Fear of the Unknown

In my last post I wrote about a challenge I set myself to not purchase any new clothes until October. In conjunction with this I have also realised to be successful in making and altering my own clothes, I need to be more educated in the features of my trusty Singer. When I started seriously sewing I was using a beautiful 1955 Singer 201k, which is the ultimate work horse. That baby would sew through leather as if it were the thinnest cotton but the trouble was it only did a straight stitch. I am lucky enough to own an abundance of different attachments for it including a zig zag and button holer. But I found these increasingly frustrating to use with little or no instructions. I decided when I enrolled in a dress making course last year that I would invest in a modern machine to enable me to learn the skills first and then I could transfer these to the 201k at a later date. Anyone who sews will know that modern machines are equipped with up to hundreds of different stitches and all kinds of trickery but on average only a fraction of these features will ever get used. So regarding my challenge, I have been playing about with some of my lesser used machine functions and am actually quite proud of the results! I'd never attempted a button hole until this evening and I'd never tried to sew an actual button on using a machine before! I thank the good people at Singer for the latter as I HATE sewing buttons on at the best of times so this has really changed things up for me! My next experiment will be with the decorative/embroidery stiches which will look great when hemming clothes or adding appliqué to cushions. I've got plenty of scrap material to try this on and hopefully it will yield some productive results. All in all I would encourage anyone with a sewing machine to get out of their comfort zone and try some of these unused functions because you never know, they could become the most useful resources you have.

Homemade Summer Challenge

Yesterday I did my yearly trip to Primani to get some new strappy vests for summer. I replace all the faded, shrunken and generally scrappy tops in time for the nice weather and also if you go early enough in the season they have a better range of colours! Yesterday was my last shopping trip for clothes for the foreseeable future because I have decided to set myself a mammoth challenge! You see I'm a bit of a shopping addict so for me the following will be a BIG deal. I have decided that from today I will not be buying any new clothes for the next 5 months! That brings me to my birthday month of October and as I can't promise I won't enjoy a few new items around that time, it's the perfect time to end my challenge. Until then I will only wear what I own or make or alter from charity shop finds. I'm hoping this will not only help my sewing skills improve but also save some well needed pennies. It will also prove to me that I don't wear 40% of my wardrobe which will be donated at the end of the challenge. I am allowing myself to buy essentials such as underwear and hosery but this my friends will be it! Let the challenge commence

Website Update!!!!

I've just spent all afternoon sinking my teeth into editing and updating the Mama Likes To Sew website. When I originally set up the site I had no idea what I was doing and it was a rather daunting task to say the least! I spent ages trying to find a host and comparing prices and I was worried the more I searched the less likely I was to actually get the domain I wanted. It's an absolute mine field trying to get a website up and running! Today I have tweaked everything, added new pictures, new content and tested every link is present and correct. There is still much work to do photo wise as I'm constantly adding to my portfolio but all in all I'm quite proud of myself! 

Hello old friend

It's been FOREVER since I last posted. Life just kind of took over and now I'm back and ready to roll! Or sew, however you want to look at it! I've been studying Pinterest a lot lately for new inspiration from like minded people and getting ideas for future projects. I got my Singer out for the first time in yonks the other day and realised how much I actually enjoy making something from scratch. The feeling of looking at a finished item is one of such pride, especially when it was just a pile of fabric, wadding and a few reels of cotton only hours before. This got me thinking about the potential of some of my fabric stash. Crafting as a whole is seeing the potential in something that maybe others can't see, whether it's a pile of fabric, paper, beads or even furniture, the thought process is always focused on the final result. I really thrive around like minded people and revel in their creativity. A friend of mine is so talented in not only dress making but also mixed media art and has an amazing studio in her house dedicated to crafting. It was like walking into an Alladin's cave of creativity. She is able to take even the most mundane object and turn it into something beautiful and that my friends is a talent. I'm so glad that programs like the Great British Sewing Bee, Money For Nothing and George Clark's Amazing Spaces are given air time because these shows enable ordinary and unrecognised people a chance to show what they are truly made of. My local fabric store in town is always packed when I go in there and it just goes to show, the old skills are well and truly still going strong. 

Old things, new things

It's an acquired taste, the whole vintage thing. I guess you either love it or hate it but for me when I meet someone like minded it's excellent. Especially when they are already friends because it means I get to gush over my latest purchase or likes and know they are genuinely interested! I've recently added a new string to my bow by helping a friend reupholster a vintage swivel chair. It was more complicated than we both thought but the results were amazing. It just goes to show if you can look past how something looks and see your vision, the possibilities are endless.

Exciting times!

So it's all going on here, not only has the website launched this evening, but we've also listed a whopping 34 items to the eBay page which means there are vintage haberdashery bargains to be had! Please check out our site at www.mamalikestosew.co.uk which has links to our eBay and also previews of our items for sale. What happened this space Vintage Mama is taking over!! 

Out Of My Comfort Zone

I am writing this in a place that I would never think of entering voluntarily EVER! I am sitting in the cafe of one of our local gyms. Munch loves coming here with her dad swimming and I have been putting it off for ages to come and watch her swim. So today on this grey bank holiday Monday, I am camped out in the Costa Coffee watching them through the window and hoping that it doesn't become crowded with those special 'gym' types! Blissfully it's really quiet at the moment. 

I know exercise is meant to be good and all that but I put it down to being seriously scarred by P.E lessons at school! Having never been particularly sporty, I found P.E an absolute nightmare. School teachers like to play the sporty kids off against the non-sporty, leaving the latter feeling inadequate and pretty rubbish. This is how it felt to me, as one of those who didn't fit the sports mould. As a result of this I've never been interested in going to a gym or taking an exercise class and until a rather drunk day in grand canaria I couldn't even swim! My idea of fun differs greatly from standing in a room sweating with strangers and I would rather walk or ice skate or just go plain old shopping! We seem to live in a society today where those who don't choose the gym bandwagon every January are made out to be lazy almost. I am certainly not lazy but I just won't put myself in the situation where I feel so uncomfortable voluntarily. I'm not slagging people who like or go to the gym and I am probably not in a position to judge as I don't go there, but I can't think of anything worse than showing my lumps and bumps to the beautiful people.