MeMadeMay week 3

Where did the weekend go?! As I prepare this post on Tuesday morning I cannot fathom where the last three days have gone! I managed to get some sewing in last sunday and finished up this first run of my Deer and Doe Ondee sweater - it's a little too big however still totally wearable. After finishing this all motivation to do anything left me so instead of fixing up the pattern pieces I sat doing a jigsaw for about 3 hours.

Day 11:

My ear is absolutely killing me today so whereas I took a picture I felt no inclination to smile... the skirt is a RTW from Oasis it's a favourite RTW piece that i'm not parting with any time soon :-D.


Day 12:
When we got in yesterday our upstairs neighbours were in full on party mode. From the sounds of it there were at least 20 of them jabbering on up there. When I got ready for work this morning and left at around 9 they were still going strong. Hopefully we can find our house soon and be rid of them! I  other news today was another day for my second NL6020 and Deer and Doe Ondee.

My ear was still sore on Tuesday however had calmed down significantly from Monday. I managed some sewing in the evening however I honestly don't know where time went as all of a sudden it was like 23:30 - I'm working on a present right now and will be able to share this by the end of June :-)

Day 13:
Nothing much to report today. I was trying to make a rose plot all day at work and was voluneered to do some invigilation on Monday. Sould give me scope to write up some thesis.

Today I wore my Thurlows and Bronte top. The office is just too cold for tights just now. The whole of instagram seemed to be enjoying sunshine yet we have a cold dark office :-(

Day 14:
I wore my new look 1467. We didn't do anything much on Thursday but our shower rail fell down :-(. Oh well we bought a new one, it only cost £13!

Day 15:
We ended up going out for dinner at the fort - nothing fancy, just a Frankie and Bennies - or Ben and Jerrie's as I always get confused!! haha. I was well prepared as I had on my New Look 6144 which I think looks quite smart for both work and dinner out.

Day 16:
Today I went to the Scotland Street School Museum in Glasgow. A great hidden treasure! It was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh - the same person who designed glasgow school of art. After I went to one of my friends for cocktails! It was a great day (mostly - you cannot account for arsehole neighbours!) but as we went for drinks I thought my Oktoberfest dress appropriate.

The Oktoberfest dress is there - under the school uniform!!

Day 17:
It was around 8:30 pm before I got a picture today - I was so damn busy!

Another outing for my grey coco dress

We had friends over for dinner - and we had wine - a magnum of wine. It felt so middle class we brought out the crystal glasses - just to finish off proceedings!

So all in all another succesfull week I think! I'm certainly seeing some patterns emerging and know what I need to make more of to enable my wardrobe to work better for me!

Hope you are all still enjoying Me Made May :-)

Jenn xx

Completed: A Surfin Cat Quilt

I made a £3 quilt!

I decided that this year I was going to try and make more quilts - and as there are only so many quilt related things that can fit in one house (or tiny flat)...I decided to make this for my brother's girlfriend's birthday. (That has passed now so I can share it :-D) I didn't really have a plan to start with however on an online shopping spree found this fat quarter from Trixie Lixie for around £3. This quilt makes up at around 96 cm x 64 cm so is by no means a standard size.

Having the fat quarter I decided to then fussy cut as many of the cats as I could to then frame them with another yet to be determined fabric! Cutting the cats was a bit awkward due to the pattern of the fabric and so they all ended up really weird, non uniform sizes. The border fabric was then taken from my Kim dress: I only bought 2m of fabric however there seemed to be loads left over at the end of the dress and so I managed to frame each of the squares with some of the fabric as well as using it for the sashing. I still have more left too!

I famed each of the cat blocks in a white cotton left over from my nested Churndash quilt. I added strips about two inches wide then squared the blocks up a bit - whereas I used my rotary cuter and ruler to cut up the initial fat quarter I was limited with the print of how straight each cut could be and after one or two that were squint there was no saving it :-( haha. So the white squares are mostly so I could achieve square squares...

I then made each of the smaller cat and white blocks larger by first adding a side border of the blue hemmingway print to make all the blocks in each column more or less equal in width (did I mention that I had no plan for this quilt...) The blue hemmingway fabric was then used for the sashing and the quilt was bound with the remains of the white fabric.

To make up the quilt I used some leftover warm and brite wadding from the nested churndash quilt (I think) and more of the remaining white fabric from this quilt too. I also pieced in a couple of the wonky blocks which never made the final cut for the front and slip stitched on the selvage information from the cat fat quarter to serve as a reminder for the fabric.

Quilting consisted of framing each of teh cats and their white windows, and then dropping teh feed dogs and taking the quilt for a wander - I have never tried free motion quilting before and to be honest I'm not sure that I will again for a long time. It's just not a technique that I'm really fond of.

I am really pleased with the results of this quilt and happy that I managed to use up so much of the remains of the materials bought for the nested churndash. Wadding seems to take up so much space and I am always happy when I can use it up and regain some wardrobe space!

Hopefully everyone had a great weekend and has had a relitively pain free monday so far... I'm invigilating this afternoon and as there are only a few students it's not so bad! I also hope everyone that is taking part in it is enjoying MMMay - I have certainly discovered a few things about my me mades!

Have a great week all!

JCS xx

MMMay Week 2

Hello there :-)
After another successful week of my first MMMay I have compiled another round-up post! The week got off to a very hectic busy start and has stayed that way all week! Wednesday was the only day I really had time for any sewing and even then I didn't get much done :-(. So looking back on this week:

Day 4: We started off down in Appleby in Westmorland(ish) after staying with our friends at their new place. It was great to get out of the city!  We have been looking for a new place of our own and being in the middle of nowhere certainly emphasised the fact that the outskirts would be a win for us!

I didn't actually get a picture of today's attire however I wore my Minoru and singin in the rain emery. We were only really sitting in the car all day and then took a trip round the supermarket so we didn't do too much but all the driving was tiring. Thankfully there wasn't much traffic and the M74 was relatively quiet so we made good time.

Day 5:
This is the first day in May that my trusty Minoru has has a rest!! The weather was so grim today that I had to get my waterproof out.  I also re-wore my singin in the rain emery dress

Singin' in the rain emery

I had plans to meet with a friend for dinner so we went to wetherspoons for steak night! YUM! I also got a touch of sewing done when I got home: this leads nicely on to

Day 6:
I finished my second NL 6020 last night and hope to get some pictures after work today - so for now I have to make do with this effort taken in the office changing rooms

New Look 6020 (2)

This is the second iteration of the dress I hope to make up for my cousin's wedding - I think some of the changes have worked - others need more definition.(full post coming hopefully at the weekend)

 Day 7: Election Day
We got up early to vote today as we were going out in the evening. I thought better than to display my colours too vividly and then failed too far in the other direction
 

I finished off day 7's look with my thurlow wearable muslin. They seem to have shrunk a bit in the wash which seems to have made them fit a touch better too.

Day 8:

I had plans to go out on Friday evening for dinner (we went to an awesome mexican tapas Topolabamba) so preplanned with nothing too tight around the middle!

I wore my trusty OWOP shorts V.1 my Minoru and Julia Cardigan.
Day 9:
Haircut day!

We then went to a local pub with a beer garded to enjoy the sun.
Day 10:
I didn't actually leave the house yesterday - by the time I decided that I needed to go to the shops it was super windy and I decided that we could probably make do until Tuesday. Yesterday's outfit consisted of my second coco dress which provided a comfy lounging attire.

I have been enjoying keeping up with everyones MMMay too - especially on IG.

Good luck for the next wek guys!

Jenn

Completed: Sewaholic Thurlow Trousers, Muslin 1

This is the second of the makes which I promised myself that I would finish before I started another project. In January. Seing as that promise failed they have remained sitting on the top of the WIP pile ever since ( read: they have remained my only WIP ever since while I continually overlook them for something instantly gratifying...)

I bought the Thurlow PDF in December and the fabric even before that... I made most of these up in an evening stopping only because I had no zip for the fly. Post Christmas I lost a little weight (strangely) so cut these in a size 6. Another reason I left them because I didn't honestly believe that this was the correct size and I was a bit disappointed to have wasted fabric.

So as I required space in my living room corner for thesis writing I decided to just go for it and make them up anyways! Strangely enough they fitted quite well! I say strangely only because I had convinced myself that they wouldn't fit! There are some strange lines around the base of the fly however I'm almost 100 % sure that they are from the fly insertion bubbling a little over any actual excess fabric. There's also some strange lines on the back around my thighs. I have searched the internet and cannt think of how to accurately describe these to come up with a fitting adjustment - does anyone have any ideas?

The major problem I found when making these up was the instructions for the fly. I didn't find them very clear at all for the joining of the two halves of the fly together. In hindsight having used this tutorial for sewing the fly I understand what they were showing however it seems it is a tricky part to convey without photographs. Needless to say - upon completion of my first ever fly zipper I was ridiculously proud :-D

For this version I decided to omit the welt pockets for speed and because I didn't think I'd ever get any wear out of the trousers. Next time I make the trousers up I will make up the details however not actually put in the pockets - I always forget about things in back pockets :-(.

Awkward pose trying to show off the waistband!

Changes I will make up next time as well will be to make the waistband pieces a touch longer as well as interfaced- i'm not sure what happened however one of my waistband pieces ended up a little on the short side which wasn't ideal - I used the pattern piece to add back in about 3 inches of which I only needed about 2 but was not taking any risks!! I'm also planning on narrowing the legs a smidge to the knee then returning to the wider lower leg. I also need to remove at least 2 inches from the leg length. Other than that I think its just tinkering with the waistband with different fabric weights.

So what do you guys think? a winner? With the completion of these trousers, I have now scored off number 6 in my 2015 sewing plan. :-)

Have a good week all :-). I made so many plans for this week that i'm already looking forward to the weekend to relax!!

Happy Sewing

Jenn xx

MMMay Week 1

I know this first week is only a short one but I thought I would still put together a roundup post.

So MMMay15 got off to a relatively good start - I finished up my NL1467 top on the Tuesday night and it was good to go for the Friday Morning. Hopefully get this blogged within a week - it's taking me so long to get decent pictures right now as we just moved into a new building for work - it's not finished and i'm pretty damn allergic to it :-( My eye is a state and i'm not for putting that level of awful picture up on the internet!!

so Day 1:

Minoru Jacket and New Look 1467

Day 2:
I didn't manage to get a proper picture yesterday of my day attire, We went out in the evening and I wore my minoru (and another new finish and to be blogged as soon as I get me some pics!) however I did get one of my pyjama get up - not classy by any means but hey - I found a use for a dress which went wrong due to my fabric choice!

Coco dress and RTW jammy bottoms

Day 3
Today is absolutely baltic!! like proper freezing and horrifically rainy :-( Today I am wearing my second attempt at a coco and my julia cardy.

Coco Dress and Julia Cardigan

I realise my dress is rather creased - but for a day of car journeys to engerland and back IDGAF haha - the only person to seem my creased ensemble will be me and the other half  - and as he stayed up all night for the boxing I'm really not sure he can tell!!

Hope everyone else who is participating in me made may is managing to meet their own challenges!

Enjoy the bank holiday all

Jenn xx

Buttons Buttons Buttons!

Just a quick post from me today to share with you all some lovely buttons I received in a gift this past weekend :-)

The buttons are mostly mother of pearl and belonged to my great grandmother. Before my grandad was born in 1931 she was a seamstress by trade - her specific job was to join the top and bottom part of socks together. While this career ended when she married and had her family she continued to sew and provide an alteration service for others.  Clearly not all of these buttons are from the same era - the pink button is clearly from a later point in time and most likely dates from the early 60's however a great number were and still have that lovely shine which the mother of pearl provides :-).

When she died my grandmother salvaged most of her buttons however never found the right project to use them on. Skip forward a number of years and she decided that I could probably put them to use. I hope to find a special project to use these for as it would be such a shame to waste them after all this time! Finally I was rather impressed by the writing on the old indigestion tablet container in which most of these buttons came:

Hope you are all enjoying your week - we actually have great weather right now in glasgow - it's just a shame we're stuck in such a dull office! I hope to have some photos taken in the sun later so I can share my most recent project

Jennifer xx

Me Made May 2015

I have signed up to the challenge:


'I, Jennifer Shaw of Jennifer's Sewing Space, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '15. I endeavour to wear at least one me made garment each day for the duration of May 2015'

I'm excited! I didn't feel ready to participate last year for a number of reasons however this year I think that I have enough me-made garments to make an interesting challenge (and that are of an acceptable quality to wear.)

Particular events which make this an interesting challenge are that we are away on holiday at the end of the month: to Ireland. However more specifically to a festival. Right now I don't really have any festival gear and it was number 4 on my 2015 sewing plan. So I think I'll be doing a touch of research into the ins and outs of no-camping-required festivals. This festival plus associated holiday takes up a full week in May and I'm excited :-D I also have an adult job now - and whereas there are no hard and fast rules on uniform - I feel more inclined to wear something more formal than my usual crazy print fit and flare style that I seem to have adopted!

Items in my handmade wardrobe which currently see a lot of wear include my trusty minoru jacket:

I think this goes with about 90 % of my wardrobe. I'm still working on starting my plan for a spring jacket - however as spring has only really just arrived I don't feel so bad. I have my pattern and fabric ready I just need to make one alteration to the front jacket piece then it's all good to go.

another item which has found it's way into immediate rotation is my Julia Cardigan:

Clearly I don't wear it with a party dress every day however it goes with, again, 90 % of my wardrobe and definitely fits the work appropriate criteria that I'm looking to build!

There are also a few items which I hope to finish up before the end of the first week of May - just to give me more choice. Two of these are cut and ready to sew, I have two patterns ready to cut the fabric from. One of the patterns that I'm hoping to have a bash at (and is the one I have traced pieces for) is this simplicity 1467. I got this free with a sewing magazine this month and think that this pattern alone could fill a few of my pre-May gaps.

Have a great weekend everyone, this week has been insanely busy with work for me yet I find myself enjoying what i do more now than since I worked in the shop/warehouse until 2009. Thats not to say I haven't enjoyed my studies until now - just that I prefer this :-) - so I shall celebrate 6 pm tonight with a large glass of red wine!! Has anyone else signed up for me made may 2015?

Jennifer xx