of my sewing hobby.

Armed with my trusty Singer 8770 Curvy:

and the odd hour or two of time i shall hopefully progress from my simplistic knowledge to being a master of the machine! woo!

However in all reality this will probably mean hacking through a few projects until i get something hat im even just remotely happy with - progressing to happy enough to be seen dead in!!

So as researcher by day and budding fashion designer by night each piece I make will be documented for the viewing pleasure of all!

JCS