A Growing Sewing Stash

I don't watch a lot of live TV, mainly I watch downloaded programmes through BBC's iPlayer and save them up to watch when I'm knitting or when its quiet on nights in work. Recently (like everyone else!) I've been watching the 3rd season of Great British Sewing Bee which was bloody awesome. It has given me a huge kick up the arse to get back into sewing more regularly too :D

I was so chuffed for Matt when he won - his look of surprise was just awesome. I was really sad to see the others gradually leaving though, so it was nice to see how they have been doing since the series was filmed last year. I discovered Deborah's sewing blog two nights ago, then stayed up reading it to find out how she'd made that gorgeous navy polka dot dress! Turns out its an Anna dress, so I have a new pattern to add to my pattern list.

Speaking of which... I've been on a bit of an eBay bidding spree in the last fortnight. I'm pretty sure my postman hates me now, he's been knocking every day for the last week! I took some pictures of the patterns that have recently arrived;

Love the pin tucks down these blouses - but this is definitely something to aim for. Not quite at that standard of sewing yet!

This pattern is far too big but I'm hoping to alter it to make it much smaller. I need to learn how to regrade patterns anyway as my bust is usually a size or two smaller than my hips on most patterns.

I do love a good 60s dress!

This is a suit & blouse pattern, but I mainly bought it because I like the style of the jacket. Looking forward to trying this one out.  

I've not been just buying patterns however, I did buy some gorgeous blue solid Ditte fabric from Ikea on Monday at £3 a metre. I'm planning on using it to make a dress using this pattern:

I know absolutely nothing about different types of fabric so I'm hoping buying a variety will help me learn through feeling and playing with them. I'm going to make a toile first though as this pattern only includes finished garment measurements and doesn't state back length etc.

I've also made a toile for a sencha blouse, which needs to be altered. I'm off on annual leave for the next 10 days so hoping to crack on and teach myself how to alter the fit using Tilly and the button's superb book which also arrived last week!

Getting back into sewing

Hello!

I graduated and started a full time job in July, yay! However it definitely keeps me busy and I've started having the urge to make something again. I ended up signing up for a beginners sewing class as I'm self-taught and had been struggling with threads getting all knotted up, knowing how to adjust the tension etc.

I went along to a brilliant 3 hour class in October at The Stitching Boutique in Cardiff, using a voucher I'd bought through LivingSocial. Tamsin, the lady who owns and runs the shop, is such a nice lady! She purposely keeps the classes small, I think there were 6 of us, which was brilliant as we were all able to have 1-2-1 time with her if we got stuck on anything.

The class was £30 (down from £55) was for a 3 hour class which taught us to make a cushion, and included the fabric and pillow insert. I opted to upgrade for £10 to some fantastic Roald Dahl polka dot Matilda fabric, which was £10 rather than the usual price of £13.50 per metre by virtue of being in a class, and picked a gorgeous teal blue thread. I didn't even know Roald Dahl fabric existed! It feels beautifully soft and I keep hugging my cushion :D

As we all had a go at cutting out a simple pattern for a 17inch cushion, Tamsin made sure we were all able to thread the machines, pointing out the differences between vertical and top loading bobbin machines (the class machines are shiny, new and top loading, mine loads vertical and is slightly older).

The 3 hours flew by, we had some gorgeous coffee which we all drunk fairly quickly as we were eager to return to sewing. It was really nice chatting to other ladies who were interested in sewing, some also knit so I found out about a new knitting group which meets just down the road that I'd like to try out.

The cushion itself was really easy to sew, so we were encouraged to use decorative stitching however we liked, just to help us keep practising our stitching. We also covered all the different basic stitches on sewing machines, and how to use different feet for different things. One thing I noticed that was quite different on my machine was the sewing seam allowance guidelines on the foot plate - mine is completely blank which is unhelpful! I've bought a magnetic guide online to help me out in future.

Some of the new things I learnt:
- How to cut out fabric using a rotary cutter and cutting mat - genius!!
- How to adjust the tension on a vertical loading bobbin case - something that was worth the £30 for the class alone!
- How to sew buttonholes - will need to practice that one several times again though.
- How to use a buttonhole foot!
- How to spend ages pressing buttons to discover how many different decorative stitches modern sewing machines can do!
- How to finish raw edges using zigzag stitching.

All in all, I had a brilliant time and definitely learnt quite a few new things. It was also really nice to be one of the more confident beginners in the room - and reassuring to know that I haven't been screwing things up too badly!!