My babyiest sister’s wedding is 8 days away. My life is revolving around a gazillion hot fix crystals, hem alterations, suit fittings, cake icing and trying to remember if there was anything else I was supposed to do!
As a result selfish sewing and this blog is going to have to go quiet for a week or so. Hopefully I’ll still pop into Twitter and Instagram when I get a chance but outside of work, I am my sister’s slave…
I made it! I did it! I wore one me made item each day of the month! I very very nearly made it with the photography too, but that all went to pot in the last week…
I know I took photos on the 22nd, 23rd and 24th but they seem to have disappeared off my phone / camera / SLR. I use three different cameras and I can’t find these photos on any of them but I do remember taking them! None of it was new though, it’s all stuff already blogged this month, or blogged before; namely Jasmine, my dressing gown (I felt ill that day), and my Alma. Then we were off for a week away in Chertsey.
This is my finished the day before we went V1247 top using a lawn bought from fabric land. This was a great top for travelling (on the 25th) and then also wandering around Windsor Great Park (the 26th), which is where the picture is from. On the Bank Holiday Monday (27th) we had a tourist day in London and flew on the Eye and did a river boat cruise as well as a wander around Trafalgar Square and Horse Guards Parade. I wore my Blue Roses dress.
I failed to get a picture on the 28th – it was raining heavily and we spent most of the day at a swimming pool (which had a pirate ship and a volcano in it! Boy went insane with excitement!), but on dry land I wore my Sencha as my me made item.
The 29th was a trip to Windsor Castle. Whilst photos were taken of Boy and Husband I didn’t get any of me, so you’ll have to take my word for it that I was wearing my V1247 skirt! The 30th was a quiet day as we knew what we had planned for Boy on the Friday. We went to a science discovery centre which was great fun for all of us and my Mathilde was worn yet again!
Friday 31st May was the last day and we went to Legoland! Boy had a brilliant day as did we. We only managed a tiny amount of the park and I can’t recommend the Q-Bots enough. Expensive but saves long ques with a small person. I loved the Atlantis ride and just watching Boy trying to take it all in – we’ll definitely go back but spend two days there so we can see more of the park and do more of the rides. It’ll be the last ‘term time’ holiday we’ll be able to take as Boy will start school in September 2014… Anyway, a constant but un documented staple of my wardrobe was worn – my Sewaholic Minoru.
Reflections:
Like many other participants I was totally done with the self portraits by the end of the month! However I have also realised that I need some more casual bottom half stuff in my life and maybe a few more causal dresses. I’m looking forward to receiving my Hummingbird pattern from Cake Patterns as I want to make a denim skirt and this pattern looks like it’ll be perfect, and I hope Washi will become a casual summer staple dress.
I’ve also realised that I thought I was a trousers kinda girl but I’m actually much happier in a skirt or dress – don’t get me wrong, trousers are a necessity some of the time and one day I’ll be brave enough to tackle some jeans or Thurlow style trousers. At the moment though my RTW jeans will be worn until they are not fit for wearing (which may be sooner than I like…).
It’s become apparent too that I love getting changed at the end of the day into something, comfy isn’t the right word, but something I can lounge on the sofa in and generally unwind in. So I plan on making some more PJ bottoms as I only have one pair at the moment (the other pair got binned at the hospital back in October; I just didn’t want to bring any of the clothes I’d been wearing home). I’m trying to justify the Tofino pattern as we type but I have a perfectly good PJ pattern as it is that could be adapted to have the contrast panel on the leg if I can be bothered. I bet I end up just buying the pattern…
So, Me Made isn’t too hard to do now, self portrait photography is fun to begin with and them just becomes a chore by the end of the month. I repeat a lot of the items I wear (but I knew that anyway) and I definitely need more ‘lounge’ wear and a few more casual separates. I’ve enjoyed taking part and I’ve enjoyed reading other people’s take on it too. I haven’t been near the Flickr side of things as quite frankly there are only so many hours in the day. I’ll take part again next year too, but will probably only document via Instagram which will be easier for me and save those of you who aren’t interested reading a month of posts about stuff you’ve already seen! I’ll still inflict a summary on you though.
So thank you Zoe for the inspiration and challenge. It’s helped shape some of my sewing going forward.
Since I started sewing around three years ago, I’ve discovered a number of sewing resources in Norwich (the nearest city to me). I’ve listed them here in case it’s useful for people wondering where to look in the Norwich / Norfolk area. I can’t promise and don’t hold this out to be an exhaustive list – if there are any I’ve missed please let me know and I’ll add them.
Anglian Fashion Fabrics
29 Magdalen Street, Norwich, NR3 1LE
This is a treasure trove of fabrics with a really knoweldgeable and helpful staff. The stock changes constantly and they have new deliveries every day. If you see something you like, buy it then because it’ll probably be gone next week. There’s around 5,000 fabrics to choose from and patterns by Vouge, Burda, McCalls and Kwiksew are stocked.
Anglian Furnishing Fabrics
40 Magdalen Street, Norwich, NR3 1JE
Specialists in curtain and upholstery fabrics they also stock everything you need to make curtains, including lining, interlining, buckram, heading tapes, tracks, rods…
Makeplace
33 Magdalen Street, Norwich, NR3 1LQ
This is a learning hub for textile crafts including sewing, knitting, crochet, weaving and felting to name but a few
Sew Creative
19 Magdalen Street, Norwich, NR3 1LE
Knowledgeable staff able to sell you sewing machines and overlockers as well as service your machines. Also stocks a good range of accessories and some knitting bits.
The Fabric Warehouse
8 Swan Lane, Norwich, NR2 1HZ
Part of a small nationwide chain of stores that mostly focus on home dec fabrics with a limited range of dress making fabrics.
John Lewis
All Saints Green, Norwich, NR1 3LX
Formerly known as Bonds (and still referred to as such by a lot of locals) the haberdashery department is currently in the basement. There is a range of dressmaking fabrics and quilting cottons as well as a good range of buttons, zips, pins etc. They also sell sewing machines and their staff are friendly and helpful. They stock patterns from the big 4 and Burda. In the same area there is also the craft and knitting supplies.
Norwich Market
There are a few stalls in Norwich Market, the two I use the most is the haberdashery stall burried in the middle of the market and the fabric stall which is two rows in from the guild hall side of the market. There are also stalls selling upholster foam and bean bag filler if you need it.
Hobbycraft
Unit 7, Riverside Retail Park, Albion Way, Norwich
This is a big box craft store (a bit like JoAnn’s I guess) which stocks materials for every type of craft under the sun. As such it’s sewing section is limited with no patterns but some good basic notions. The fabric carried is quilting cotton although they also stock batting for quilts.
Here on in, you’re going to need a car to reach these retailers:
Dunelm Mill
Unit 1&2 Sprowston Retail Park, Salhouse Road, NR7 9AZ
This is a homewares store that also stocks curtain and upholstery fabrics you can buy by the metre. They’ve just started stocking a limited range (less than a dozen at the moment) of cotton quilting fabrics. There’s a basic haberdashery area and they stock Gutterman as well as Coats & Clarke sewing threads as well as Dylon dyes.
Sew Creative Quilts
Wroxham Barns, Tunstead Road, Hoveton, Norfolk, NR12 8QU
This is outside of Norwich and twoards the east of the County. It’s a specialist quilt shop so has a great selection of rulers and printed fabrics although doesn’t stock things like Alexander Henry or Michael Miller. Also carries a good range of embroidery equipment. The staff are really friendly and knoweldgeable.
Sew Simple
Taverham Nursery adn Shopping Centre, Fir Covet Road, Taverham, NR8 6HT
This is a craft store where around half the floor space is dedicated to patchwork. There’s a good range of printed fabrics here but little in the way of dressmaking fabrics. Some embroidery supplies can be had here as well as a lot of paper and general craft items.
Online
I appreciate that for a starter you may not be any where near Norwich and that secondly you probably lead busy lives! Shopping online is massively convenient for me as I work, have a three year old whirlwind of a son, help my self employed husband with running his business as well as attempt (and often fail) to keep our house in some sort of order. These are the online retailers who I use and return to, as well as some others that come highly recommended by other bloggers:
Sew Essential
Patterns, haberdashery, sewing machines, overlockers… Great service and good prices. I bulk buy my sewing machine needles from them as they have the best prices.
Jaycotts
Absolute gold mine for zips. It’s where I buy most of mine as the prices are good and the service is excellent. They also stock some great sewing tools - I always have to edit my online shopping basket down!
Fancy Moon
If you love a good cotton print, this is the place! Mostly quilting cottons, but of the high end variety.
Frumble
Again, fabulous prints and some cute bias bindings. Again, quilting cottons but of a quality that is suitable for clothes.
Maculloch and Wallis
If you’re after something a bit specialised then this is a good place to start. Whilst it’s not cheap the quality is apparently high. I’d love to visit the bricks and mortar store one day…
Fabricland
Really great priced good quality fabric. The website though is awful, unless you like bright yellow with lots of gifs! The staff on the phone are helpful (you can’t order online) and I have occassionally requested swatches but at around £3 a metre I’m more often happy to take the risk. I’ve yet to have an unuseable fabric from them and there are bricks and mortar stores you can visit in person.
eBay
The one caution I would have about buying fabric from eBay is that you are 100% reliant on the seller’s description, it is very much buyer beware. If you fall in love with a print you find on eBay, see if the seller has a direct site or you can find it from another store as often it may work out cheaper as they’re not having to factor in PayPal or eBay fees.
Fabric Inspirations
Another great site with a massive range of cotton prints. The pages can be a little cramped with a lot of designs shown to you in one go, but the prices are good and the service excellent.
Plush Addict
This retailer has everything you need if you want to make your own re-useable nappies. If that’s not your thing their range of cotton prints is fabulous! They quite often have some of the more difficult to track down Michael Miller or Alexander Henry prints. Their turnover is high though so if you want it, buy it when you see it!
Charity Shops
If you’re a bit of a bargain hunter or need something cheap to make a test garment (muslin / toile), charity shops are hard to beat. I’m not going to list all the ones in Norwich as there are a lot but rather the things I check out first when I visit one:
Bed sheets (new or used) are great for toiles and lining bodices. If it’s not in its packaging it goes through as hot a wash as my machine will do with a good dose of a hygenic stain remover. Some retro printed ones may be good enough to wear.
Curtains are a great source for prints. I always go for washable ones and treat them the same was as I do sheets and they yield a lot of fabric.
Sometimes you may strike gold and actually find dressmaking fabric. The Oxfam shop on Magdalen Street is the most reliable place for this locally.
The other thing to look at is clothes that you can either alter or harvest fabric from. Kilts and gathered skirts can have yards of fabric in them! There are some great refashinoning blogs out there but my two favourites are Miss P and So Zo.
Supermarkets
If pre-loved weirds you out, next time you’re shopping at the supermarket, check out the homewares section. The sheets and duvets often have some lovely prints and the price for the amount of fabric you get isn’t bad! This By Hand London Elisalex dress made by Me and My Polar Bear started out as a duvet cover!
Hope this helps if you’re looking for resources in Norwich, or some ideas of where to shop on line. Are there any retailers I’ve missed that you think I should add?
First up, you aren’t going to see this dress on my just yet because I screwed up. I’m not sure how I managed it but I managed to make it too small around the waist. It’ll do up but it is TIGHT and I don’t feel comfortable modelling it. I’d toiled it and checked and tweaked and carefully transferred back to the pattern but there we go. I also constructed the dress in a day so was rushing which may have also contributed to my idiot mistake. I’d intended to wear it to a black tie event that evening but ended up wearing my Vintage Vogue 2903. It’s an incentive to keep loosing weight though!
Despite all of that though I love this dress. A lot of love went into this dress before I even put scissors to cloth. The pattern was a gift from Sonja at Gingermakes. She surprised me with it after I organised the Sew Very Merry Christmas Swap as a thank you! Then Fleur helped me out by doing some shopping at Mood for the charmeuse and lace for me and then posting it to me here in the UK. The blue silk was an absolute score from a charity shop which involved begging a tiny swatch, buying a pack of matches to do a quick burn test in the car park and then handing over £40 and running off with nearly 5m of pure silk!
I pre-washed all the fabric by hand which was straight forward. The blue silk though shed dye like you wouldn’t believe. Even after three rinses dye was still leaching into the water so I just called it a day at that point. The soap was out of the fabric and I just made a mental note that this was never to be washed as a finished item as I’d run the risk of dying the charmeuse a weird grey colour!
The pattern its self was a pleasure to work with, I loved the little touch on the PDF showing you which sides of the paper to cut off. I did my usual FBA (as I do on everything!) and tweaked the shape of the darts a little as this gives me a better shape. I also extended the width of the dress across the sweetheart seam as I wanted a little more coverage there.
I underlined the lace yoke with the charmeuse as I need to wear a bra and wanted to be able to hide the straps completely. And let me tell you, that charmeuse is gorgeous against the skin. It’s like water through your hands, I’m a little bit in love with the stuff! I simply basted the lace to the charmeuse in the seam allowance and then treated it as one piece of fabric. I used a size 60 sharp for the entire construction to damage the fabric as little as possible.
Construction wise the only fiddly bit is the V at the centre of the sweetheart. It took a little bit of time to get that done neatly and if I hadn’t been time crunched I’m sure I’d have found it less vexing. Oh, not adding a lining and being a little less of a perfectionist might have helped as well!
As I mentioned, the main change I made was to add a lining to the dress. I used a navy cotton for the bodice and attached a skirt made of dress lining. I attached it at the same time as attaching the yoke, which was the major contributing factor to the headache with the sweetheart seam line. As you can see though, if wore this dress without a lining and was back lit, not a lot would be left to the imagination!
Other little touches were reinforcing the side seams and darts with strips of bias organza to give the seam a little more strength as the silk is old and I wanted to give it all the help I could. I also finished the neck and armhole edges with bias silk charmeuse. I attached it by machine and then whip stitched it down by hand. The stitches are invisible from the right side as the lace hides them. It gives a really clean edge and also stops any potential lace scratchiness. Which to be honest wouldn’t be a problem as although synthetic, the lace drapes beautifully and is very soft.
And as for the fit. Well, there were nearly tears. It fits beautifully across the bust but the waist is just a tad tight. I should have realised when I had to add pleats for the skirt section to fit the bodice but I just assumed that the combination of silk and bias had just caused it to stretch a lot. The perils of rushing. By the time I tried it on, I’d already serged the waist seam and it was half an hour before I needed to be out of the door. So, whilst I can squeeze into this dress, it’s obvious that the waist is too small. It is far from a wadder though and I hope to be able to wear it soon.
Thank you Sonja and Fleur for making this dress possible in the first place. You (and the sewing community in general!) are awesome.
Wow, three weeks of MMMay 2013 completed all ready! I’ll confess, there isn’t a whole bunch of new stuff to show you this week as you’ve seen it all before this month! So rather than the same old same old outfit shots I’ve substituted some days with a detail of the particular garment.
I was whinging about how much I like my Jasmine top but that I also hate the facings at the neckline and the suggestion was made that I cut them down and then treat them like a bias binding finish. So that evening the scissors came out and I happily attacked the facings by cutting them down, turning them under to conceal the raw edge and then topstitching them down. Much better. I also tip my cap at the person who originally pointed out to me that finishing the neckline with bias binding would be a good idea when I queried the layers of fabric at the neckline (I can’t find the post if it was on the blog, or the discussion board on Colette’s site). Stupidly I ignored them. They were right, I was wrong. In fact it is highly likely that all facings will be blown out in favour of bias binding of a full lining. Never say never though…
And I need more PJs. Random, but there it is. I need to make some more PJs! Good thing Karen is going to do another PJ party, although I may need some a little sooner than that…
Only another week or so of MMMay to go! So for those of you who try and avoid outfit posts, you’ve only got to suffer through one more weekly round up and then a final reflection post and normal service will resume! I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but challenges like this help me focus on my wardrobe and what I need it to look like. There is likely to be some utility sewing (as in stuff I’ll wear all the time) as well as continued ‘ooh, that’s pretty!’ sewing (things I wont wear all the time but I want to make anyway), commonly known as cake and frosting sewing. The cake sewing though will hopefully still be pretty and challenging in some way, as well as worn a lot. But I’ll muse on that a little more in early June (bet you can’t wait!).
And finally, I’ve been really inspired by little succulent gardens (and they’re also very hard to kill apparently!) so me and Boy made some dinosaur gardens on Monday! I’d like to find some pretty glass or ceramic oblong containers so I can put one on my dressing table upstairs. A little greenery about the place makes me happy.
As does the arrival of some tickets. I’m going to London for the meet up being organised by Claire on the 3rd August – Hurrah! I am really really looking forward to it!
This is my first version of Tilly and the Buttons first commercial pattern Mathilde. I am wearing this top a LOT, which is a good sign from a wearable muslin.
Please forgive the wrinkles in the back of the shirt. This was the second day of wearing it and I’d just got out of the truck having been sat in the hair dressers chair for an hour having a practice hair do for babyiest sister’s wedding! It’s a downfall of using cotton, presses well but also creases well! Do you like my builder chic back drop – the extension at the back of the house is slowly getting there…
I love this top. The tucks are a cute touch that adds some lovely interest and the sleeves are girly without being OTT. It came together with no problems at all. Well, nearly no problems and the two issues I had to deal with were not the fault of the drafting!
The print of the fabric isn’t on grain so I had to make a decision whether I worried about grain or the print looking right. I went with the print! This meant making the tucks was a little more difficult than it had to be as I was arguing with the way the fabric wanted to fold. Nothing a hot iron and a lot of steam couldn’t fix though! The tucks aren’t perfect but I’m happy enough with them.
The other thing I needed to fix was the cuff band but I only did this after wearing it a few times. The cuff bands for the size 4 needed to be just a smidge bigger as I have larger forearms in contrast to Tilly. But then Tilly is of a far more delicate build than me! Basically the cuffs were a touch too small to move up my forearms easily which caused the shirt to pull when I reached forward.
It was easily fixed; I just removed the cuffs and re-stitched them with a 1/4″ seam allowance rather than a 5/8″ allowance. Thank goodness that I’d ignored the trimming down your seam allowance bit of the instructions when I’d attached them otherwise I’d have been in a lot of trouble. Having said that, not trimming the seam allowance down makes the cuff much thicker and therefore also tighter. That issue is definitely down to me!
So with the cuffs amended, I regathererd the sleeves and reattached them. No more binding when I reach forward. The only other alteration was my usual FBA. As a wearable muslin this top is an absolute win to my mind! I may give myself just a little extra room across the bust in future versions though as whilst it’s not noticeable when I’m wearing it, there does seem to be some horizontal pull lines there in the photos…
I have some crepe backed satin in a deep purple that I am going to use to make another version of this top, but with a lace overlay at the yoke. I may omit the pleats though and substitute in some gathers instead as stitching pleats into a satin fabric scares me! I’ll use the matt crepe side as the right side I think. I’ve also found some crepe navy polkadot fabric which is also destined to be another version and a complete rip-off of Tilly’s Great British Sewing Bee version, complete with red piping. I need to finish my V1247 top first though!
Pattern: Tilly and the Buttons: Mathilde
Fabric: Shore Line ‘Life Rings’ in Ocean from Fabric Rehab (2m)
Thread: Dunelm Mill
Buttons: Ex Royal Navy via eBay that have been in my button jar for years!
I made it through another week! And, I managed to get a full house of photos as well! Although some don’t show the outfit too well. Oops!
It was definitely the week of Simplicity 2588, I wore my work version twice and the blue roses version once. So that’s nearly half the week in one pattern! After that it was V1247 (again), Sencha (again, but at least photographed), and Cambie on Saturday. You can see some of the building work we’re having done behind my Sencha photo.
Wearing dresses is much easier than mixing separates, but sometimes I need to wear trousers which is where lovely tops come in! I really must break out Mathilde, Jasmine and Alma for next week! And you can probably tell that as the week progressed I was getting more and more tired. I am absolutely exhausted as I write this on the evening of the 16th. One more day to the weekend…
But on to the much more interesting giveaway winners!
The fabric goes to: Eclectic Threads
The pattern of choice goes to: Lizzy at Sew Busy Lizzy who chose Jalie 2908 which is a jeans pattern
The vintage patterns and scarf go to: Silvia at Sewing Princess
Congratulations!
I’m looking forward to the weekend, I’m hoping to actually do some sewing which is more than repairing things, which is all that’s happened this month so far. You never know, I may get an hour or so to disappear upstairs with my machine!
