I think i'll put up all my work so far for the sake of completeness - a frustration with the cost and quality of clothes for sale in local shops lead me to get the sewing machine serviced - I dont think that they make clothes for people like me anymore - searching on the internet for patterns I came across
the burda style website, there is so much on there to be inspired by, I use it a lot. An expedition to
Mandors up in Glasgow yielded a satisfying pile of interesting and cheap fabric. Im going to attempt to make things that will be useful - the temptation is to make swirly floaty dresses that i can pose in front of the mirror with but will never wear outside - I am going to try not to.
the first thing I tried to make was i copy a nice top my mum had got for me from white stuff . It was more complicated than it looked - especially the neck line - I just can't get my head around how to fit the pieces together. I used some fairly minging shiny cotton because it was cheap and i knew my experiments were likely to be unwearable - I have 2 versions of this piece - both with different and unfinished necklines - some kind of sewing textbook would be useful, i will keep my eyes peeled. anyway - a learn a lot - about the materail, seams, the machine etc from making these - time to attempt the good stuff i think!
love this pattern (it was free) – its really simple and quick to make. this is my second project and I’m learning as I go along. the material i had was exactly the right length for the medium size pattern but I possibly should have used the large size for width as its a bit tight at the hips. I wasn’t quite sure that I was doing with the neck (neck lines are definitely a problem area for me. initially the neck band stuck up like the ring of a cake tin (much smaller than a cake tin but you get the picture), Perhaps this was because it was not a stretchy material. I overstiched the hems with zig zags (not sure i did this right-see photo) and this helped a little but it still wasn’t right so then i doubled the neck piece over and stitched it down so it was half the size – I am relatively happy with it now – its still a bit cake tinny – just half as noticeable. At the lower hem the material got a bit wayward and did not want to lie the way it was instructed too. in the end i won but not without a few creases hear and there. I have since discovered a tutorial on burdastyle.com that would have helped with this. I made the tie longer so the ends show – I quite like the way that looks. All in all I’m pretty pleased with this – its wearable even if its not quite what it could have been – I will make it again soon. Its called flowers at midnight as I always sew late at night when my wee boy is asleep ( he loves to play with the presser foot whilst I sew – not helpful), hence the dark circles round my eyes by the time it was finished!
