williamsews

  I’ve copied Simplicity 8753 and shall make a sample to ensure that it’s right, there have been a few alterations – I am doing view B, not too loose and not too tight. I have to make the same shirt for someone else but in a 38″. I usually use a 1cm seam but have left the 1.5cm or 5/8″, it’s easier than altering it, I’ve been sewing a 1cm seam for so long, so I shall have to concentrate. I visited the big fabric shop in the city and bought a shirt length of denim. I want to make a Levi jacket as well, but this denim is quite lightweight and not heavy enough for a jacket, so that means another trip to the shop–it was a rushed trip last time but maybe more time next visit. A visit to the Op shops (charity shops) was fruitful this week with a hoard of wooden cotton reels and two enormous cones of thread, I used a normal cone to show how large they are, I won’t use them up in my lifetime but I shall use the Day-Glo orange soon, perhaps on the denim. More pattern transfers to card this ...

  A new collectors’ term. I’ve been buying vintage patterns from charity shops for years but, because not many people sew anymore they are becoming rare, so I turned my searching to eBay and Etsy and have found great patterns. The patterns are sometimes sold as ‘Factory folded’, which means that they’ve never been used and are in their original state. I thought that’s good because they’re complete in all sizes, although some are sold as complete but used and honestly, I didn’t care either way. BUT now I have discovered that serious collectors want factory folded to add to a collection, like people who buy toys, etc. and never use them or even take them out of their box. I have grappled with this because I buy them to use; I bought a Simplicity a few days ago and I want to make it…but it is unused. It’s impossible to deal with two huge 2m sheets of tissue paper… so, I cut it, I did feel guilty but the desire for the shirt overrode that. This is the pattern hacked and ‘ruined’ but it...

  A lot of rain; it’s been a cool and very wet summer and it’s almost half over, perfect. Last year the heat was overbearing and bushfires all around… this year it’s floods instead, Just like Dorothea Mackellar’s epic poem. Anyway, all this means lots of lush growth so a lot of time has been spent taming the garden instead of sewing. I have two new patterns that I’m wanting to try. I tried a MimiG Levi jacket, but the sizing was out and not a good cut, so this one may be better and a shirt for me as well as someone else as it’s multi-size, it looks like a good pattern. It’s a matter of going to the fabric shop in the city and buying denim, but I’ll make a sample or ‘muslin’ first from fabric I already have. I shall work on the pattern today and have a break from the garden, it’s raining intermittently anyway. Slowly winning the battle of the garden, it had been neglected for some time and needs a lot of help. The patchy lawn had been top dressed and looking lush. This part will be ...