Diary of a Chain Stitcher

If you follow me on Instagram you might have seen that I've been working on a pretty epic coat project for the last month or so. It's now finished and I can't wait to show you all but after all that sewing I'm struggling to muster up the enthusiasm to take photos and write what I imagine will be a fairly epic blog post. So in the mean time you're getting a Christmas party dress!

It seems very late in the day to be showing you guys some gifts I made for Christmas but I'm so proud of them I can't skip sharing! Despite deciding that trying to make too many gifts each year wasn't worth the panic during the run up to Christmas, I expected to have a fair bit of time in December and knew my family deserved some treats so went all out with the sewing this year. Of course I then ended up working some fairly crazy hours and with much less time to sew than I hoped it all became quite the rush! Some late nights were involved but it was worth it to see the looks on their faces on Christmas Day. I've sworn I'll cut down this year but I doubt that will happen again...partly because it's too difficult to resist the opportunity to sew some things which I'd never make myself! First up are my Mum's and Sister's which have a New York theme as both of them love the Big Apple. If you follow me on Instagram you may have spotted that I've just ...

When I tested the newly released Kim Dress from By Hand London I had an unexplainable urge to sew up that wrap skirt in a silk velvet. Something about making up a winter version with those little pleats and the drape of the overlapping petals said luxurious rich coloured velvet to me! At the time I had half brushed it off as one of those crazy sewing ideas that I never get around to realising but then I got an invite from the BHL girls themselves to a London sewing blogger Christmas do and it seemed like fate telling me to make this dress. I'd never sewn velvet before so was still not 100% sold on the idea, as although the dress is quite straight forward to assemble there's a lot of seams going on for a first attempt with velvet. I decided to see if I could find any fairly inexpensive silk velvet on Goldhawk Road during the meet up when Lauren was in town. Lo and behold Unique Fabrics had silk velvet in a wide range of colours for £15/m which I thought to be pretty reas...

First up I'd just like to say a big thank you for all your helpful overlocking tips on my last post. I'm really pleased with my Coppelia Cardigan and it's had a fair bit of wear already but I've definitely got a lot to learn about knits so any tips to make that process a bit easier are being warmly welcomed! For my next stretch project I'm tempted to make another Coppelia because I love it so much, or I've also got the Sewaholic Renfrew calling me which, if Tasia's instructions are anything like her other patterns, should help my knit skills no end. Anyway, today I thought I'd show you what I had my head down sewing in the lead up to Christmas. I chose to make quite a few gifts this year and after the chaos of last year started nice and early too! I made my Mum a knitting needle roll, the same style as  my Nan's last year. Mum uses one of the bags I made her last year to keep her 'knitting projects-in-progress' in so I thought it wo...

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 ...

I chose to make quite a few of my gifts this Christmas; well I made for anyone who I could think of a handmade gift for which they would really want or need. I like the idea of handmade gifts but I still want to give people something really suited to them and which they will find useful so for my brother, my dad and well pretty much all the males I gave to I decided to still buy gifts as I couldn't think of anything just right to make. Crafting gifts did make for a pretty stressful run up to the Christmas period and I'm not sure I enjoyed those couple of weeks beforehand as much as I usually do so I may try to reign myself in with the crafty gift ideas next year but we'll see how it goes! Perhaps hand made gifts are a better idea for birthdays, so spread throughout the year rather than trying to make a whole bunch at once! Anyway, my first handmade gift was this liberty print needle roll I made for my Nan. I am SO happy with the way it turned out and she seemed a...

Before Christmas Vicki Kate organised the Sew Very Merry Christmas Swap , Krafty Kat organised the Sewist's Secret Santa and I jumped at the chance to take part in both. I had a great time picking gifts for my two partners and now it's time for the big reveal of what I was lucky enough to pull out from underneath my tree! To sum it up before I get into detail I was hopping-round-the-room-delighted! First up is the lovely package I received from my Secret Santa. Let's start with the vintage pattern. I LOVE it! I'm a big fan of maxi dresses and skirts in the warmer months (and also the not so warm months with boots) but have never found a pattern I liked that wouldn't turn out as an unflattering tube. This, with a bit of flare and a fitted waist, is ideal so thank you so much to the mystery giver! I particularly like it in the floral print on the envelope, don't all of the colours in the illustration just scream seventies? Also in the package were some...

I've just begun a couple of projects which are taking some thinking and planning before I even get to the sewing stage, lots of pattern tracing, adding sleeves and making little adjustments. This is my least favourite part of dress making, I like to be at the machine or have a needle and thread in hand and see something coming together! So I decided to ease the frustration with a quick little christmas decoration project that I've had in mind for a while - Christmas Bunting! I'd seen quite a few lovely versions in the shops and online to tempt me (including this gorgeous 1950s print from the dotcomgiftshop ) but I couldn't help thinking should I really be spending this much money on such a simple to make item, the process of which I could work out myself and which could be cobbled together from and make use of fabric scraps which I can't bear to throw away. So, in need of just getting on and finishing a sewing project I whipped up a small length this afternoon fro...

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas period and all your handmade gifts were fully appreciated!  As promised here are some snaps of my completed Christmas table set up for mine and my boyfriend's mini Christmas day (I'd never be allowed to get involved with my Mum's table plans back home!) The fabric for the runner was a bargain from Ikea when I wasn't even looking for fabric and they also did matching paper napkins and wrapping paper which I also made full use of! I love using simple candles as a centre piece (I'm having a bit of a candle moment actually) but when it came to putting the table together I wished I had a bit of festive foliage, just some fir or holly, to lay around the bases of the candles to make it that little bit more interesting and Christmassy. I think I'm quite minimalist usually decoration-wise but I've definitely come round to thinking that Christmas is the one time you can go all out and throw decorations up everywher...

I know this is predominantly supposed to be a blog about sewing clothing and craft projects but I must say the majority of what I've been making in the run up to the big day is baking! I've really only started baking this year so what you see here are really all my first attempts.... Mince Pies - I've now made a few batches using the orange pastry recipe from here and they've gone down a storm! Each batch has evolved slightly, the last batch (top) definitely looked the best after I had finally found a star cutter the right size instead of cutting them out by hand. I think the final batch also tasted best after I trialled some mincemeat with Port and Orange in...mmmmm! Yule Log - Take my word for it, this did not taste as good as it looked. I used a recipe from a Cadburys Cookbook and for future reference that quantity of Cadbury's Flake, Bournville and Chestnut Puree filling all together NOT a good idea! Still we all appreciated how nice it looked on the tab...