No Sew Scallop Skirt

The No Sew Scallop Skirt

Friends of mine got me the Martha Stewart Sewing Encyclopedia for my birthday and I  would highly recommend it. It has a great section at the front for self taught sewers like myself which explains a lot about various hand stitches, fabric types and the various tools of the trade. These pages can be seen in the amazon look inside which is handy!

It then goes on to explain how to make a variety of things such as tote bags, cushions, curtains and clothing. There's a disc at the back of the book which has patterns for some of the things in the book which you just print on to A4 paper and join together at the relevant markings. 

I had a length of fabric I'd bought from the rack in Mandors that hangs beside the til - great place for good offcuts! It was a metre long and I had no idea what to do with it. I bought it because I loved the pattern on it with the black and white picture print style combined with the red and green of the Italian flag, but I wasn't sure how I could wear it until I came across the no sew scalloped skirt. 

Now Martha Stewart recommends a suede style fabric which makes sense. It a good quality heavy fabric which will hold the shape of the skirt and won't fray round the edges you cut. My fabric was calico, which so does fray around the scallops but I think this adds to the character of the skirt and the roughness of the frayed edges suit the pattern on the fabric. It gives it a worn look which I like!

This is a really simple skirt to make as the words "no sew" in the title would have you believe. The most time consuming part was sticking together the A4 print outs for the pattern template and even that was easy to do. 

Quick and Easy Cowl neck Jersey Dress

Quick and Easy Cowl neck Jersey Dress

I had been in Mandors and bought a length of Jersey from their rack of offcuts and decided to try make myself something cheap and cheerful. Since I wanted it to be cheap and cheerful I wanted to see if I could get a free online pattern. I originally had it in my head that I wanted to make a long sleeve top with a cowl neck, but when searching for cowl neck patterns I came accross the Eva Dress on a website called your style rocks.

Butterick B5216 A & B

Butterick B5216 A & B

Fast Easy sewing with cotton.

Following on from the tricky silk party dress I decided to take a step back into the fast and easy pattern world and stick to a reliable cotton fabric.

I chose the Butterick B5216 pattern because I loved the variety of tops it offered. I also thought that with them being so simple it would be easy to adapt the straps to make them a bit different.

Mandors had a great stock of cotton liberty fabrics, so the only problem was not buying too many! I decided on four fabrics to make version B 3 times and one of version A. Instead of using fabric for the straps I bought some ribbons which matched my chosen fabrics, and some buttons just to add a wee bit more detail to them.

This definitely was a fast and easy pattern, especially since I wasn't doing the straps, so it was great for getting my confidence levels up and for making lots of wee summer tops quickly.

I Pad Cover

Make an Ipad Cover without a pattern

I had some fabric that I bought in mandors from their offcuts that they often have on sale beside the till.The decission then was what to make with it and as it was coming up to Christmas I decided to make my mum and Ipad cover as the one she had was a bit chewed by the dog. I thought it was a really fitting fabric as it had lots of magazine covers on it, so more fitting for an ipad cover than a piece of clothing, which is what I usually make.

I searched the internet for ideas and patterns but in the end I measured and cut the fabric to my own sizes. It's a first generation Ipad I was making it for and a lot of the patterns out there are for the more recent ones and the ipad mini. I got the dimensions for it from this website and set about working out my sizes.

With the Ipad sizes of 9.56 x 7.47 x 0.5inches, I converted it into metric sizes (I work in metric on a daily basis and just find myself getting confused if I go between the two) so this gave me dimensions on 243 x 190 x 13mm for the Ipad. I decided to make an envelope style cover and worked out I needed the following;

• Fabric - approx 600mm x 550mm
• wadding to pad the cover out 
• 250x192mm card to provide a structured back 
• ribbon 
• a button

This sketch shows my thinking behind what material I would need to cut. There were two lengths of 260x516mm to be stitched together and filled with wadding and card. These would then be sewn at set distance to create the folds to give the envelope effect.
The small squares of fabric would be folded into triangles and sewn onto the right side of the fabric to create holds for the ipad.

Upcycled furniture - Queen Anne Footstool!

Upcycled Queen Anne Footstool

When we moved into our house we were had nothing. Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware that a footstool is not a necessity, but it was something we wanted and so to get the things we needed and wanted within our budget we had to start bargain hunting.

I was sitting telling my gran how I'd been searching the charity shops, gumtree and ebay for a Queen Anne footstool to repair and reupholster and how I couldn't found one when, low and behold she had one in her garage! I instantly remembered it when she showed me it and was excited to start the task of covering it!

I had looked online for tutorials since I had never done this before and found this really useful..

http://www.instructables.com/id/Upholster-a-Queen-Anne-style-stool/

When I had stripped off the three layers of fabric on the old stool (my grandparents had been recovering it for a while, one time stapling on the fabric and another time using nails. F.Y.Y. don't use nails they're a nightmare to get out and look really untidy.) I discovered the inside of my stool was nothing like the one in the instructable, infact the cushion was pretty much crumbling away. 

simplicity 2362 Maxi dresses

Simplicity 2362 

Liberty Fabric Maxi Dresses

I am a big fan of the maxi dress, however, I am a bit of a strange shape, a bit top heavy I guess. I found that when I tried them on in stores I had to go fora much bigger size than I do for any other clothes if I wanted to stop myself pouring out the top of them. This also resulted in them not fitting well below the bust and me feeling like I was wearing a bin bag. Obviously the only way for me to get a maxi dress  I was comfortable in was to make my own.

I selected the simplicity 2362 pattern as I liked the variety of tops you can have to the dress and really liked the idea of having pockets. I'm a big fan of pockets - they provide somewhere to put your hands when awkwardly standing for a holiday snap!

I decided to go for styles C and E, only I made E the same length as C. I cut the pattern a size up from what I usually use in preparation for the awkward maxi dress and for the first time used my dress making dummy for more than just taking photographs of what I've made. I took my measurements and adjusted my dummy to fit and get started.

My Butterick B5352 silk mistake!

B5352 Butterick Dress

Why you shouldn't ignore fabric recommendations.

I had a 21st birthday and a 30th birthday party to go to, both happening on the same night and since it had been a while since I'd made something I decided I wanted to make a nice party dress for the occasions. So I did my usual, chose a pattern and then went looking for a fabric. I wanted something light and floaty, it was April, springtime, so I also wanted something bright and cheerful.

I chose the B5352 Butterick pattern because I loved the way it flowed at the base. Now my next step - chosing the fabric is where I went wrong...

I naively ignored the recommendation for a stretch knit fabric and chose my fabric purely based on the fact that I loved it. I loved the idea of silk, it was to be a party dress after all, and it was so bright and cheery I just had to have it.

Making a Corset for a Masquerade Ball

Making a Corset for a Masquerade Ball

There's a club night in Glasgow called Club Noir which is a burlesque show and everyone comes dressed according to the theme set for the night. It also happens to be the home of Chelsea Dagger from the Fratellis song. 

My friends and I were going to the Venetian Masked Ball and so I needed a corset. The last time I'd made one was for a project at school and I hadn't included boning or anything, it was very basic, but I decided to use the same pattern I had mocked up then and add boning to it.

I already had a mask and so the colours of the fabric and trim were very much chosen to compliment that. I chose a purple raw silk and a silver zig zag trim as well as some silver ribbon as a fastening at the back. I added boning to the seams, which gave it some structure and my mannequin was very useful in making sure it was made to fit me. 

Back to the start...

Vogue 1129 Jacket Pattern Project

My last post was all so I could add the images of my fabric on to my spoonflower account but I've decided I would like to use my blog for more than that. So I've decided to go back in time by a few years and show some of the things I've been making in my spare time and explain why I've made what I've made.

I began making things when I was at school, cutting up my jeans to restyle them or up cycling old clothes into hand bags and the like. I loved Art and when choosing a career, I knew I wanted to do something creative - I'm now an Architect. Whilst I do get to do a lot of design work on a daily basis, designing on paper is in no way the same as crafting and realising the design yourselves. In my professional life, I have to rely on other peoples money (clients budgets) and contractors skills to progress my designs from paper to reality, but when I'm crafting I can spend as much or as little money as I want and I am in complete control of the quality of the finished product. 

That's why a few years ago I got a sewing machine and rediscovered my love for making things. This jacket is one of the first things I made with my sewing machine. The fabric came from Mandors, Glasgow. My favourite fabric shop. I could spend forever sitting at the pattern bench in store looking through the books deciding on what I want to make next.

For my first project I chose this Vogue pattern 1129.