Capital Chic patterns launches!

Today is an exciting day for one of our lovely Spoolettes! Sally who you will know as the genius refashioner Charity Shop Chic is launching her pattern line Capital Chic!

Sally is known for her modern and catwalk inspired makes which have a different aesthetic to a lot of other more vintage inspired pattern companies, and this really comes through in her first collection.

As the name suggests, it's a really chic and sleek collection of work and evening wear. If you saw the photos from the Minerva Crafts evening party, you'll recognise the Martini dress that Sally was wearing, and I know you're going to see some of her patterns popping up on your favourite blogs soon.

My favourite pattern is the Bellini blouse which has options for a cutaway and a scalloped collar and has french seams and bound armholes. I've had a sneak peak at the pattern and the instructions are really clear and show you how to construct the french seams if you haven't done them before. You'll see it on the blog soon!

Wishing Sally all the luck in the world with this one and hope you all love the patterns! You can read about the line here, see the full range of patterns here and purchase either print at home or print at copy shop pdfs from her site here. Which is your favourite?

My top 5 inspirations from 2013

And we're in the home stretch of Top 5s!  Just this and 2014 goals to go!

Inspirations is a toughie!  When I first bought a cheap sewing machine, my plan was to do machine embroidery and maybe make a few bits and pieces for N.  I had no plans to start sewing garments for myself.  However stumbling on the world of sewing blogs changed that!  I realised that you didn't have to have been sewing since you were a child to be able to make beautiful, great fitting clothes.

I've picked a few areas where I feel really inspired, by bloggers and others.

1) Pattern designers

By that I don't mean established pattern companies like Colette or Sewaholic.  But some of my favourite bloggers have released their own patterns this year, both free and paid for.  I can't get my head around the process of doing this and how complicated it must be, but how cool to see people making, wearing and loving something you have designed!

Source: House of Pinheiro

 Rachel's Brasilia dress

Melissa's workout/ running gear

Erin's Presidio handbag

The lovely Katie from What Katie Sews also mentioned recently she was working on releasing a pattern she had designed - can't wait to see!

2) Refashioning

Source: Charity Shop Chic

When I arrived at the epic blogger meet up back in April, I almost squealed to see a dress I recognised and loved that I had just been reading about - Sally's fabulous Mad Men shirt dress!  And no post about refashioning would be complete without a mention for this talented lady.  She totally inspires me to have a go at refashioning.  I just need to find some time for scouring charity shops - I'm sure I don't have her vision of what the most unpromising items could become!

3) Sewcial media

 Some bloggers have such a skill for bringing people together.  From the top 5 posts you are reading now, started by Gillian from Crafting a Rainbow, to the blogger meet ups and swaps organised by Rachel, Claire, Marie & Kat and many many more, and the Spoolettes spearheaded by Clare, sewing people love to get together and chat together!  Especially if there is fabric shopping involved.  Or drinking.  Or both!

Whether it is online or in real life, a lot of people spend a lot of time and effort coming up with great ideas to spread the sewing love and that is pretty inspiring.  A few mentions (I couldn't possibly cover everyone so please don't be offended if I have missed you off!):

the aforementioned Gillian from Crafting a Rainbow

Rachel from House of Pinheiro

Claire from Sew Incidentally

Marie from A Stitching Odyssey

Kat from A Krafty Kat

Kerry from Kestrel Makes

Joost from Make my Pattern and creator of the Sewcialist logo and Firehose

Leila from Three Dresses Project

Lady Katza from Peanut Butter Macrame

Heather from Handmade by Heather B

Katie from KatieKadiddlehopper

StephC from 3 Hours past and Cake Patterns

Clare from Sew Dixie Lou

Tilly from Tilly and the Buttons

4) Beautiful photography

I've seen some recent blog posts talking about sewing blogs turning into fashion blogs and being all about photography and less about sewing. These are not the blogs I read. I want to read about sewing but I don't see why you can't have clear pics and great interesting photography. OK, so all we really need is daylight and non blurry photos but it's hopefully more interesting when I manage to get pics somewhere other than my back garden being photobombed by a 5 year old and a grumpy cat! 

I know I appreciate it when bloggers work hard with pics (as long as i can see the clothes obviously!).

Some honourable mentions:

Rachel from House of Pinheiro (is there anything this girl can't do?)

Lizzy from Sew Busy Lizzy

Sally from Charity Shop Chic

Carolyn from Handmade by Carolyn

Janene from Ooobop

Clare from Sew Dixie Lou

Rochelle from Lucky Lucille

I still have work to do on my blog pics - the winter is hard when you can't incorporate an outdoor photo shoot into a family weekend! I'll never be able to take hundreds of pics to choose from (the 5 year old wouldn't stand for it!) but the ladies above and others inspire me to get better!

5) Dyeing fabric

I used to do a lot of fabric dying, tie dye etc as a student and thought those days were past! But I've become inspired to pick it up again for a few reasons.

Source: Jigidi.com

On holiday in the summer we visited a beautiful shop where the owner created lovely batik scarves and sarongs. I wanted to buy fabric but at upwards of £40 a metre it wasn't going to happen. I really want to try making my own. Imagine the great border prints you could make?  I'd also like to try shibori and other natural dyes like Sally and screen printing like Carolyn.  Sadly these are summer projects unless i want dripping fabric everywhere so I'll need to wait a bit.  

So that's it - my inspirations! 

Only goals to go - just need to work out what they are!

Reflections on 2013

Happy New Year to you all!

I am really enjoying all of these top 5 posts but you guys are blogging too much!  My reader is overflowing!  I think I am all caught up now though, and seeing some great top 5s that have really made me think (and actually possibly re-evaluate a few items on my lists).

1) A pat on the back

Gratuitous pugs!

I think I did really well this year.  My sewing came on leaps and bounds.  I can now put on a Me Made garment most days with little effort, and I buy very little RTW any more (except for jeans - more to come on that!).  I worked hard on fitting and it really paid off - with a little help from my friends - which leads me on nicely to:

2) Sewing people really are the nicest people you could meet/ chat to

2013 was a tough year for me personally.  I lost a close family member and another was diagnosed with a serious illness (which is likely to make 2014 another difficult one).  But I really think sewing, sewcial media, bloggers and sewing friends helped me through it (without wishing to take away any credit from family and non-sewing friends of course!).  Sometimes it's just great to have an escape from reality and chat to other people who are as excited about the latest indie pattern release or fabric sale as me!

I joined Twitter (@jolittletime if you tweet too!) after resisting for a long time and found a fantastic sewing community on there.

I went to the epic blogger meet up and met some fabulous people and starting following lots of new blogs.

I started meeting the Spoolettes as regularly as I can (given family commitments that's not as often as I would like!).  What a great group of ladies that are excellent fun to spend time with, whether drinking, dancing, bowling or fabric shopping!

3) I sewed (mainly) for the life I have

Particpating in Me Made May showed me that my wardrobe needed plain separates and knits and I focused on sewing those.  I know a lot of people don't like to sew basics, but there's only so many party dresses and summer frocks my lifestyle calls for, especially in a country when the sun shines for about a month of the year.  I love (and wear) dresses quite a lot, but I'm likely to grab a comfy knit one to throw on for work and I have sewn a lot of those this year!  But we all need a bit of frosting from time to time - however I want to make what I wear most often.  I also sewed much more with plains (and I'm including spots and stripes in plains - they are practically neutrals) which I have enjoyed more than I expected.  It's good to be able to see nice design lines and focus on the fit rather than hiding behind a print as I did when I started (all those lovely printed cottons...)

4) I really need to conquer trousers

I wear jeans and trousers a lot, especially in winter and it's a huge gap in my me-made wardrobe.  As mentioned in my Hits & Misses post I traced Colette patterns Juniper in my usual size following Sunni's trouser sewalong, added extra seam allowances, thread traced every seam, and threw the muslin in the sewing box to think about what it had done when it didn't remotely fit. It hasn't come back out yet but it will this year! I also want some me made jeans.

5) Sewing with a plan works well for me

I'm quite a planner by nature, but I do have a tendency to get distracted by newer shinier things (squirrel!) like new pattern releases, sewalongs, sewing challenges, competitions etc.  I have made a conscious effort only to take part in these if I would have done it anyway!  If I have bought a new Cake pattern and there's a sewalong, then I will plan to join.  If the Sewcialists are doing Red October, I will join in as I love red.  Green December not so much.  I didn't love the Laurel pattern and realistically I don't think the shape will work for my shape, so I was proud of resisting the competition.

The sewalong that worked really well for me was the Fall Essentials sewalong.  I planned out the garments I wanted to make within a colour palette I love and so I could make sure I had all the notions, zips, thread, buttons etc that normally hold me up on finishing a project.  I mainly sew in the evenings so rushing to the shop for more thread isn't going to happen!  I made so many more projects in that 2 month period than I ever expected so a big thumbs up for planning sewing!

Inspirations and goals posts coming up soon!

The Bowling dress

After I did my Simplicity giveaway earlier in the year, they kindly let me choose a pattern to keep for myself and I went for Simplicity 1882.  I've seen some great versions, especially Karen's, but the version I loved was Virginia's from A Sewing Life.

I had an idea for a diner waitress style dress in aqua with black trim, but was thwarted by non-availability of aqua cotton sateen.  By the time I got to this one, autumn was approaching, the time for wearing aqua was running out and I spotted this teal sateen in my local Fabricland.  I paired it with a black sateen from Ebay.

This was my first Amazing Fit pattern and I really liked the system!  It comes with bodice pieces in A-D cup sizes, as well as slim, average and curvy fit skirts. So the first step is to get busy with a tape measure to take the difference between your high bust and full and waist and hips to decide on the pattern pieces to use.  Of course if your fabric has a little stretch (as mine did) it's quite forgiving!

Normally I do a 1" FBA on big 4 patterns, so I went for the C cup bodice and the average fit skirt (based on measurements as above).

Rather than doing a muslin, the pattern has large seam allowances for fitting, so it has you baste all the pieces together wrong sides together and try it on so that you can adjust the seams.  I did find the unpicking of the basting slightly annoying as the sateen showed every pull and needle hole - probably didn't help that this pattern had a separate 3 panelled front midriff and princess seamed bodice so lots of unpicking!  But still, no muslin!

I added the optional homemade piping (if you haven't made piping and like the look you really must try it - I love the effect and it is very easy to do with no special equipment needed) between the upper bodice and midriff pieces and at the waist.  It frames the nicely shaped midriff panel so well!  I also went for the contrast collar and bow (I was debating not adding the bow but if you saw the finish on the centre front V you would know why I did - not my best work!)

I had no real issues with it - these patterns would be great for fitting newbies as the instructions for fitting are very good.  Also the different sized pattern pieces make it easier to get closer to the right fit from the beginning.

I did deviate from the instructions with the invisible zip.  As I have had issues inserting these over piped seams in the past, I went for a hand picked normal zip instead.  I think I'm going to do this a lot more often in future.  As hand sewing goes, a hand picked zip goes in so quickly and easily (certainly compred to unpicking and redoing several times!), looks great and gives you so much more control of the final outcome than a slippy zipper foot that persists in sewing over the teeth and jamming the zip!


I also hand catch-stitched the hem, just because I preferred the look of it on such smooth fabric.

I wore this bowling with the Spoolettes - you'll have seen pictures on Clare, Sally, Janene, Nicole, Kathryn and Emmie's blogs to name but a few!  I did wish I had made a name badge but I totally ran out of time.