Admin top

So I have finally managed to do some sewing this week, and have started putting together the top for work from the Burda pattern I talked about in my earlier post. I've called it 'Admin' as I reckon this one will be confined to wear in the office. So the fabric I'm making this from is a sort of creased stretchy crepe - the photo here isn't great but you can probably see it looks all wavy, sort of like stone. It has a LOT of stretch widthways (from selvedge to selvedge - is that widthways?!) and not much lengthways, which has made it really awkward to mark, cut pin and sew (more on that in a second). I have been using a lot of pins...

The pattern is made of four basic pieces - front (cut on the fold), back left, back right and a bit for the collar. The first thing to do was to sew the shoulder seams (ie front to back right and front to back left), which I did on my machine and then neatened the edges with my overlocker.

I should have thought ahead that of course the stretchiness of the fabric would likely mean some adjustments to the settings on the overlocker... after I'd done the first shoulder I realised, and twiddled one of the knobs on the side to try and stop it stretching the fabric out so much. You can see the first seam at the bottom of the pic, and the second at the top. The second seam is far from perfect but much better than the first. Practice makes perfect I guess! Once I'd done the shoulder seams, I neatened to edges of each centre back pieces and then sewed them together, pressing the seams open. The next tricky bit was the collar - mainly because of the floppy fabric.... it has rouleaux loops to fasten at the back and pinning and stitching those was really hard. It also requires hand finishing - the collar piece is an oblong folded over, with the rouleaux loops sandwiched between the short ends, and the inside of the collar stitched to the seam line of the front side of the fold (does that make sense?!). Anyway, I've pinned that and the hand sewing shall have to wait for another day...

I'll post more pictures when I'm done :-)

Small clothes

There was obviously something in water around March / April this year, because it seems like almost everybody we know is about five months pregnant. Aside from being (not so) quietly smug about being able to booze, an upside of this means I have a legitimate excuse to make some baby clothes! I have over the years thought about making some for my doll Jemma, but that may be construed as a bit weird.. Thankfully at least two of the people I know who are pregnant will be giving birth to little girls which is excellent – the clothes for girls are so much more cute than for boys. So when I bought my overlocker last week, I also picked up a couple of patterns for baby clothes - Simplicity 3509 and New Look 6310. I started with the Simplicity pattern and made the dress up in the size for a six month old... what sort of scary-ass six month old I am not quite sure, as now it's finished it looks like it would almost fit me. OK, maybe that is an exaggeration, but it would certainly fit a four year old I think... You will see from the pics that I have utilised my overlocker for the first time (yay!) for finishing the seams and also attaching the lace trim at the bottom (that was a bit scary and best not to look to closely at the overlap). It is actually quite cool making small clothes as they take a lot less time than gorwn-up ones, and you get to use some fun fabrics. One thing I have realised though is that you really need to think about which fabrics, trims and fastenings you use. I used a standard invisible zipper at the back of this dress and made a little rouleaux loop at the back for a button at the top, but really the zipper pull is too spiky for a baby to be lying on top of in a cot. I think snaps are probably the best thing to use - easy to fasten on a small child and neat to look at. I need to order some of those nice pearlised ones I think. Also you really need to wash the fabric first (which I didn't do). I think this attempt I will keep as a prototype and maybe give the next attempt away.

Ta-daaaaaaa...!

So last week I finally gave in and bought an overlocker. The thought of super-quick and super-neat seams was getting to be too much of a temptation, and I had been mooching around on the interweb looking for reviews for a pretty cheap one that would still be of a good quality. I almost went for a Brother 1034D, but then read some good reviews about the Janome 9200D (how much of a geek do I sound) – I have generally heard that the build quality of Janome machines is excellent, and this model was only £199 at Peter Jones.

So after lugging it home on the tube I finally got it out if it's box and plugged in. Miraculously, it came already threaded (hooray) with white thread (I have therefore managed to put off threading it myself for a bit longer). So I watched the DVD and had a little play.... it is amazing! Everything is so neat! Oh the neatness! The rolled hem function is pretty cool too – will have to use that on something soon – and you don't need to change the needle plates or anything (not exactly sure what this would entail in any event – I fear a screwdriver would be involved – but all the reviews said much better not to have to do it). I have a feeling it does loads of stuff that I have no idea about – perhaps when I am really bored I will actually read the entire instruction manual. Pretty excited about being able to sew stretchy fabrics too – have bought some cotton jersey to practice with. Watch this space!