Lampshade Making at Sew Over It's Summer Party

A couple of weeks ago I was delighted to be invited along to Sew Over It's Summer Party for an evening of lampshade making, cocktail drinking and chatting with a number of lovely London based sewing bloggers. Many of them are well known to me now (a fair few Spoolettes were in attendance!) but it was so great to finally meet some more familiar online faces in real life! 

In case you have not come across Sew Over It before it is a gorgeous little sewing cafe in Clapham, South London, run but the very talented Lisa Comfort who many of you may well recognise. Classes and workshops are held in the cafe and a shop selling a carefully selected range of fabrics and haberdashery occupies some of the space. The shop also of course stocks the Sew Over It pattern range and sewing kits. I managed to resist temptation as I've already got their Ultimate Trousers lined up in the sewing queue but I was seriously eyeing up the Ultimate Wrap Dress pattern! As you can see below it was a beautiful summer evening and the team had put on quite a spread for us.

We were lucky enough to try out the studio space downstairs and experience Lisa's tuition first hand with a taster of their lampshade making workshop. I was a little apprehensive about this at first (fear of not having a pattern to follow and a machine to sit behind!) but it was super straightforward and enjoyable. It was a real treat to have the supplies laid out ready and waiting to be assembled by us, it's always the prep work and set up that puts me off getting stuck into a project! It has the potential to get a little messy if you are attempting it on your own as you have to roll the two tape covered wire 'wheels' onto the fabric at the same time and speed but with two pairs of hands it was quick and easy.

Here I am putting the finishing touches on my lampshade. This abstract monochrome print jumped straight out at me from the selection available, I guess I know my taste in prints! I wore my second version of the Anna Dress as the fabric for it I bought in Sew Over It early last year. It's a poly crepe with a blotchy floral print which reminds me of cherry blossoms. I actually found the same fabric in Lisa's book when I was browsing through it later in the evening! 

Here we all are with our lampshades in multiple colours and patterns! You might recognise a few well known faces in this pic, Lisa the owner of Sew Over It is on the end on the right. I was chatting to the girls about how well you get to know each other's tastes through reading blogs and as I was browsing the fabric choices I could tell with some people who would pick what!

My lampshade has fit right in in my sewing space at home. It's taken pride of place on the lamp my Nan and Grandad gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago, yes that's giant spools of thread forming the stand! Thanks so much to Lisa, Tugba and Alex for your hospitality and giving us all such a fantastic evening. Thanks also to Alex for the great photos!