Tag Archives: sewing

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.

Christmas Carrot

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IMG_0707aI hope you were wearing your sun glasses this time. Don’t say, I haven’t warned you! In case if you were wondering what this picture of a living warning sign was all about, this is clearly a very gifted actor interpreting a Christmas carrot on drugs wearing a carrot costume made by her equally gifted designer mother.

When they had asked me if I couldn’t whip up two carrot costumes, I was briefly looking for my magic wand  but went then straight to the fabric shop to get some kind of orange material. It might have been the influence of the magic wand, it might have been the very soft light in the shop but I only realised at home that the orange was slightly on the neon side and was a bit worried. But when I saw the wigs that the teacher had organised, I knew that my intuition had just chosen the perfect match.

IMG_0720aAnyway, back to sewing, I haven’t actually great pictures as I did not realise that I should take them before handing over the costume to the teacher (and on performance day it has all been a bit much for my poor camera), so let me just explain briefly how I msde it, maybe I will be able to make a kind of tutorial out of it at some point in the future.

To make sure that the carrot has a triangular shape, I put rather thick interfacing in the hole neck area and folded it down. From the top of the armholes I went even out a few cm to get a lovely carrot shape. I finished the armholes with bias binding, the hem is neatened with a contrasting green overlocker rolled hem. As the whole neck area is actually open, I put in two shoulder straps which can be opened and (in theory) adjusted on the front as there is a button on the main fabric and a button hole on the strap. So it was fairly easy to make, but in the area between armholes and actual neck is not great. I guess, it would have been better to go in at first to have some real shoulders and then go out again for the triangular neck line. I guess, I would do that if I ever had to make another carrot costume. But for now, lets enjoy those two lovely carrots! Merry (belated) Christmas to you all 🙂

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Scrap Sunday: Phew, done (well, not really)

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IMG_3014The scrap skirt is officially done -well, apart from the hook, can’t find them, might have to buy new ones. I might have donated them to a sewing class, thinking that I will never ever sew a skirt.

I have only ever been working on it on Fridays, so it took for ages.

I think we can file this one under “a few lessons learnt”. It is not bad but also really not what I had in mind, so lets recapitulate:

I had this burgundy, very fine corduroy, a huge piece of scrap from a previous project. I wanted to make a skirt with 8 panels, each cut on the bias to show off the lines of the corduroy when they meet on each of the eight seams. Great idea I think, well not idea, great remembering from skirts that I have owned many kilos ago.

I did not have quite enough fabric to do that and it had been pointed out to me that since the corduroy was so fine, no one could actually see the lines. So I cut it straight. Big mistake as now I have an awkward seam in the middle of the front for no reason which actually blocks the fabric from falling nicely. Once I realised I had to cut it straight, I should have gone for 6 panels to avoid that seam.

I wanted too many things at the same time, nice A-line skirt with godets, cheekily showing of some kind of patterned fabric. Oh, and the whole skirt rather short.

The proportions of the whole thing are wrong, the corduroy can’t even hold the A-line shape as it’s seams are broken by the godets.

And the godets? Don’t get me even started. Too small, or rather too short. And maybe too many.

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On the other hand, I still love the colours and their combination. I also love the unplanned overlocked hem. Remember I only wanted to neaten the edge and then turn once, to keep the godets as long as possible and it actually looked rather nice. I did consider to do that again in blue but actually my blue thread was not quite the same tone so I kept the white edge.

And the blue lining is really cool, I think. Remember, you can’t see it but I know it is there 🙂

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Will I ever wear it? No, most likely not. I guess, this would have been a good calico project, I know now how not to do it and what I could have done better (I am now even thinking of a simple  A-line, with one big pleat in the front, more or less from the top, and that is where the patterned fabric is hiding – but that might also be a bit too extreme – I will definitely not try that one with nice fabric, but 6 panels with longer godets would definitely look good), so I do not regret the project as such but it is a real shame that I have wasted that cute patterned fabric as I only had one fat quarter bought on my weekend away in Oxford a couple of weeks ago. Clearly, I should have found a better use for it.

Anyway, with or without hook, I consider this project done and can move straight to the next one. Which has it’s deadline next Friday but I should really have it finished by Monday. Which happens to be tomorrow. I don’t want to reveal too much yet but you might consider wearing sunglasses next time you are looking for new posts on here 🙂

 

 

The yoga bag story – that project I could not talk about and a give away

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“Why is she suddenly making yoga bags? Wasn’t this a knitting blog? What is she talking about?” you might be thinking.

Well, it all started with a request from a friend who has opened his own yoga studio back home. He asked me if I would be interested in making bags which he could sell in his studio. This idea came at the right time. I was just thinking to look for shops in the area who would be interested to sell my (mainly knitted) stuff and I was also considering to expand my range to small make up bags as I would be able to use all those cute printed fabrics creeping out of my fabric boxes.

Now, obviously a yoga bag is not quite the tiny cute make up bag but it was a much more real thing.

So I set to work, went to look for suitable fabrics, made design sketches, asked my friend plenty of practical questions and made a calico bag. I then enthusiastically started to cut out a coated cotton (some of them will be made of coated cotton, some out of normal one) and when I had cut out enough for three bags, I suddenly realised a big mistake in my design: The initial yoga bag had a seam at the bottom of the bag but as you carry it on your bag like a quiver, the bottom of the bag will actually be the exposed side. So in that case, it would be a shame if there was a seam.

I still made one of them up but in the meantime I adjusted my design for the cotton ones and set to work.

If you want to know more about the bags (size, material, process of making one,…, please go to the yoga bag section by clicking on the link in the top menu.

To celebrate the start of this new and exciting adventure, I have several goodies for you.

First of all, I will be giving away the coated cotton one with the back seam.

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The fabric itself is waterproof but the seams are not taped or anything. So it will be fine in normal wet weather on your way to your yoga session but it will most likely not keep your yoga mat dry when you were walking through torrential rain for four hours.

Inside, the bag is fully lined and it has a small bag for your phone, keys,… which you can actually remove and take with you (sorry no picture taken)

If you want to enter the competition, please respect the following rules:

1. Everybody who does not live in the same household as me is allowed to enter the competition. (I really do not want my husband to go to his training with this flowery bag).

2. Leave a short comment in the comment box below. This is just to give your name a number.

3. The competition will be open until Wed, 26 November 2014 8am (London time)

4. random.org will then chose the winning number.

5. I will contact the winner by email and inform everybody in a post.

6. And obviously there will be no right of appeal. If you do not trust me or random.org just don’t take part 🙂

For all the others who did not win or are not keen on that particular style, please don’t be sad. I will put my first two other bags in my etsy shop for the introductory price of £15 pounds which will just about cover the cost of the material for one bag.

These will be the introductory offer bags (but please give me a bit of time, I do promise to hurry up – as you can see, for the second one there is still a bit of work to do, not just the listing on etsy 🙂

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