Don’t be sad pretty girl, you are wearing a nice version of the Merchant and Mills Strand Coat. You can be sad for me, because I am still waiting for my copy of the pattern in the post, but you should be happy with your nice coat. Does anyone else find the Merchant and Mills… Continue reading Bits and Bobbins: Third Week of April
I have been humming and hawing about which pattern to use for my spring coat, or whether to draft my own. Right now, I’m enjoying exploring all the indie pattern companies, so I decided to try that path first. I have a few in mind but I thought I would start with trying a muslin of the… Continue reading Lotta Jansdotter’s Pilvi Coat Adjustments
My lovely friend Susannah, has taken me down the Japanese Style rabbit hole again. After my post about wearing trainers with frocks, she told me about a book she ordered on Sneaker Style. I love how they have books to explain and explore all these different dress styles in Japan. There are some very cute illustrations in… Continue reading Japanese Style Books
Today I’m posting revealing photos of my Tessuti Alice tops; not just on my mannequin, but on me! I’ll preface this post by saying, although I like them as tops, I think they are unflattering on me. Let’s see why… Selfie Photo Confidence I’ve been working hard to build my selfie photo confidence. I know this is a problem I… Continue reading Alice Top: Unflattering Conclusions
I finished my first Carkai bag. It isn’t perfect, the interfacing caused some bubbling and the straps could have been about 15cm longer. Naughty me; I tell my students not to point out their mistakes to everyone else. Do as a say, not as I do. Making the leather closure was very easy. I… Continue reading Bits and Bobbins: April
I love the look of clothes with mixed fabric colour-blocks. Yet, there are surprisingly few items like this in my wardrobe. Layering clothing is a versatile way to play with combining fabrics, but mixing fabrics, within the same garment, creates endless possibilities for unusual shapes and proportions of colour and pattern. The three inspiring examples above,… Continue reading Colour Blocks In Dress: Piecing to Flatter
I’m working on my embroidered Alice top with the V-neck adaptation. I’ve used three different fabrics: a Nano Iro double-gauze 80cm remnant, washed linen and a printed lawn. They’re all playing nicely together. There is a very faint glimmer of metallic overprinting in the Nano Iro gauze and I wanted to pick up on that with… Continue reading Alice Top With Nano Iro and Embroidery
I’ve been happily making bags this last week. It was the perfect thing to do while recovering from the flu. I didn’t have to try anything on and look at myself in the mirror. I have a large stash of vintage fabric and antique textiles that I’ve always planned to do something with and bags are… Continue reading Bags From Vintage Fabric
This week I was laid-up in bed for days with a nasty stomach flu and migraine. It’s torture to have fever dreams of sewing and not being able to act upon them. I have just started to feel better, so there has been a little sewing, on the bags I have cut out. They came together quickly… Continue reading Bits and Bobbins: First Week of April
I’ve been under the weather this week, which has caused me to fall behind in all my activities. There will be a regular post tomorrow but for today I just want to share one of my fever spring coat dreams. I had a fever earlier this week. I couldn’t focus but I kept dreaming of Spring coats. Turquoise,… Continue reading Spring Coat Fever Dream
I’ve become very interested in the fibre content of today’s denim. Pure cotton jeans are coming back into fashion, at the same time, there are a lot of new fibres that I was unfamiliar with. The jean market is a very busy place. In the 80’s there were two kinds of people; those that wore… Continue reading Musings on Stretch Denim
Last Friday I rode the top deck of the bus home, along Oxford Street. I looked out at a sea of people in black winter coats. This was our first beautiful Spring day and everyone looked so dreary in their dark colours. Especially, on masse like that. I longed to see someone in colour and decided that I needed a cheerful Spring… Continue reading Spring Coat Fever
