Category Archives: sewing

Yoga bag update

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First of all, just in case you haven’t noticed, this is the first post since ages that is not a quickly written apology for a badly done Scrap Sunday post. (Don’t worry, there will be another one tomorrow).

No, today I wanted to update you on one of my many projects I am currently working on (really been working on not just making plans).

Yogastueble’s Ludwig and I thought we should offer a cheaper alternative, meaning for me, one that does not take 4 -6 hours to make. So I have set to work, threw the zips out of the window  (trust me, that strolling cat passing under the window did not look happy – I guess he is not into crafts) and half of the round sides of the initial Yoga bag deluxe model and came up with a simpler drawstring version.

The removable small bag inside got removed as well. And so so so, here it is, yogabag 2.0

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Barbie
Ken
in the garden

The contrasting fabric at the bottom is actually a pocket which goes around the whole bag and is divided into three compartments. There is an elastic band on top which keeps the pocket closed when the bag is fully packet.

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As I am making every bag individually, I often develop the design during the making process, so there aren’t any strict rules (apart from the size I guess)… sometimes I am using the main colour for the strap, sometimes it is made of the pocket fabric (pretty, no?) That is what I really like about being a small business. Whatever I have made so far, no two things have ever been alike.

I have also been asked to make a few for men with “dark colours, simple not too much patterned stuff going on”…. that was a tricky one for me. If not impossible.

These were my first attempts:

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I actually really like them. I have my doubts if they are very manly but they are definitely different from the usual rather sweet and floral ones. They are a bit more on the “cool” side (I guess it is not called “cool” anymore, but I haven’t been cool since a while…. not for the last 37 years I think)

So after these two attempts which I consider to be failures in the sense of not matching the criteria I got from the customer, I tried again to stay really plain…

But surely, I can not make the pocket in the same colour as the main bag. The pocket would not be seen, would it.

And which thread to use? I don’t have any in the exact matching colour, so lets just take a very contrasting one instead.

Hmm, that looks good. Dark (mostly) and plain colours.

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Oops, where did that blue piece come from? Someone must have broken in at night and changed it. Oh well, I really tried my best.

Oh, and the best news? I have started to go to yoga classes. To sort out my back problems I am getting from bad posture at the sewing machine.

But knitting and yoga! I will be the most relaxed and patient person! I can feel it already.

Have a lovely Saturday (Valentine if it is for you) and talk to you tomorrow. Ommmmm.

Scrap Sunday: Confessions to a bishop

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You might be wondering why my Scrap Sunday posts are really lacking of inspiration lately. Well, I have a confession to make: Somehow my brilliant and very sensible resolution to not only not buy any excess fabric or yarn (only what is needed for a particular project) but also to use up my huge amounts of stash has been replaced. Without my knowledge or agreement I hasten to add. Apparently buying sensibly is so last season. 2015 I am worried that fabric and yarn shops could all shut down over night so I better buy enough for a few very vague projects in mind. I have fully embraced this new resolution – to a point where I am buying a beautiful woolen fabric with embroidery on it, enough to make a dress out of it. Back home I then decide that a coat would look gorgeous.

Have I ever sewn wool? No.

Have I ever made a coat? No.

Does that stop me? No.

So I am going back to the shop the next day to buy what is left on the roll. So, for the slightly disappointed reader, there is at least one thing to look forward to. One day, there will be a post about a beautiful woolen coat. Progress is going well, you can expect pictures no later than May.

Other things to look forward according to the fabrics and yarn creeping you of their dedicated boxes? Light summer jackets for the children (need to work my way around the school uniform, jacket over school cardigan? probably not very realistic), baby blanket for my future niece (or nephew who will just love purple and turquoise), about 375 knitted cardigans, jumpers and tunics for babies (now, that I have plenty of time, I really want to get my shop going) and quite a few bags of all sorts.

But lets go back to the title of this post:

Confessions: done

Bishop: oh yes, lets talk about the Bishop

As you might remember (have read every single post or not?) I am currently back in school. On Tuesdays I am doing a Fashion Course. Yes, you did read Fashion and yes, this is what I am doing secretly on Tuesdays, and no, it does not show in my thoroughly put together wardrobe. I was looking for a one day sewing course but all I could find was this fashion course. It is a lot about designing and pattern cutting so even though it is not quite what I wanted, I still learn a lot of useful things. But I am dreading the final piece. We will have to design, cut the pattern and make a dress for a celebrity (who does obviously not know about her luck) for an occasion that we had to choose from a list of occasions.

As you can imagine, choosing a celebrity was super easy for me. I just went through my collection of celebrity pictures in my celebrity picture albums. There she was Michelle Williams, proud wearer of colourful dresses (rather than black and white which would be veeeery hard for me to even think of).

I will have to make a cocktail dress for her and I am struggling to imagine anything other than a very simple sleeveless A-line dress out of the 60ies. I guess I should incorporate the things that we have learned in class and I also kind of have in mind to add some knitting to it. After all, if any celebrity would ever ask me to make a dress for her it would probably be because I am a famous knitter.

But back to the bishop. In the last lesson, we have been talking about different types of sleeves and our homework was to “interpret”  one of them. And this is where we are back to using up scrap fabric (phew).

I decided to make a bishop sleeve, a sleeve that gets wide at the bottom but is gathered up and hold together somehow, either by just an elastic or a cuff.

So here is the pattern draft. Pattern cutting really is cutting a big shape into small pieces and then sticking them onto a bigger paper. Luckily, I know two experts in cutting and sticking 🙂 …

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… then you take this pattern draft and copy it onto a clean piece of paper, add seam allowances, notches, marks, grain line, other clever things….

Insert mental picture here as I am too lazy to get it done for you, sorry but I am up since 5am.

… and then you just sew the sleeve, attached to half a front and half a back, as you obviously have to mount it somewhere…

As it is a model only, it is actually not the right size but 3/4. I have used some left over lining as I wanted to practise working on flimsy material rather than my usual cotton….

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… I will have to include some historical fashion detailing for my final garment chosen at a Wedding Dress exhibition and in my case it is for some reason surface decoration. So I decorated my cuff with some lace knitting to see how this would work (see another clever use of scrap yarn here) …

IMG_3132So far, I am not impressed and definitely would not want to wear it (haven’t asked Michelle yet)

Ok, I have chosen a rather thick (compared to the flimsy fabric) cotton yarn for laziness practical reasons but I also think it would not work that well in a better fabric-yarn combination at least not for a cocktail dress. It will definitely be easier, quicker and prettier to just buy some lace and put it there. If lace it the kind of surface decoration I want to use. You see, I really know what I am doing, clearly this is just the right class for me and considering that I am fully committed and doing my homework no later than Monday evening it will be a huge success.

So stay tuned! I guess once I press that “publish” button there is no way out of it anymore , I will have built up too much excitement and too high expectations….. Should I, should I not? I guess I should.

 

 

 

Scrap Sunday: Sunday Roast Left overs

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Did you ever get a very useful advice that has changed your life?

A wise woman who happens to have a beautiful, clever, witty and kind hearted daughter (and a few other children) once gave me an incredibly helpful advice and I really try to live up to this wisdom. Well, maybe she did not think of it as advice, rather as a joyful story about her past. Anyway, apparently this wise woman used to put all those children’s tights and socks on one big pile to be mended in front of the fire on cold winter evenings. The pile grew bigger and bigger and so did the children. Until the waiting-to-be-mended tights did not fit anymore. As a good daughter I really try to follow this rule but today I broke it.

I wanted to mend my son’s trousers (hole on the knee) as we only have two warm ones, one with and one without hole. So, I offered him a good choice of beautiful and suitable fabrics for the patch. Which he all rejected. Not really to my surprise as he is notoriously rejecting everything I have ever made for him (Apart from literally one item. But I am not complaining. Really. He never asked me for all those silly dungarees, knitted jumpers or tiger costumes.)

Much later, when I had already given up on the idea I stumbled across another – probably less manly – fabric and showed it to him. I interpreted the lack of “yuk, disgusting” as a “yes please mother, I would be over the moon if you could mend my warm trousers with this beautiful fabric and I will be grateful for the rest of my life” and went for it. I cut out two manly footballs, appliqued them to the knees of the trousers (size 3y trousers are awfully tiny, in case you didn’t know it) and took a picture of a perfect left over project: left over trousers, left over fabric and left over food on the trousers.IMG_3128

A picture of the trousers covering a pair of legs would probably look better but I personally would not wait for that. I am already looking forward to tomorrow morning’s discussion in front of the wardrobe. And then we will just continue with our routine for the rest of the winter: Boy wears trousers without silly patches, comes home from nursery with incredibly dirty trousers, mum washes and dries them over night. Boy wears them again. Spring will come eventually.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Great news: expanding business… or why it is sometimes just better to remain a small independent business rather than turning into a big multinational company

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Yes, my wordpress account hasn’t been hacked, it is true, business went rather well at the end of last year and I really struggled to complete all my orders so I have decided that I can not do it on my own anymore. At first, I was rather excited about all these changes but I am less now.

When you have your own little business, you are independent, can take all decisions yourself, don’t have to compromise or – even worse – realise someone else’s – potentially silly and ugly – design. You can just work on your own pace, you are confident because you are creating something you can fully identify with. And now all of a sudden I have this rather bossy project leader, who does not listen to my ideas! Sure, she talked to the customer and made all the sketches for the design, chose the swatches and went back to the customer to discuss the final design. I only had to actually bring the design from paper into real life fabric. But, as I said, none of my ideas were even listened to! And then the fear, when I had to show the progress of my work…. I thought, joining with someone would take stress out of my life but it has instead increased it. But enough moaning, I guess, that is potentially dangerous anyway, I wouldn’t be the first one getting into trouble at work after a few imprudent comments online.

Lets talk about the actual project, the task was to make an apron with pockets for a nursery teacher who uses a lot of cards in her work.

So here is all the paperwork, from first sketching to measurements of the cards, notes about colour preferences,… and on the right side the chosen swatches….

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And that is were troubles started. Said teacher is a really nice person so as you can see, all swatches got ticked as she just found all of them lovely.

So, the new task was to make sure that all fabrics got used, in the – how I would have thought at least – most sensible way to make sure they match somehow.

So, in the next team meeting, I quickly realised that my opinion is not particularly valued …. Clearly the person taking lots of notes is in charge instead.

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– Pink is the main colour to be used! No discussion allowed! This is how it is! And the flowers will be the big pocket! Because it is the second nicest fabric!

– But…

– No but. That is how you will do it.

Clearly someone needs to go on a workshop about team work or leader ship or whatever.

Anyway, all that had left to me was to actually make the apron. I had sweaty hands when I nervously showed it to the project leader.  I can not describe the relief when the rather austere glance in her face turned into a smile and a “I like it, it looks beautiful”! IMG_3101

Phew. I am relieved, and I have to admit the result looks actually rather nice, even though I would have arranged things slightly differently (and in fairness, the appliques to use two of the many fabrics were actually my idea…. don’t tell her, but I just did it, without really asking)

Anyway, the awful experience of not actually being the creative head of my project have made me think again. I want to go back to my own small business. No other bossy people involved. I am currently looking into the legal side of undoing this fusion…. shouldn’t be a too big problem, considering that there has never been a written contract. I will keep you updated.

In the meantime, I wish you all a very belated happy new year! I hope all your holidays have been great and that you have settled back into reality with lots of good new years resolutions. As you can see, it has taken me two weeks to settle back. Sorry for this delay, it will get better. Probably.