New Fabric

Well another trip to Lili's and I have again purchased more fabric but this is so gorgeous I had to share. I am debating patterns again but I want to make a nice "skater" style dress with three quarter length sleeves. I cant wait to see this made :)

This was so reasonably priced at £4.95 per yard there was no way I could resist.

Pattern Tracing

Pattern tracing such a lovely job! I decided to go with the Simplicity 2406 for my purple bi-stretch.

This has taken me ages. Here are some of the pieces for my dress I have done today. With the kitten trying to climb up my pattern :( and my daughter wanting to colour it in it was a hard task!

I will admit on my first top I done a 5 minute tracing job (really didn't get the importance of an accurate pattern). It was awful and led to an ill fitting top which required a lot of adjusting so this attempt I took my time and done it properly. I did cut corners and used baking parchment as I have no dressmaking paper left.

I have heard of some people fusing their patterns to interfacing but as I've got and intend to buy multi-size, I am going to try and keep the originals as they are so I can make different sizes if needed. 

I will pin to my practice fabric tomorrow and hope it goes well :) xxx

Help...Pattern decisions.

So I have spent the day doing a few long overdue alterations, have thrown together a bunch of drawstring bags for my sewing supplies (However I still need to buy some cord) and made a few hairbands for my little one.

But my dilemma is this...I have a really lovely purple bi-stretch cotton that I brought from Ashley Brook fabrics in Romford but I have no idea what dress to make!

I am still trying to work out my "style". What I like and what suits me seem to be two different things :( I am toying with simplicity 2406 (style c with the arms), Butterick 5305 (style b) or a really nice pattern in this months Burda Style which is a body con type dress with diagonal cut pieces. Either way this time I am going to do a mock dress in old cloth or a muslin before hand!

I best get tracing (a job I am not bonding with). How do you do yours?

Scissor case and pin cushion mini project.

Well last night I decided to have a little play on my machine. I had some left over bias tape with some pink and gingham fabric so I decided to make up a free McCall pattern I downloaded from McCall's (all you have to do is enter your email address).










This was very easy to make considering this is only my second sewing project. I did make an alteration and that was to add some padding! Overall I am very pleased with it however there are some things I will bear in mind for next time such as being more careful attaching the bias tape and I found that even though I cut the gingham straight it stretched out of place slightly when I attached the interfacing making it impossible to get straight lines on the finished product.

 I ironed on the interfacing prior to cutting the fabric into the square.

I pinned and cut the fabric using the downloaded template to get nice rounded corners.

I then also cut the wadding into the same shape just slightly smaller

The front, wadding and the back where then all stitched together using a long straight stitch (a basting stitch).

And volia! What I done next which I forgot to photgraph was I the used the pink bias tape I had and stitched it to the top edge of the pocket, then around all of the raw edges as well as sewing a line straight down the middle to create pockets.

This is the finished product when open.






And this is when closed and tied :)

I had some left over fabric so created a pin cushion by sewing 3 sides together, turning inside out and filling with spare wadding and using a bit of bias tape for the bow :)

Fabric Sale :)

I popped into my local fabric shop today (Lili's Fabrics in Laurie Walk, Romford) and they have a sale on. I was quite taken with this fabric:

Reduced from £8.95 to £2.95 per yard how could I resist. Now I just have to work out what to make with it. I was thinking wide leg trousers or perhaps a dress of some sort. All ideas gratefully received. x

And we have my first Hand Made Tunic

1st Top Made by Hand

Well after an argument with the neckband and a blown bulb I finally got the finished product.

Black really doesn't photograph well and for that I apologise.

She finally Gets Going :)

Ok so I used a pattern from a magazine (Prima) and traced it onto paper very roughly and just used a black

marker (not ideal as I found out) but this was just a trial run!

Pinned and cut I was all pleased with myself. Even transfered all the darts, notches and cutlines onto the fabric using my tailors chalk. I was starting to feel like a proper professional.

Then came the time to begin pinning the garment into shape and start sewing! Right side, wrong side, graining.... did I check all that...urm cant say I did!

Well I am off to get sewing and hopefully will have the completed project to show you soon!

Shopping Trip

Well I spent all of yesterday on the internet researching projects for a beginner. I have bided on one too many patterns from the delightful eBay website and and downloaded numerous amount of free patterns from Burda Style's website so thought I was ready to go.

A trip to my local fabric shops showed me I was far from ready to go. I had no idea of what material I wanted or how much! The good thing was they sell second hand patterns (all unused but with no envelopes) so I purchased a few along with a guesstimate of 3 yards in a cheap black cotton fabric to play with.

I then had to hit HobbyCraft to get chalk, tape measure, seam ripper....had the idea that may come in handy and of course being a woman I spent far too much on things I probably didn't need *does little excited dance and massive smile*

When I got back I managed to print off the pattern covers and all the guide info and shoved them into some envelopes to keep them in one place.

Surely I must be ready to make clothes now? :)

My First Machine

Sew Today, Wear Tomorrow..... This is what I thought you could do before I embarked on my dressmaking adventure! Not that easy is it?


This is my first attempt at blogging so please be nice (but I am quite happy to receive any constructive critique).


My mother visited me today....the result? 

My first sewing machine! Happy days, I can imagine myself now just piecing together a whole new wardrobe within weeks. Now off to work out exactly what to do with it, I feel hours of research coming on!