Magazine Love

Because until recently I've been a self taught sewist/sewer (never quite sure of the appropriate definition!) I have relied on books and magazines to help me along the way. I like to buy a few different magazines and see which suit my style and are beginner friendly. Straight away I loved the format of Love Sewing magazine and bought the first issue. I missed a few issues before I decided to subscribe and I really look forward to the monthly delivery of a great magazine and the free patterns and make ideas. One of the issues I missed during the brief pause in buying included a dress pattern for the Ruby dress. There are always pictures of reader makes of this dress and I was green with envy that I'd missed such a great pattern. Luckily for me, to celebrate the end of the Great British Sewing Bee series 3, the lovely people at Love Sewing have rereleased the pattern in paper format. I had to have it! I am waiting for it to land on my doorstep so that I can get started using the beautiful pick and turquoise flamingo fabric that I fell in love with at my local fabric shop. When I'm finished I will post the pictures!!

You can find Love Sewing magazine at all good retailers or subscribe on their website Here 

My Little Nemo

It looks like spring has well and truely sprung here in the south! Today was too good a day to sit in and do nothing so we all bundled into the car and took a drive to the seafront. Munch loves to swim so we took her to the swimming pool and let her loose on the wave machines and baby slides. As I don't swim I got to sit and watch while Munch and Daddy had a fantastic splashy time in a packed pool. A few years ago it looked like this pool might be closed forever due to storm damage to the building, but it's all been sorted now and open to the public once again. I'm so glad that Munch loves the water as I've never been confident in it myself and the last thing I wanted was for her to inherit my fear. She takes after her father and is like a little nemo! After they had both tired of the pool we decided to drive along the seafront and into town to spend her Christmas toy vouchers. Unfortunately there wasn't anything suitable so that will be saved for another day, but it was nice to be out and about even for a few hours enjoying the sun and being a family.

Serial Material Buyer

I often read other people's blogs and Pinterest boards and have discovered that there is a common guilty pleasure amongst sewers which involves the buying of fabric! It seems I'm not the only person who will walk into said fabric shop and buy something just because I like it. Most of the time I haven't got the foggiest what I will do with it! This has resulted in a rapidly growing fabric stash which is getting a bit hard to store. I'm so envious of the lucky few who have whole rooms dedicated to their hobby. If I had that kind of space who knows how much fabric I could hoard! My favourite purchase so far has to be some lovely Hawaiian style cotton adorned with flamingoes. I couldn't leave this beauty in the shop without having some and now I think I'm going to have to go back for more as I've decided to make a lovely summer dress with it. It's only been within the last month that I've had my eyes opened to how many fabric shops I have within a few minutes drive from my house. Obviously I'm delighted by this and it shows how popular the hobby is once more. Hopefully these shops will continue to thrive. My favourite shop by far combines two of my favourite things, sewing and charity! About 20 mins drive from my house is a charity shop ran by local hospice charity The Rowans, it is dedicated purely to all the donated craft items that come into their charity shops. It's an emporium for everything crafty and I love it! Where else (apart from maybe the Internet) would I have found three metres of crimplene in perfect condition for under £10! I'm planning another trip there to look through their extensive pattern box, in hope to find that vintage jem and no doubt I'll leave with another bag full of goodies. 

Bike Win! Eventually

Last summer I bought Munch a Smart Trike from EBay. It was a bargain at £25 or so I thought until I picked it up. It was in working order but was extremely faded and showing years of toddler shaped abuse. Also the bucket on the back, for mum storage, was missing. I was a little disappointed but I reasoned if Munch didn't get much use out of it then at least it hadn't cost a fortune. Which as it turns out was a smart move! I thought that she would love it, being out of the confines of a pushchair, being able to see everything going on.......WRONG! Any passers by might be mistaken into thinking that a child was being murdered every time we tried to put her on that bike! We ended up leaving it in my mum and dad's garage and only getting it out when round there so she could have a look at it. I got a squeaky horn for the handlebars and even fashioned a front basket out of a plastic peg basket so that her favourite toy could ride with her. It didn't work. Eventually the weather got colder and it just got locked in the garage and pretty much forgotten about. 

I met up with a friend of mine and her daughter for coffee a week ago and her 4 year old had brought her micro scooter with her. I noticed Munch's eyes light up at the scooter and was delighted when my friends daughter let her have a go. I couldn't believe my eyes as she got on it and scooted off across the precinct! Unfortunately this led to a massive tantrum after my friends daughter wanted her scooter back, but it got me thinking that maybe it was a good time to try the bike again.

Munch was going to spend Saturday with Nana and Grumps so I asked my dad to get the bike out of the garage and see what would happen. I got a phone call a few hours later to say that she had taken to it like a duck to water and was in and out of it like a yoyo. I was so excited that she finally liked the bike that I couldn't wait to take her out on it myself. So yesterday as it was a lovely sunny day, we got the bike out and I took her for a walk. There were no arguments, no screaming and even when she got out to walk for a bit, there was no complaining to get back in it to walk home. So all in all, patience has worked and I will thank my mum for persuading me to sell it after we had the first tantrum! This summer will be great fun walking with her and her bike. Roll on summer!!

Hello Monday

I can't believe how quickly the days go by lately! It feels like winter has been and gone in a blink. So fast that not all of my winter attire got an outing! On Saturday I decided that it was time to tackle the dreaded winter mould spots in the bathroom and ended up having a proper spring clean. The sun was streaming in through the open windows - quickly followed by the not so warm wind - and it was nice to see some lovely sunny weather after all this grey. Everything seems nicer when it's sunny, like that feeling you get when you step off the plane in a hot country, everything feels so much more alive. As this change in the weather develops, it's going to me time to start thinking of summer type clothing and wondering what will work and what won't look good anymore. Whilst browsing my favourite go to site Pinterest, I stumbled across an excellent website called Refashionista which mixes thrift store shopping with sewing and what this lady can do with an ugly 80s throwback is astounding! It's really given me inspiration to see through the garment and look at the potential. I'll keep you posted on how this next charity shopping trip goes as it'll be like seeing stuff with brand new eyes.

Vintage Pattern = Sizing Up!

I didn't realise that when you buy a dress pattern you should always look at the measurements and not the actual dress size! I had read online somewhere that when shopping for vintage patterns that you should always size up at least twice, but I didn't think this applied to modern patterns as well. When I started my dress making course I was aware that I would have to have a pattern that I wanted to make already decided before the course started so I chose a lovely vintage piece that I had bought from a fair months before. Whenim bought this pattern i had been quite naive and thought because it stated a size 14, I would be quite safe I the sizing. How wrong was I! It wasn't until mŷ correct measurements were taken, that i realised how much it would have to be adapted to fit my 'modern' lady shape. Every single element of this 1967 dress had to be tweeked and altered in order for it to fit. At the start of my course this seemed like a mammoth task, but as the weeks went on I realised that it wasn't as difficult as first expected. Every pattern piece has to be widened to suit my body shape and after this was done a mock up was made out of an old sheet that I has lying around. This test piece was invaluable, as it taught me to cut from a pattern, mark and them sew darts and also the realisation that not all dresses made fit first time! After adapting all of the pattern pieces, I cut them to the final material and am now in the process of putting it altogether. I have four weeks left of my course and I am determined to get the dress finished before it ends and them maybe I might be brave enough to take on my own projects, or maybe I might stay on for another term!

The Family Legacy

When I was growing up I only had one Nan on my Mother's side as all my other grandparents were dearly departed. My parents told me all about my other Grandparents, which I didn't fully appreciate until I was much older. My Grandad on my Mother's side was an electrician with the SEB and did a lot of work on pylons. My Mum always said he was a deeply caring man, who both her and my Uncle respected highly. He died in 1981 before I was born, hit by a drunk driver on the way to work. Listening to how raw this still is for my Mum over 30 years later made me vow as a driver that I would never commit this sin as soon as I passed my test. My Dad's parents had sadly both passed away long before I was born but I was told about them again from a young age. My Dad's Dad had been a photographer on Southsea seafront while my Dad had grown up and then my Dad remembers him bring a delivery driver to the Stanstead Estate in Hampshire. My paternal Grandmother had been a tailoress and it is this that I have followed. Whilst going through an old case of family photos, I came across what now would be called my Grandmother's portfolio of wedding dresses, which she had made during the 50s and 60s. As an avid follower of both these decades I was very interested at looking at this amazing work, completed lovingly by someone I was related to. My Dad told me that whilst clearing out the family home, a lot of photographs had been disposed of and as these didn't hold any family significance he wasn't that bothered about keeping them. I asked if I could take them and keep them as a reminder of the beautiful work that she had done. I look at those photos with awe, that such intricate and beautiful garments could have been created by someone whose genes I now carry. I have always had a talent when it comes to creating things through sewing and jokingly my Mum always used to say that i was channeling my Grandmother, but recently after taking up the sewing hobby again I realised that there might be some truth in what she had to say. I decided to enrol in a dressmaking course to further my self taught skills and without blowing my own trumpet I seem to be taking to it like a duck to water. If there was one skill in life that I hoped was family born, it would be my relatives creative talents. I am so proud to have such talented family members and even if I only inherited an ounce of what they did, it would be the greatest family legacy to pass onto my daughter.