#MMMay16 Me Made May

Well May is almost over and this is my first post of the month! I am happy to say that I was able to fulfill my pledge to wear something I had made myself at least once each week during May.

Blue white linen skirt

It was by and large a Me Made Monday and the most worn garment was this linen mix skirt that I made a couple of years ago.  I adjusted New Look 6035 as my waist is larger than the pattern size, I think it may be a little flat in the centre area where I made the increase, but I also think that I can see it because I  am looking for it.

Navy dress

This navy dress got a couple of wears but I do find the neckline a little wide.  This is the dress I made at the Sewing classes I took last year so the pattern was not my choice, however, I am pleased with the the quality work I did and it has made me realise that I the more sewing I do the better my skills will become.

Last but not least is the red spotty top I made last year and is one of the favourite garments I have made.  The fit is not perfect and each time I wear it I realise that I need to explore how to do a FBA (Full Bust Adjustment).

So there we are my first Me Made May completed and my first post for May 2016,

How was your #MMMay16 did you meet your pledge or did life get in the way?

....starting to conquer my sewing fears

It was my final dressmaking class this week, with my dress already completed (dressmaking class no5.) I continued work on my latest project the summer top I blogged about Simplicity 2373, even with 3 hours of relatively uninterrupted sewing I still have plenty to do before it is finished and  I will pop up a separate post once it is complete, hopefully that won't be too long!

I wanted to reflect here on what I had learned from my class

• I like the structure that going to my class gives to my week, it encourages me to plan in other activities such as going to the gym for a swim.  Its almost like if I exclude Tuesday from my week for sewing it makes sense to go swimming on Monday and Wednesday, I just need to maintain this now the class has finished.

• I enjoyed going through the process of learning something new, the sense of achievement when I put the zip in was tremendous and it gave me a bit of self belief, at this stage my sewing confidence is still very fragile

• I loved being in the company of a group of like minded people, one of my best moments on the course is when we all started work on our own projects, sharing our pattern and fabric choices with other people, its a bit like blogging but everyone is in the same room :)  I show my project ideas to the family but they do the equivalent of smiling nicely, patting me on the head and backing out of the room!

• It was great having a knowledgeable person to call on when I got stuck, Our tutor Lisa was terrific, when I lost my instructions for my own project she was able to just look at the pattern pieces and work out was needed to be done.  

• Having three hour set aside each week devoted just to sewing without any distractions has been an absolute pleasure.  While I am often afforded free time at home I am just as likely to be distracted with other "bits and bobs" that need doing or that great time eater the internet.  Maybe it is even the process of being out of the house and in a different environment that help with my focus.

• When I start a new pattern, before I have even cut it out, I sit down and read through the pattern to understand how it going to come together and see what is required.  I usually read the first few tasks and think yes that is simple and straight forward but as I get towards the end it starts getting a bit more scary, I realise that this is because I am imagining that I will be doing all this in one go but if you do things in small bite size chunks it makes things more manageable.  Also some of the finishing bits that happen towards the end of a project are more technical and do need more skill and attention but that is part of the learning experience and the unpicker is there should it be needed.

• Who would have thought zips are not as scary as I thought they were?  I am still by no means fully competent and have yet to unravel the secrets of a concealed or invisible zip but I am not quaking in my boots at the prospect of putting in a zip on my current project, in my book that is progress. 

• I have various UFOs (UnFinished Objects) around my house which are a testimony to my enthusiastic start to a project and a combination of sewing fear, oops I made a bodge job and I will do that later, ends to them, but now I can say that I have completed a sewing  project and I have worn it to work

• Finally one of the best things that came out of the course is that I discovered that I am a bit more competent than I thought I was, which has helped my self confidence and that is the best gift you can give to you.

There is talk of us signing up for the intermediate class in a few weeks time which I like the idea of not least because it sounds like I am no longer a beginner. 

I would love to hear about your learning experiences. What have you done that boosted your sewing confidence? Are you thinking about starting a new sewing class?

...dressmaking class no 5

Woo hoo I am happy to say with a great feeling of accomplishment that we have a completed dress!

So here are the final tasks we completed

• We put a small marking snip in the centre of our neckline and the centre of the front facing.

• Sewed the facings together along the short shoulder seams, leaving the back open.

• Make a 1 cm hem on the long edge of the facing

• Using the centre marking point pin the facing flat, working outwards on both sides until you reach the zips at the edge, there will be a small amount of excess at each end

• Sew the facing to the dress, DO NOT SEW OVER THE ZIP!

• We need to finish off the zip edges. fold the excess fabric under to create a neat edge, to aid this and to take out some of the bulk  snip at an angle the top of the zip and the fabric. Approx 1 cm tapering up to the top of the facing, trim more if needed or take less if you prefer you can always take off more.

• Attach the bottom of the facing to the dress, this can be done either by apply a row of top stitching that will show on the neck band or by "sewing in the ditch" you sew into the seam that is already there attaching the neck band to the dress(so just below the neck band).  I chose to sew in the ditch and had to finish this by hand as I had not caught all of the edges in.

• Hand sew the zip edges just catching it into the zip fabric and not sewing through to the external fabric. 

• Finish with a hook and eye, I chose not to do this as I know I won't use it.

• Voila! one completed dress

I did have enough time to start on a new project but more of that later.

So apart from needing a good iron my dress is ready to wear, so let me know what you think of my first finished garment ?  So where would wear it and how would you accessorise it?

....dressmaking class no 4

Oh blimey get the unpicker ready! For some reason this week it seems like I just could not sew for toffee.  Well in between unpicking this is what did get done

• The contrast band for the sleeve was made up. To make this easier to sew round we took off the outer cowl as if we were going to put in the bottom bobbin, 

• At the top of the sleeve there are three marks, the two outer ones mark the start and finish for the gathering stitches that are needed to ease our sleeve into the armhole of our dress. Using the largest stitch available - no 4 on our machines sew 2 lines of stitching that run parallel to each other, they must not touch and should be sewn into the seam allowance, leave long ends on your threads at both ends as these will be used to draw up the fabric.

• Sew up the sleeve seam and place this inside the band so that the raw edges of the sleeve and the contrast band are together, then machine them together. The seam is pressed up and then top stitched by moving the stitch dial from A to B so the needle moved to the side and was sewn on the right side, using the join as a guide lined up with the middle of the foot

• The next step was to fit the sleeve into the dress, first job is to line up and pin the seam of the sleeve and the seam of the dress.  Now to make sure that you have the correct sleeve in place, check your notches, 1 for the front and 2 for the back, they may not line up exactly but so long as they are not too far out this shouldn't affect the fit.

• Pin outwards from the seam keeping everything lined up until you reach the mark where the gathering starts on your sleeve top.  Place a pin in the mark at the top of the sleeve and the shoulder seam, this divides the gathered area into two halves making it easier to manipulate the fabric.  Draw up the fabric and manipulate until it fits, before you tie off the gathering threads ensure that there are no flat bits or bunches of gathering.  Sew with the inside towards you so you can see if the gathering is being flattened by the machine foot. Woop woop the sleeve is in!  repeat on the other side if you want a pair or just put in one and start a new fashion trend.

My first sleeve was a real pain but the second one went in a treat so I guess this is another sewing area where practice makes perfect or at least considerably better.


This just left enough time to hem the bottom.

• First a 1 cm hem was turned up pinned and ironed followed by 2.5 cm hem, pinned and then tried on to check that it was level (ish) and not too short. So it was just a case of sewing all round, the advice given was rather than using the top of the fold of your hem as your guide use the 20 mark on your sewing plate, I had to deviate from this otherwise I wouldn't have sewn in the hem, I turned it up by eye rather than measuring it!

So just the final neck facing to attach and the dress will be complete.   

How do you get on with sewing sleeves? did I miss out any key steps?

...dressmaking class no 3

Brace yourselves, its zip week! One of the reasons I signed up to the dressmaking course is my zip fear and judging by the comments of some of my classmates I am not alone.  I am happy to report that I have now successfully inserted a zip into my dress and this how we did  it.

• We laid out back pieces and found the mark we had made to show where the bottom of the zip should sit. Because we had only taken 1cm seam allowance when we attached the neck piece we needed to adjust this.  We laid out the zip against the straight edge of the back piece with the zig zag end lined up with the top unfinished end of the neck and remarked the end of the zip.

• Sew the back seam from hem to the new mark and press the seam open.  Now with the right side facing up place the zip so that you can see where it is going to sit.  Unzip the zipper and turn it onto one side so that the fabric edge of the zip and the edge off the back seam are together- effectively the right side of the zip and the right side of the fabric are together with the back of the zip facing up to you.  Starting at the neck pin all the way down in a straight line, don't worry about the bottom or the other side at this point.

• Fit the zip foot to you machine, put the garment up to the machine as if you are ready to sew, check that you have the foot on the correct side for your zip and that when you sew at 1cm the you won't be sewing the teeth of the zip!.  Make any adjustments and when  you are happy sew a nice straight line, when you get towards the bottom where the zippy bit is go slow and careful it is quite tricky.

• Now we need to fasten the other side, pin and press the 1.5 cm seam allowance, this becomes the piece that covers the zip. Mark on the zip with tailors chalk where the neck contrast meets the main neck piece.  Unzip, line up the neck mark and pin from the top of the neck leaving a  small "flap" to cover the zip, it needs to be consistent all the way down.  Zip up and see how well the neck lines up if it is not aligned adjust until you are satisfied. 

•  Ensure that the pins are on the topside as you will be sewing with the zip underneath.  Before you start sewing, with zip side up offer up to the machine as if sewing a 1 cm seam to ensure that you won't sew into the teeth.  Place a pin at the bottom of the zip to secure it.  With the top side showing machine a 1 cm seam in a straight line down to the pin at bottom, keeping your needle in the fabric pivot and sew a couple of lines to secure the end. If you are happy with the result press.

• With the zip in the next job was to sew up the shoulder seams and press them out, remembering of course to change the foot back to the normal straight stitch one.

• Final job of the night sew up the side seams and try on the almost dress.  We decided that mine was a good fit and didn't need any adjustments.

Wow I put in a zip! Apologies for the detailed post but I just wanted to try and get down as much as I could remember to help me next time I need to sew a zip, I'm not sure if this will be of help to anyone else!

...dressmaking class no 2

Class no2 was jam packed and we managed to squeeze all of this into just 3 hours

• What the triangles mean on patterns - they are markers to help you line up your pattern pieces.  I have always added little triangles to the cutting line, but tonight we were advised that a small snip into the V of the triangle will do the same job, it takes less time, is neater and more accurate.

• We also used the snip method at the ends of our bust darts even though there aren't any markers to help us line up the two outer edges when we come to create the dart.

• We added marks for our darts with tailors chalk, we pushed a pin through the centre of the little circles marked on our pattern pieces and marked them on the wrong side of the fabric.

• We created our bust darts by lining up the snips and making a triangle down to the point of our tailors chalk mark. Using a ruler we drew a line to sew down, the dart is sewn from the cut edge to the bust point and we slightly rounded/let the needle run off the edge so as not to get pointy bust syndrome!

• The darts are gently pressed to face downwards and the point of the dart is gently massaged with the tip of the iron to help round the point a little more.

• We put diamond shaped darts in our back panels, we did this by putting a pin through the two marks in the centre and the pinned the other two end marks.  We drew lines from the centre to the outward points and slightly rounded the centre line so it was very slightly curved rather than a hard V shape. The darts were sewn in two halves each setting out from the centre point. The darts are then pressed towards the straight edge of the back panel.

• We added the neck pieces with the interfacing on to the back panels, it looks as if the two pieces will not fit together but you start at the straight edges and pin like a mad thing offering up the next centimeter of the neckline until you reach the end.  We were advised that there is a fault on the pattern and it is normal for there to be a small excess which can be cut off later.

• This was sewn at only 1cm rather than the advised 1.5cm seam allowance to reduce the bulk.  The seam is then snipped at approximately 1cm gaps around the curves and approximately 1inch gaps on the straight and the seam is the pressed up. the snipping helps the seam lie flat as the snipped pieces can overlap to allow the fabric to sit better once completed. Cut very close to your sewing line but not through it.

• The interfaced piece was then added to the front, we folded both the edge piece and the front piece in half and put a small marking snip in the centre of both of them and used this to line up the two pieces. We pinned from the centre outwards and as before offered up the fabric bit by bit, before sewing at 1cm  and snipping and pressing as with the back panels.

Our 3 hours flew by and there is certainly some shape beginning to appear in our pieces of fabric. 

 Next week we will be tackling one of my big sewing fears zips!!!

Do you suffer from zip fear or do you have any top tips to help zip fear sufferers like me ?

....dressmaking class no1

I attended the first of my dressmaking classes on Tuesday night, the course runs for six weeks so by the middle of May I will be the proud owner of a homemade dress.

Lesson one involved

• Taking our measurements and plotting them on the back of the pattern to work out the correct size for us to cut out

• Cutting out our paper pattern to the appropriate size

• We looked at the selvage edge and learnt that this runs in the same direction as the grain

• Laying out the pattern pieces according to the layout plan in the pattern and understanding that sometimes you can work out your own plan

• Cutting out the pattern pieces

• Cutting out and applying interfacing.

*Light for thin fabrics like silk

*Medium for fabrics like cotton, use on dresses

*Heavy for heavier fabrics and waistbands

 This seems like a good choice of pattern as there seems to be many variations that can be put together, sleeveless, short sleeved, long sleeved, trimmed or untrimmed, contrast band on the bottom. Its not a pattern I would have selected for myself because of it being a bit fitted but all those fears will be put aside at next weeks class when we look at darts.


I am planning to return to my own unfinished sewing project from a couple of weeks ago over the Easter holiday weekend, are you planning any sewing this weekend?

...learning to sew

I made a post a couple of weeks ago describing some of my sewing fears (Saturday morning sewing), and I have decided to do something about it.

Sewing is supposed to be something I enjoy and when it gets to the point where it is not enjoyable and I was beginning to question why I was doing it I took a step back and had a think.  I decided that I was being a bit hard on myself and that because there is so much free information and self help videos on the internet that I can learn all I need to know and while this method has been very helpful it has not given me all the answers I am looking for, so I have signed up for a 6 week sewing class.

We will be using the new look 6176 pattern

http://www.simplicitynewlook.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=6176#.VRfahvnF-QA



The course sets out to

• show how to measure yourself to get a correctly fitting garment

• how to interpret all the pattern markings

• cutting out and tacking your garment in preparation for sewing

• techniques for darts, seams, hems, buttonholes and zips

This seems to tick off a lot of things that I have been struggling with and that in turn should help with building my confidence.

I am also looking forward to the camaraderie and inclusion that usually comes in this type of learning environment. 

Have you made new Look 6176? Do you have any top tips?