Diary of a Chain Stitcher

The project I'm sharing with you today is from Wendy Ward 's new book ' Sewing Basics for Every Body ', published by CICO Books . It is a beautiful book of clean, modern garments packed with interesting design details. It includes 5 patterns for core basics providing 20 different garments - although with the variety of options on offer I think you could make a lot more! I think what I love most about it is that all the garments are unisex and are modelled by both men and women in the garment photos. It is so wonderful to see this kind of inclusivity and it is a refreshing way to look at garment design and sewing. Why do garments need to be gendered? Clothes are for 'Every Body' as Wendy says in the title and we are all free to make our own fashion choices and style them how we like.

Any of my friends and family will be able to tell you that my love for books, especially huge coffee table tomes about the history of fashion, is verging on an obsession. Especially my Dad who has helped me move my ever increasing collection from flat to flat over the last decade! I have a huge bookcase of beautiful books covering sewing, costume and all genres of fashion. It may seem strange therefore that I don't often write sewing book reviews but in all honesty I have so many books and so little space now that it takes something really specially to get a yes when asked 'would you like a review copy?' It took me about 2 seconds to decide when Laurence King got in touch with me last month and I got my first peak at ' Creating Couture Embellishment ' by Ellen W. Miller. YES PLEASE! The book is set for release here in the UK on July 17th 2017 but is a timeless sourcebook of ideas for fabric manipulation and decoration. The author has taught extensively at Bost...

Today I'm sharing a super quick and satisfying project that's a little different to my usual sewing style. After all the intense and lengthy coat and dress making I've been doing recently the speed and ease of this really was a breath of fresh air. I love those fiddly projects with a thousand pattern pieces and techniques to work with but I think mixing in the odd super simple project helps to keep things fresh and enjoyable. This project was particularly great as the lack of a pattern and totally different construction processed made use of an entirely new part of my creative brain. As I mentioned in a previous post I went to the Knitting & Stitching Show at Kensington Olympia with my mum a couple of weeks ago. We were keen to attend one of the events on the main stage and when I saw that the line up included Chinelo Bally from the Great British Sewing Bee and she was going to be demonstrating her impressive freehand cutting skills that seemed the obvious choi...

It's a well known fact within my family and friends that I have a bit of a sewing/costume/fashion book addiction. I have quite a large bookshelf of hefty tomes that is the first thing my Dad thinks of every time I've asked him to help me move! It's not often that I'll take up the offer to review a sewing book here on the blog as the limited amount of space I now have means I try to make only careful book selections that are unlike any other in my library. When I was approached to take a look at the recently released ' Make It, Own It, Love It ' by Matt Chapple (the 2015 winner of The Great British Sewing Bee) the thing that swung my decision to accept was the inclusion of 'everything you need to know about repairing and maintaining you attire'. I hadn't come across another book focusing on that aspect of home sewing before and was intrigued. My first impression was that this is a really good looking book! I really like the photography and illust...

I've got a slightly different post lined up for you today. I've been a bit slow about it but I'm finally catching up with the writing process blog hop that's been doing the rounds! The ever so cool Nicole Needles nominated me for it a few weeks back, sorry that it's taken me so long Nicole! I've got to answer four questions to give you guys an insight into why and how I write my blog so here it goes: What am I working on? Despite taking a couple of 'sew-cation' days last week and blitzing through a few UFOs and projects that were cut out and waiting for me as always I've got more sewing ideas buzzing around my head than I've got time to sew! I'm part way through a pair of Sew Over It Ultimate Trousers which I'm having a few fitting issues with as they are my very first pair of trousers! I've made some alterations already which has made a vast improvement but I think I might be posting some pictures for advice soon as I've ...

So it's the end of January already and time for the first of my posts rounding up the news from our favourite Independent Pattern Companies from the past few weeks. New Pattern Companies! Lena from The Sewing Space  has just launched her 'Iconic Patterns' line with the  FREE Sami Cami pattern  and Jess Jeans - could this finally be the skinny jeans pattern that wins our hearts?! Based in London, and using beautiful illustrations,  Gather  have just launched their first two 'Gather Kits', the  Mortmain Dress  and  Tallis Collar New Patterns Named released their  Spring/Summer 2014 collection ! I'm completely in love with all of it, especially the  Kielo wrap dress  and  Vanamo two-piece cocktail dress , and the pattern testers are raving. Which is your favourite? Deer & Doe  released the  FREE Plantain t-shirt pattern  and is running a competition for the cutest version - voted for by the Deer...

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you've all enjoyed a lovely relaxing weekend and found some time for a little bit of stitching! I've recently been going through my things from when I was a child back home as my Dad is moving house soon. It was really amazing to go through all my old things; I found my very first sewing machine! This has been kept, of course. My Dad had also found these two amazing sewing books in the loft which my Mum says belonged to my Nan. My sister said when Dad found them he said 'well at least that's one thing we know what we're going to do with!' Without a doubt these two have found a home with me. I was sooo excited! I love these kinds of finds and the fact that I can actually make use of these now is just amazing! The Singer book has a copyright date of 1969 and the other doesn't have any kind of date or copyright page so Mum thinks was some kind of magazine or sewing materials supplement. From the clothes and the pictures I...

The second handmade gift I gave at Christmas were these fold up shopper style bags for my mum. I used this tutorial from Sew4Home (which is a brilliant website containing a huge number of tutorials and templates for making all kinds of crafty projects perfect for gift giving). I got on ok with the tutorial but definitely found some of the instructions confusing and a bit of a strange way to go about things. The tutorial's aim was definitely to help you get all your raw edges enclosed and get everything as neat as possible but the way they got you to sew up the handles was really difficult to understand!  I do think some of the problems I had were partly my own doing as I kept second guessing where the tutorial was going and thinking that I knew a simpler way to achieve the same effect! I was also trying to adapt the tutorial slightly to suit the fabric quantities I had available. The tutorial calls for cutting two pieces from the template for the outside of each bag ...

Today I thought I'd recommend this fantastic book which I discovered quite by chance in the library of the college where I have been doing my pattern cutting course. There was a really good selection of sewing related books but this one stood out for me A) because of the word easy and B) because of the subtitle 'Time-saving techniques, shortcuts, tips and tricks for today's busy sewers'. I don't get a lot of time to sew and I'm very impatient. When I do have some free time the only thing that puts me off getting cracking is the fact that (especially as I'm still very much a novice) it can be such a long time before you get a result. Certain aspects of the process take me far longer than I think they should, or at least than I'd like them to so any time saving tips are very welcome around here! And full of said tips this book is indeed! The book was written in 1987 and yes the beautiful images in the centre of the book certainly reinforce this poin...

I thought I'd briefly share with you a couple of other sewing/costume related gifts I received over Christmas. Firstly... 'Costume from 1500 to the Present Day' I asked for this one and I must admit was very surprised at the size of it on opening as I have a couple of other Cally Blackman books and they are big thick reference books. However I have to say I think the size of it is a huge plus point. Learning about the history of costume can be a hugely daunting task particularly when starting out as there is simply so much ground to cover and so much depth to go into. I had ploughed through this one by New Year and it has really all sunk in and stuck because it simply spells out what you need to know, you don't have to dig out the important facts and it leaves you feeling fairly confident about all periods. Obviously don't expect to become an expert on any one thing but there are some great little nuggets of information in there. First part of the 18th Ce...