Diary of a Chain Stitcher

If you follow me on Instagram you might have seen that Ed and I went back to Africa for a couple of weeks in January. Ed has spent a lot of time in a number of countries there but last year's big trip to Botswana and South Africa was my first and I completely fell in love with the continent. We couldn't resist returning and this time travelled around Uganda, again camping in a tent attached to the roof of our hired 4WD. The absolute best way to experience the wilds of Africa! We had another amazing experience including trekking to see the mountain gorillas in Bwindi and the chimpanzees in Kibale plus a whole heap of other adventures on our self drive safari. I'll write another post with more details of our itinerary if anyone is interested but for now I'll try to stick to the sewing!

I've finished my first project for my holiday wardrobe and it is probably the one I was most excited about because of the fabric! For those of you who haven't read my handmade travel wardrobe pos t I'm going on a safari holiday in January so when I spotted this beautiful cotton charting with mini big cat print stocked by The Fabric Store I couldn't resist ordering it. I had in mind a crisp little sleeved shirtdress with breast pockets and all those classic safari chic details and I'm delighted with what I ended up with, although I didn't get there without a bit of a struggle. I've been meaning to try a design from Hot Patterns for quite some time. For a long time I've been eyeing them up on the Sewbox stand at the big craft shows and been intrigued by the big strong envelopes and wearable styles packed with interesting details. Sewbox stock a huge range of these patterns along with a good selection from other independent designers. I was h...

Today I've got a garment to share with you which hasn't turned out as successfully as I hoped but was still an enjoyable project which I learnt a lot from. I spend less time on Pinterest nowadays but still enjoy a browse from time to time and the board I probably pin to most is my Sewing Inspiration board. It's an accumulation of all kinds of things that inspire my sewing, from complete outfits, to fabric, to little details I'd like to incorporate. For the last year or so I've been making more of a conscious effort to look back through these pins and actually make something of them! At the moment I can't stop pinning maxi wrap dresses and solid tops with interesting sleeves. Over a year ago I had a spate of pinning military green shirts in a slightly heavier weight, to be worn open over vests and t-shirts almost as a kind of lightweight jacket. Around the same time I came across the perfect shade and weight of khaki green oxford cotton in Classic Textiles...

After I posted about the striped shirt I made for my stepdad a few of your expressed interest in a tutorial about how I added the slots to the underside of the collar to house collar stiffeners/bones/stays. So I've put a quick one together for you. I worked out how to do this by looking at a RTW shirt which had this feature and it's surprisingly quick and straightforward! It's my very first attempt at a tutorial so I apologise if any of my explanations don't make complete sense. Feel free to ask any questions you may have in the comments below. Just to be clear before we start the slots need to be added to shirt before the collar is assembled. I'm not sure how you'd go about adding them to a shirt which is already made! First things first you will need to cut yourself a third collar piece. If you are using a pattern which has separate upper and under collar pieces you will need one of the upper collar and two under collar pieces. Only the upper collar ne...