Tracing. Cutting. Altering. Three Sewing Words I Dread

I haven't got any finished objects to show for 2013 as yet, but lots of sewing progress has been happening behind the scenes!

As always I've got a list as long as my arm of projects I want to get started on as soon as possible, I've even got fabric, patterns and even notions ready and waiting for some. It's hard to stop this list from growing and growing when I'm constantly so inspired reading all your blogs, you need to stop making fantastic versions of patterns I don't own yet people!

I love dreaming up all these plans and hunting around for the right fabrics and trimmings but things tend to grind to a bit of a halt when it comes to actually getting started. I know exactly why this is; I find cutting a pattern SO boring and fiddly and am scared of making alterations to a pattern either to fit or to achieve my dreamed up version as I've never really done that before. Just the thought of all this fiddling is enough to completely zap my motivation. Anyway I decided enough was enough, I need to stop just creating an ever bigger pile of fabric and take the bull by the horns. I took advantage of the unexpected snow day on Monday and just got stuck in!

I started a little pattern cutting production line and am really chuffed to say that I've got a nice little pile of fabric pattern pieces ready to assemble for 3 projects and another two pdf patterns assembled and ready to cut. I'm even more chuffed to say that I actually really enjoyed it! I think it was mainly to do with a change in mindset from wanting to get the cutting out of the way so I could get on the machine (which I really enjoy) to knowing all I was doing was cutting and I could take my time over it because it didn't matter how much I got done.

I tried to really take care with each and every step and piece. I usually do my cutting on the floor as we don't have a very big table and I thought it was important to get all your pattern pieces laid out at once on the fabric. I still think this is important if you are concerned about getting all the pieces out of the fabric but I knew I was fine for the projects I was cutting and something made me try cutting on the table, one or two pieces at a time. I found it SO much easier! No bending over and crawling round on my knees and I was just at a better angle for cutting, for using scissors or a rotary cutter (another little discovery which has removed SOME of my 'sewing with silk' dread!).

I cut pieces for my Charlotte Skirt for the By Hand London sew-a-long from a fairly lightweight teal denim. Then I really branched out from my usual safe 'follow the pattern exactly' ways and traced out the pieces for the Grainline Scout Tee, making some alterations. After my first version of this pattern, which I love and wear all the time, I wanted to increase the length slightly and give a bit more room around the arm holes. I lengthened the pattern just an inch where indicated on the pattern piece. I've got two new versions of this in mind. For the first I'm using a gorgeous hammered silk remnant I found when shopping for work on Berwick Street and for this drapey version I added a 2" dip to the hem of the back piece. For the second version I'm using black lace and underling the bodice pieces with black cotton, leaving the sleeves sheer. For this version I kept the hem level (I'm hoping to make a feature of the shapes in the lace at the hem and cuffs) but extended the sleeve pieces to three quarter length. I'm really excited about having three really different tops made from the same pattern, and I'm really proud of my adapted pattern pieces; I feel like a proper seamstress!

Things are going to be a little bit frantic and life-consuming work wise for a little while but I'm hoping that now I've got the painstaking bit out of the way I'll be more inclined to pick up some sewing and start assembling a garment when I've got a little bit of free time! Hopefully I'll have at least one finished item to show you at some point over the next week. My sewing resolution for Karen of Did You Make That's Sewlutions Jar was to make at least 12 items of clothing for myself this year so I need to get cracking and get one done for January!

How about you? Do you dislike the cutting or prefer any particular part of the sewing process to another? What do you to to combat that?

Premio Blog Award!

I've been nominated for another blog award! It's so lovely that my 2013 hope of being more involved in the blogging community is off to a flying start!

After last week's One Lovely Blog/Very Inspiring Blog Award, Sonja at Ginger Makes nominated me for the Premio Blog Award. Ginger Makes is one of my favourite blogs to read, Sonja's so entertaining and her makes are always stylish, colourful, wearable and unique.

This award is all about people who take the time to comment on other people's blogs, so from my 'getting more involved' point of view it's really exciting that Sonja picked me as one of the new commenters on her blog. The fact that she's noticed new commenters and taken the time to check them out, along with the attention that she gives to the comments on her blog is so lovely and just one example of the general kindness and support that is to be found out there in sewing blog land!

So the requirements of this nomination are that I in turn nominate the last nine people who commented on my blog. If you are not already familiar with these blogs make sure you check them out!

• Seam Ripped Blog
• House of Pinheiro
• VickiKate Makes
• Ozzy Blackbeard
• Pendle Stitches
• Pincushion Treats
• The Virtual Princess and the Pea
• The Perfect Nose
• Sew It Anyway

And of course make sure to give Ginger Makes a read too! Thanks Sonja!

Handmade Shopping Bags for a Christmas Gift

The second handmade gift I gave at Christmas were these fold up shopper style bags for my mum. I used this tutorial from Sew4Home (which is a brilliant website containing a huge number of tutorials and templates for making all kinds of crafty projects perfect for gift giving). I got on ok with the tutorial but definitely found some of the instructions confusing and a bit of a strange way to go about things. The tutorial's aim was definitely to help you get all your raw edges enclosed and get everything as neat as possible but the way they got you to sew up the handles was really difficult to understand! 

I do think some of the problems I had were partly my own doing as I kept second guessing where the tutorial was going and thinking that I knew a simpler way to achieve the same effect! I was also trying to adapt the tutorial slightly to suit the fabric quantities I had available. The tutorial calls for cutting two pieces from the template for the outside of each bag and then two full pieces again for the inside, so the bag is completely lined and the whole thing is double layered and sort of reversible. I wanted to make two bags one with the patterned exterior and plain grey lining and one the reverse. I didn't have enough of the patterned fabric to cut four full pieces so I decided to finish the lining of the grey bag half way down inside. This meant I had to use different finishing methods for each bag and I got in a bit of a tangle when it came to turning things right side out. 

But I got there in the end and was quite pleased with the neat finish I acheived. I'm definitely getting better with my machine!

I got the patterned cotton online from Spoonflower. If you haven't heard of it before it's a fantastic website where you can upload your own print designs and have them printed onto a variety of natural fabrics. Once you have done this you can make them available for other people to buy as well! The prices aren't all that cheap but the fabrics are beautiful quality and for this sort of custom service I think it's well worth the cost. This print I have had pinned on Pinterest for quite some time and is from someone else's beautiful collection based on US cities (this one in particular was from the New York range). I chose it for my mum as she loves the Art Deco style, she loves New York and in particular the Chrysler Building which this really reminds me of AND these are just her sort of colours!

The grey cotton I bought in A1 Fabrics on Goldhawk Road a while back. It just might be my favourite fabric shop in London; they have a brilliant range at amazing prices, including haberdashery upstairs and you never feel hassled as you can do in some of the other more affordable stores.

Overall I was really pleased with the finished product and thought it was a great personal gift for my mum because of the fabric choice. I did feel the handles ended up quite wide yet with quite shallow/narrow holes to put your hand through, so I might change that if I made these again. Maybe it was just the way I made it!

Speaking of my Mum at Christmas, she spoilt me rotten as always and along with a gift membership to the V&A (which I am so excited about; I've been back to the Hollywood Costume exhibition already!) this was carefully wrapped waiting for me on Christmas morning! Hooray for wonderful Mum's!

My First Blog Award Nomination!

I had a brilliant start to the New Year when I found out that the lovely Evie from Pendle Stitches had chosen me as one of her nominees for the One Lovely Blog/Very Inspiring Blogger Award! It's my very first nomination for a blog award so caused much excitement!

UPDATE! I had this post all scheduled to be published when I discovered Sonja from Ginger Makes has also nominated me for this award! So exciting! I'd already chosen Sonja as one of my nominees and have decided to leave this as it is, mainly because it took me SOOO long to choose 10 in the first place!

I'm also very excited about completing the tasks listed below linked to receiving said award!

Thank you so much Evie for nominating me and making me feel even more welcomed into the wonderful blogging community than I already did. It's my aim to connect with more people through the blog and twitter e.t.c this year and already I am feeling so much more positive about it thanks to you! I'm so glad Vicki Kate introduced me to your blog with the Christmas sewing swap. I love reading it and seeing your creations!

UPDATE! And thank you also so much to Sonja! Yours was one of the first blogs I started reading and one of those that really inspires my creativity with your style, fabric and pattern choices. I love reading your blog and it's so exciting for my blog to get it's second ever award nomination from the other side of the Atlantic!

For anyone who may be interested here's 7 things you may not have known about me:

• I'd secretly like to be good enough to be a contest on the Great British Bake Off...
• I have a little sister and little brother (though I think little is probably not the word anymore! They both appear to be taller than me in this picture from my cousin's wedding last year...)

• I did ballet up until the age of 17
• I was born missing a number of my fingers
• My favourite place in the world is Dartmoor in Devon

• I love historical novels, especially those by Philippa Gregory and Alison Weir
• I wish I'd started sewing my own clothes earlier!

And now onto my own nominees, whose blogs you should all read if you don't already! In no particular order:

• Dibs and The Machine
• KraftyKat
• Lladybird
• VickikateMakes
• Did You Make That
• Ozzy Blackbeard
• Oonaballoona
• Pincushion Treats
• Ginger Makes
• House of Pinheiro

Thank you to all these talented ladies for entertaining me with your experiences on my journeys to and from work, for making me laugh out loud, for making my jaw drop at your creations, for your kindness and generosity and for generally making me want to buy far too many patterns when I see the lovely things you've made from them!

I'M GOING TO NEW YORK!!!!!!

Yes that's right, just in case the title didn't explain it clearly enough I've just booked a trip to New York! I'm going with my little sister during the school Easter holidays as she's a primary school teacher. We're staying in an apartment booked through airbnb after recommendations from a few people that this is a money friendly option and also a great way to experience the city. It's right bang in the middle of Manhattan a few blocks away from the Empire State Building. We're going for a week and I'm taking good shoes for walking, there's ALOT of shopping and exploring planned!

My sister and I on our last trip to the Big Apple!

We've both been before when we were younger but have had this trip in mind for years and YEARS as we wanted to go just the two of us when we can both finance the trip (and a fair bit of spending while we're there too - let's be honest!) ourselves and of course when we were both old enough to enjoy a cocktail or two! It's more than exciting that the time has finally arrived when we are in a situation to do this and I CANNOT wait for the big departure date!

I have a feeling there will be a repeat of this incident...but worse!
Mini-me is a shop-a-HOLIC

So I am announcing this on here (yes because I just cannot keep my excitement to myself!) but also because I want your tips, tricks and advice on places to go and things to see. Sewing related and non-sewing related, all ideas are welcome; I want to see and experience as much of the city as we can in a week! I am of course planning a trip to the legendary Mood!

Image Source: Taylor and Demolish

Handmade Christmas Gift No.1

I chose to make quite a few of my gifts this Christmas; well I made for anyone who I could think of a handmade gift for which they would really want or need. I like the idea of handmade gifts but I still want to give people something really suited to them and which they will find useful so for my brother, my dad and well pretty much all the males I gave to I decided to still buy gifts as I couldn't think of anything just right to make. Crafting gifts did make for a pretty stressful run up to the Christmas period and I'm not sure I enjoyed those couple of weeks beforehand as much as I usually do so I may try to reign myself in with the crafty gift ideas next year but we'll see how it goes! Perhaps hand made gifts are a better idea for birthdays, so spread throughout the year rather than trying to make a whole bunch at once!

Anyway, my first handmade gift was this liberty print needle roll I made for my Nan. I am SO happy with the way it turned out and she seemed absolutely delighted with it (especially once she realised I'd made it!). I used this tutorial which I pinned on Pinterest a while back and really recommend it. Lovely clear instructions and I love that you can use two contrasting fabrics to create something a little different. I was really happy with my fabric choices once it came together; although I was a little unsure about the polkadot/liberty print combination to begin with. (Bargain alert for all you London based readers, Classic Textiles on Goldhawk Road have liberty print cottons for £7.50 a metre)

The tutorial includes some great little details in the design of the roll which I think help to give it a really professional finish. One of these is the way it fastens with a strip of ribbon to thread through D-rings on a tab at the edge. I got the D-rings at Morleys department store in Brixton who have quite a good selection of these kind of haberdashery bits and I'm pleased I went to the effort to hunt them down as I think they step it up a level in quality.

There's also a very useful little pocket with a velcro flap on the lower left corner of the roll. I bought my nan a couple of bits to put in it so I put a row counter in there for her! This was actually what made me pick this tutorial over the others I looked through, the little pocket just gives it a little something extra don't you think?!

The beauty of it being hand made is you can choose how wide each of the little slots for the needles are. I made mine quite a variety of widths, leaving some of the longer slots on the top row wider than the shorter bottom ones to accommodate the wide range of needle sizes I'm sure my nan has collected!

When the needles are in the there's a large top flap to keep them nice and secure, then you simply roll it up, wind your ribbon round and thread it through the D-rings to keep everything nice and tidy. Look how lovely and neat it is done up! I don't as yet knit, but if anything's going to tempt me (with the exception of Lladybird's ever growing collection of gorgeous cardis and sweaters of course) making myself one of these is!

Sewing Secret Santa and Swap Reveal

Before Christmas Vicki Kate organised the Sew Very Merry Christmas Swap, Krafty Kat organised the Sewist's Secret Santa and I jumped at the chance to take part in both. I had a great time picking gifts for my two partners and now it's time for the big reveal of what I was lucky enough to pull out from underneath my tree! To sum it up before I get into detail I was hopping-round-the-room-delighted!

First up is the lovely package I received from my Secret Santa.

Let's start with the vintage pattern. I LOVE it! I'm a big fan of maxi dresses and skirts in the warmer months (and also the not so warm months with boots) but have never found a pattern I liked that wouldn't turn out as an unflattering tube. This, with a bit of flare and a fitted waist, is ideal so thank you so much to the mystery giver! I particularly like it in the floral print on the envelope, don't all of the colours in the illustration just scream seventies?

Also in the package were some self-cover buttons which I'm really excited about as I've never tried them before. They came along with some little swatches of beautiful printed cottons and satins to cover the buttons with which I absolutely love as a gift idea. So clever!

Part of me really wants to ask who my Secret Santa was and the other part likes the idea of it staying a mystery forever more, I just don't know which part of me wins!

Next up I was paired with the lovely Evie from Pendle Stitches for the swap. I'd been pretty vague about what I was after as I liked the idea of being given something which I might not normally choose, as maybe I'd discover something different that actually really suits me. All I knew is that I'd like to make a dress and with that in mind Evie excelled herself with her choice of this gorgeous printed cupro. It's a larger print than I think I would normally be drawn to but I absolutely love it. It's quite a simple print in classic colours (both very me) and I think will look fantastic made up with a simple dress pattern which is exactly the kind of thing I like to make and wear.

It's my first encounter with cupro and I've done a little bit of research and am so pleased that Evie has introduced me to it. It's made from ultrafine leftover cotton fibres that are put through a chemical process to produce a fabric with similar qualities to rayon but which breathes and regulates body temperature like a cotton. Result! It's also washable and has a gorgeous drape. I'm going to be keeping my eyes peeled for more of this, does anyone know where might have a good range?

I've got a few patterns I think this could work fantastically with so I'm down to decision time now! I'm thinking the time may have come to give one of my nan's vintage patterns a whirl, or I could make another Lonsdale as I love my other two so much or I'm thinking of trying out the Marilyn Monroe style sundress from my Famous Frocks book...as inappropriate as that may be seasonally!

I was thoroughly spoiled by Evie (you were much to generous!) and also in my parcel was this gorgeous fabric covered note book (perfect to help me remember to make notes of adjustments I make to patterns), a beautiful pin cushion (which has taken pride of place alongside the notepad by my machine) and a lovely little Christmas candle which is not pictured as it was in use!

Thank you so so much to Evie and my secret Santa for your thoughtfulness and generosity. I can only hope my presents were as much of a success as these two were and I'm so glad I decided to take part. Thank you also of course to Vicki Kate and Krafty Kat for organising both these brilliant festive events in the first place!