Tag Archives: dressmaking

It’s all about the detail

8 Jun

On 28 August 2021 I wrote

Hello Gorgeous!

It’s all about the detail, and I love the detail of adding a hangie uppie loop and a 2021 tag to this bathrobe. And a Hello Gorgeous label, obvs.

Labels by @kylieandthemachine
Pattern by @munaandbroad
Fabric from @dalston.mill.fabrics

I may have loved the hangie uppie tag on this bathrobe, and the fabric. But the love hasn’t extended to wearing it all the time. And I know the reason why, and what I could do about it. So that’s on the list in my head of Things I Will Get Round To One Day.

I had somehow ordered a shorter length of fabric than I needed, and only noticed when it came to cutting it out. As a result, the robe is shorter than I want… What I should do, is use a matching / clashing fabric to add an 8″ or so border along the hemline. It would immediately turn this into something that I’d wear OFTEN. One day.

I have a lot of these One Day projects, that swill about in my head and will get done eventually. I also have a lot of reasons (ok, excuses) as to why they have not been done already.

Today, I’m determined to get through a great long list of rather boring work tasks before I allow myself to do anything else. I’m feeling pretty positive that I do, at least, have all the tasks now written down in one comprehensive list. I just wish it didn’t look quite so impossibly long though.

***

Mostly on this blog I write about trying to care for Mum as she developed dementia, which nearly broke me on a number of occasions. Gentle meditative stitching the Fisherman’s Smock probably saved me, giving me a focus and forcing me to carve out time when I could let everything go and just concentrate on those tiny stitches.

And if you want to read more about my relationship with Mum and her dementia, then you could start here at Taking smock of the Situation. Or just dip in. After all, if I’ve learned anything this last few years it’s that chronology and time are less important than we might believe.

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Making things

14 May

Some weather is designed for making things. Today is a blustery May day, with the wind blowing around the house, and the rain battering at the windows. And then 10 minutes later the rain stops, until the wind blows some more in. So, it’s not a day for gardening, although the garden would love me to spend some more time in it, getting rid of some of those pesky weeds.

It’s a day for making things.

So, my man is in the shed doing joinery. Every few minutes I hear the whine of the saw, and so I know something is being created.

I like power tools. I have a bit of power tool envy really, I like the way they are good and solid in your hand and can make short work of heavy jobs.

I guess I have a few power tool equivalents in the kitchen: my electric beaters, my zizzer, my liquidiser, a food processor, and my vintage Kenwood Chef mixer. How I love that mixer, and wish I could move it to my place in the country instead of my wee flat in the city.

But today I’m using an altogether different power tool: my Bernina sewing machine. It’s a beautiful thing: solid and heavy, but graceful and elegant. And with the loveliest wee hummm you ever did hear. It’s almost as relaxing as the purrrr of my purrdy cat, when she lies on me in bed.

Bernina and I are making a skirt, in dark brown tweed with a turquoise lining. I’d never done the lining thing till I went to dressmaking classes for a season and was persuaded of the sense (and beauty) of a quality lining. Now I love that swishy sound of a good lining, and the slinky ease of pulling on a lined skirt. But I just can’t seem to do a matching lining, and so everything I make ends up with a serious clash.

My next skirt is probably a dark turquoise/teal  wool crepe … and the only lining I have in my stash is what I like to call greige – a deliciously minky sort of grey beige. It feels slightly too dowdy for this fabric though, and I feel I might have to nip up to Edinburgh Fabrics this week and get something in lime green, or a jewel purple or hot pink.

OK, the sun has come back out and the garden room (which doubles as my sewing room) is flooded with light, so time to do the hems and get this skirt finished. I might even wear it tomorrow.

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