Sunday, January 30, 2011

My Sewing "Room"

For years, every time I wanted to sew, it involved bringing out my sewing machine and over locker (serger), and taking over the dining room table for a few days. Fabric and notions all over the place. Then, being the social people we are, someone would be coming round to dinner on the weekend and then back everything would be packed. Then my darling took it upon himself to build me my own little sewing area in the unfinished part of our basement.

I did some research on the web and found a lot of information about heights of sewing table, cutting tables etc to be ergonomically correct.

Now if I have 5 minutes while something is on the stove, I can nip down sew a seam and just leave everything where it is when I am finished. Now I want to sew more and more!
I love my little area. I have my iPod docking station there. My treadmill is nearby, although I haven’t figured out a way to combine running and sewing yet (working on it!).

My little sanctuary!!
Cutting out a project.

In the background you can see my husband's workshop.




Friday, January 28, 2011

Spring Palette Inspiration Board

Spring Palette Inspiration Board

At long last, I have managed to figure out how to upload from Polyvore. This is the inspiration for my neutral capsule wardrobe for Colette Patterns Spring Palette challenge. i basically signed up as I have a lot of neutral material in my stash that I was meant to sew with last year. Now I have inspiration. I am going to add a few pops of colour. Teal perhaps, maybe some peach or gold.
Spring Palette Inspiration Board by Debbiej 510 featuring leather totes

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Sew-Along Updates

It has been a busy week, but I am up to date with the sew-alongs.For the Pendrell blouse, I cut out two blouses, view A and view B. I had purchased the material last year and only had a metre of each. Luckily after carefully measuring I was able to cut 2 inches off the bottom of the blouse pattern and I fitted everything in by cutting on a single layer.

For the crepe dress I had ordered some silk organza from Dharma Trading Compny as I wanted to try the neck edge stabilizing as suggested by Gertie on her blog. So that arrived and I was able to get that done. Darts stitched and we are now ready for the next step.

But now I have to quickly make an evening dress. I had seen a vogue pattern in the latest vogue magazine. Vogue 1208, an easy bias cut dress. I purchased silver/grey soft crepe backed satin and then a fun patterned silky material for the lining. The function is on Februay 5th, so should have time!

I did order the Negroni shirt pattern for the shirt sew-a-long. Originally the shirt was going to be for my husband, but one of my sons wants one, with one addition, a hood attached. I think that is doable!

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Sewing memories

The first thing I remember sewing was an outfit for my doll. I would have been about 8 or 9 years old. The first item of clothing for myself was a mauve gingham skirt made at around 9 years of age at sshool in England. I loved that skirt and remember wearing it all the time. If memory serves me correctly it was completely hand sewn.

Then I made a half circle skirt in a green material also a school project at the age of 11, by this time I was in South Africa. I enjoyed that so much that my mum took me out and I chose my first pattern. A sundress. As I couldn't do button holes, I put press studs all down the back.
All sewn on my mum's Singer sewing machine ( an early sixties model)

Then we moved to what is now Namibia and a panel skirt was the school project. I hated the material I chose ( and there was not a huge selection in the small town we were living in) and I only wore the skirt once or twice. But I do remember getting hold of some green gingham and making another sundress and mum took it to a local dress maker to do the button holes for me!

I also made my mum and I outfits for a holiday in Mauritius, bikinis and short romper suits! My last high school sewing project was s shirt dress. I remember buying the material and
pattern in Windhoek where we used to go on shopping trips. I wore that dress through
university and for the first year or two at work. The scrap material from most of these
projects now residep in a quilt made many years later, and is still used to snuggle under when
watching TV!

During university I had neither the time or the inclination to sew until in my final year on a study break I borrowed a machine and made my room mate and I blouses ( scrap material in the quilt!). I was wearing that blouse the night I met my husband, the following yeear!

When I started work, I saved and bought myself my first sewing machine. This is before I saved and bought a car I might add! This would have been 1986 and it was a little Elna. I then signed up and did a "Stitch Witch" course, all sewing with knits. I made more track tops, pants and t- shirts than I care to remember!

For our wedding, all I sewed was the men's bow ties and cummerbunds (purple taffeta) and my garter, with blue ribbon for the something blue.

When my husband and I decided to have a European vacation, a big part of the planning for me was the sewing of a capsule wardrobe for my back pack!

Then the babies arrived and I sewed like crazy. By this time I had upgraded to a bigger Elna machine and I had a sarger as well. How easy to sew all there little things on the serger.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Introduction

After following several sewing blogs and starting to sew again last year, I have decided to start my own blog to record my adventures in sewing.

My New Year's resolution was to sew more. So I made a list of what I want to sew in 2011:

Pendrell blouse (started with Sewaholic Sew-Along)
Crepe dress (started with Gerties Blog for Better Sewing Sew-Along)
Man's shirt (will start in February with Male Pattern Boldnes Sew-Along)
Lady Grey Coat
A vintage dress
Ladies shirt
Pants
An evening dress
A skirt(Beignet from Colette patterns)
Do "Me Made May" and "Self Stitched September"
Try a Marfy pattern
Finsh all UFOs

That should keep me going for a while!