Posts Tagged ‘sewing club’
I’ve decided to join in Portia Lawrie’s Refashioners challenge – Suits You this year. The challenge is basically to refashion an old, unworn or unloved suit!
Most people entering the challenge have raided their local charity shop and bought a XXXL men’s suit to give them lots of fabric to work with. But no, old daft me decided that wasn’t enough of a challenge! I decided to use an old pale blue George at Asda ladies suit that I found in the loft, which I’m clearing out due to a rewire in the new year! I have no idea why I bought it as it’s soooo not my style, although it actually seems to fit me pretty well, which is where the extra challenge comes in as it doesn’t give me very much extra fabric to work with, doh!
I had a lot of fun playing round with the suit and trying to decide what to make with it but in the end I settled on a version of one of my TNT patterns – the BlueGingerDoll Winifred dress. I’ve altered the pattern quite a bit to fit me well, the shape suits me and I wear my existing ones quite a lot, so would be nice to have a new but also different version.
Although I have made the collarless version of the Winifred dress recently I do like the collar feature and decided to take advantage of the jacket collar and integrate this into the design. Lots of pinning and fiddling was undertaken at Liverpool Sewing Club, with me trying on again and again to ensure the button holes were not visible and the new centre front seam was straight and actually in the centre. Then to figure out the rest of the bodice fitting! As the jacket had princess seams it didn’t actually need the tuck darts that the dress usually features, which help create the bust fitting and flowing skirt. So when I figured out where to finish the bodice/jacket section and finally got the fit I liked, it was time to make the first cut!
I decided to shorten the sleeves to elbow length, which i find really comfortable but I normally make short-sleeved Winifreds. As you can see from the before photos, the sleeves were a tiny bit tight, so I decided to remove the sleeve lining (I’ve left the bodice lined) to see if that helped with the fit. This is where I noticed the big difference in the seam finishes between the areas of the suit that would be visible (the trouser seams) and those not visible (sleeve seam). This is after all a budget suit and the manufactures need to save money and time where they can!
Visible seam
Hidden seam
At this point I decided to remove the shoulder pads as a) it’s no longer the 1980s, and b) they really don’t suit me. During this unpicking and deconstruction of the jacket stage it became obvious the difference between my Asda suit and the high end men’s tailored suit, that a lot of people, such as Portia were refashioning:
Now to move onto the skirt construction. The Winifred dress usually has an elastic casing or shirring at the back waistline but I wanted to test the fit first, so I decided to construct the skirt pieces separately first and check or fit before adding this detailing., The dress front is normally put as a full bodice and skirt all in one but my refashion needed a seam adding. I unpicked the side seam on the trousers and after a little maths and playing around with the layout decided to press out the hem and keep the inside seam in place and use this as the centre front centre back seams, as the skirt flares out and obviously so do the trousers at the hips. Although this flare isn’t enough to create the full width of the skirt, so now comes lots of patch working! I used the extra pieces from the bodice, trousers and sleeves to create extra width to get the rough shape of the Winfred dress. I then had tacked (yes me, the worst hand sewer known to mankind!) the two skirt pieces to the bodice and the rough shape of the skirt together.
I needed to try the dress on and see if the shirring was needed or if the fit was okay without it and I was very pleased to find the shirring was not actually needed. A combination of the jacket bodice princess seams and the fact that I am extremely pear shaped meant I could lose the shirring and still have a great fit! Any good me-made dress has pockets, so time to go back to my leftovers from the suit and I used the lining from the bottom of the jacket to cut some side seam pocket, using the pattern piece from another BlueGingerDoll dress, the Odette, as a template). I’ve hacked this pattern before to add pockets but if you’re not sure how to do this then By Hand London have a great tutorial on their website, with lots of photos, which always help me as I’ve a very visual learner!
Now it’s time to put it all together properly! I used my pattern pieces as a rough guide and cut off the excess no longer needed, machine stitched all seams and remove the tacking (whilst watching Strictly of course)
All finished, or is it?! Hmm, it’s very nice and I’m happy with the fit but it’s rather plain and therefore not really very me! My hand embroidery skills aren’t up to scratch, so I decided to have a look around for a co-ordinating trim. I really like peacocks feathers and found this one on Moksha Trim, so decided to stitch that to the waist but still wasn’t 100% happy, so had a play around at Liverpool Sewing Club with the ladies helping me work out the best placement and having a laugh in the meantime
Yay, all finished! Cue lots and lots of photos:
Patchwork side panels!
I’m really please how this has turned out and that I’ve managed to do it from not a lot of fabric and without adding any extra fabric, just 1.5 meters of trim!
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Me, Susan, Nele and Eleanor with our golden ticket!
I was lucky enough to receive 2 Golden VIP tickets to Abakhan’s Secret Sale last Saturday, the 18th July at their Mostyn branch and was able to take 3 of my friends from Liverpool Sewing Club. We had a great day, buying lots of bargains in the secret sale, shopping in the rest of the large Abakhan store, sitting in the sun eating, drinking and having a great day all round.
As I blogged about a while back I went to Abakhan’s first secret sale on the 28th March. This was a ‘Warehouse Style’ Sale with discounts of up to 85% off normal retail prices and held in one of their stock warehouses. This caused a few issues with long queues due to the size of the warehouse and therefore the related number of customers that could be in at any one time for health and safety reason. I’m happy to say that Abakhan learnt from this and at the most recent sale used a much larger warehouse, with well organised tills inside and an orderly queuing space, with a marquee providing shelter, in case of rain! Therefore queuing time was much reduced at this second secret sale as 150 were allowed inside at once, as in opposed to 40 last time! Also there was much more fabric was available for us to browse through, which made me very happy!
Golden ticket secret Sale time
On arrival with our golden tickets we were signed in and given exclusive 15% off discount vouchers and then we were allowed early access to the sale, an hour before the general public, so there was lots of time to browse and of course rummage! The warehouse was very well laid out with the different options very clear and well organised and the walls were lined with rolls and rolls of fabrics. I also loved the fill a bag for £10 section and of course had to have a proper rummage, as you can see!
Gotta have a proper rummage!
The £10 fill a bag haul! All of this plus another 3m of polyester that’s already been used!
It was also a good opportunity to meet members of the sewing community that I chat to on line but only get to actually see occasionally, – Rachel from House of Pinheiro, Celia from Sew Fundamental, Michele from Swiss Army Wife and Paul Clarke who appeared on Great British Sewing Bee and of course – Will Abakhan!
Myself, Rachel & Paul
Myself with Michele & Ceilia
Myself & Will
There might be a slight chance I bought a wee bit too much fabric but the bargains available were amazing. Dress and house fabric rolls and bolts started at just 50p a meter and could only be bought in full rolls, so the price depended on the amount of fabric left on the roll! To be honest there were a lot more rolls and bolts of fabrics that I almost bought but I didn’t want to scare the bank manager too much! I love wearing jersey, so tending to sew a lot with it, therefore that was what I was mainly on the lookout for but some other fabrics just jumped out at me and had to be purchased! My secret sale purchases were as follows:
Some great knit fabrics
2 great rolls of fleece & a lightweight double sized faux fur
Lots of other fabrics – purple voile, household Clarke & Clarke polka dot, great loose weave, mid weight grey & lightweight abstract florals.
Not bad for just £65 in total!
A very kind member of staff helped us get the cage to the car!
All the staff were encountered in the warehouse, were very friendly and helpful. Myself and Nele bought that much fabric that we had to use a cage to take it all out to the car!
I was also very glad that I swapped my little Ka for my dad’s much larger Meriva for the weekend! Made packing the car a lot easier, although we still managed to fill the boot that much that extra purchases had to be put on the back seat!
By this point we were very grateful of our free breakfast bap in the onsite Abakhan Cafe, as it had been a very early start of 7am to ensure we got there in time to use our golden ticket early access opportunity and maximise our bargain hunting!
Breakfast time!
I’ve been to the large Abakhan Mostyn branch before but Susan (being originally from America) had never been before and this is much larger than the Birkenhead and Liverpool stores we’re all used to, so with our 15% discount vouchers we headed off into the main store for some more fabric based retail therapy. The store was busy but there were ample friendly and helpful staff available to help us and we had great fun exploring the rolls and remnants available, with all of us making more purchases and again more bargains were to be had – Susan even managed to get some Hello Kitty rip stop, of which I’m very jealous! The liberty lawns available were beautiful and I spent a while admiring them.
Abakhan Mostyn
Lots of Liberty lawn
Lots of fun was had exploring the rolls and remnants both upstairs and downstairs in the main building with both myself and Nele making more purchases. The prices in Abakhan are great to start off but then with our special 15% discount vouchers we got even better bargains and therefore erm, seem to have purchased even more fabric, oops!
Main store purchases
After all that shopping we needed another break and decided to have a light lunch in the Abakhan Café and as the sun was shining we took advantage of the outdoor seating to relax and then to enjoy our free golden ticket desserts – a delicious and well-presented summer fruits brulee with a handmade shortbread biscuit, a perfect summery desert to be enjoyed in the Welsh sunshine.
Desserts
We all had a great day out at the Abakhan secret sale and got loads of great bargains, am already figuring out and planning what projects they’ll be used for. If you would like to find out when the next Secret Sale is then complete this form on Abakhan’s website (you might also spot a familiar face in the photos of the day).
Did you also visit the Abakhan Secret Sale? If so, why not leave a comment below telling me what you thought and what you bought?
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The first ever Liverpool MakeFest was held on the 27th June 2015 at Liverpool Central Library and as most of you will be aware I run Liverpool Sewing Club. I therefore decided it would be good fun to get involved and to have a stall there. So what is Liverpool MakeFest?
Liverpool MakeFest is a FREE family friendly festival for all ages celebrating all things ‘makey’ in the north-west, showcasing things people have made, projects people are working on, inventions, gadgets and hands-on activities including, coding, hacking workshops and demonstrations.
It’s a place to see how science, technology, engineering, arts and crafts are shaping our world… a place to get you thinking and learning about cool stuff you could make yourself!
Sounds like fun doesn’t it? I decided that instead of just showing off what the members of Liverpool Sewing Club have made it would be great to show others that despite what they might think, sewing isn’t scary and anyone can give it a go! A few years ago I had a stall at OggCamp (the biggest free software and free culture event in the UK) with the same idea of introducing people to sewing. Dan, the OggCamp organiser told me had lots of t-shirts leftover from the previous year’s OggCamp so donated them to me. After some research I discovered the great upcycling idea of converting old t-shirts into bags which is quick, easy and suitable for complete beginners. This worked very well at OggCamp, so I decided to do the same again at MakeFest.
Our stall at Liverpool MakeFest
Having a small table to work with, we setup 2 sewing stations and 1 cutting station, all provided with health and safety information. We also provided leaflets for Liverpool Sewing Club and as we don’t provide sewing classes we also provided copies of the new brochure for the local fabric store Abakhan, who provide a wide range of sewing classes, including those suitable for beginners.
A sewing station
The cutting station
Myself and a number of other lovely ladies from Liverpool Sewing Club then spent the day helping people to turn the leftover stash of old t-shirts from OggCamp into new stylish bags, great for a variety of different uses as well as being both environmentally friendly and practical – being t-shirts they roll quite small and can easily be squashed into the bottom of a handbag, ready for all those last minute purchases!
I will blog at a later date with a more in depth tutorial on the process. However the basics are: Firstly, turn the t-shirt inside out, then cut off the sleeves and cut the neckline deeper:
Better get cutting!
Got to cut those sleeves off
Pin the front and back of the t-shirt together so you are ready to sew the bottom of your bag together:
A dad & his lad pinning the bottom of the bag together
Now the cutting and pinning is done, we’re all ready to use the sewing machine:
Time to sew the base of the bag
Me helping a young lady to sew her bag
Rosie helping a young lady use the sewing machine
Jan showing a young family how the sewing machine works
As you can see from the photos all ages can do this, from young kids (with a bit of help) through to adults and both male and female – sewing isn’t just a female activity! Although, smiling and having fun is of course a necessity!
Jan having fun chatting to a lady about sewing
Hehe see I told you we were having fun!
And we have a finished bag – Quick, easy and fun to make!
A completed t-shirt bag!
One lady decided not to turn her t-shirt inside out when sewing, so that the plain side was visible and then embellish it, using trims and an embroidered elephant she made with the stall that was situated next to us – The Merseyside Embroiderers’ Guild, isn’t it beautiful!
Beautiful embellished t-shirt bag
Overall a great fun day was had by both Liverpool Sewing Club members and by the general public. My only regret was that I was having that much fun on our stall that I never had a chance to actually go visit all the other stalls at Liverpool MakeFest, doh!
Have you made any t-shirt bags? Why not comment below & tell me?
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