Does anyone else make their own clothes

purpleivy

InkyCats20 wrote: »

Thanks for the welcome everyone :j
essexgal - yes I was woken up by the storm at about 2.30 this morning & can you believe there were people wandering around outside in the pouring rain - very strange (I could hear voices so got up to have a looksy) !!! So like yourself I'm not feeling very wide awake this morning.

Mrs F - I've been making lots of home furnishing's 'cos they're easy, lots of straight up & down seams to sew :rotfl:Had to get some dressmaking fabric, as most of my stash is home furnishing or so small it could only be used for patchwork.

Kittie - thanks for the comment , as I said I bought some patterns off www.sewingpatterns.com , so I'm going to try Simplicity No.3956 (view E) or Butterick B4659 (view c but without the fluffy cuff bits) once my "voyage" fabric arrives, just need to go & commence the excitement that is cutting out the pattern :eek:

I found the same, thought I had a good stash of fabrics, cos it's in a trunk. When I went to look, I found it's almost all furnishing fabric remains. Was hoping to find something beautiful! Found one length of fab, but that's all. A real disappointment, never mind, I'll have to go and shop!

Mrs_Flittersnoop

Bad luck purpleivy, what a trial to have to go fabric shopping :rotfl:

Just popped in to say how impressed I am with the service from www.habithat.co.uk - I ordered two patterns from them yesterday lunchtime and they arrived here about half an hour ago, about 12 hours later!

Finished my rosy t shirt yesterday, am very pleased with it. Might take a bit of a break from sewing today, and have a play with pattern paper instead.

Mrs F x

[Deleted User]

I lost the sewing mood during the weekend. Doh and all that free time as well. Anyway I did a bit yesterday and finished the job today. It is amazing how nibbling at a project eventually gets it done. I did a kwik sew pattern that I have recently used lots for the elasticated waist A line skirt and I did the skirt and a buttoned jacket with 3/4 sleeves and a long scarf. The fabric is nice and was from fabricland and is printed polyester organza/chiffonny. Quite dressy so is a one off and is basically pale turquoise with creams, pinks and browns. I set to with a hot steam iron all the way through and got a very nice finish and I decided to quickly line the skirt ie a quick whizz together to the main, at the top, overlocked seams and stitched elastic casing. Just need buttons now and it can be tucked away. It may be dressy as a 3 piece but will happily work as combinations with various coloured tops, including my m and s t shirts, so it is dress-downable

Mrs F there are some fantastic companies and habithat is one. My pattern arrived today as well. Pat on the back to them

Mrs_Flittersnoop

Kittie, that all sounds really nice. Chiffon-y stuff is a pig to sew as well, you sound a lot calmer about it than I would! My sewing mojo is on the wane again too, I think I've probably overdone it the past few weeks so didn't get anything done yesterday after all. Oh well, it's the weekend again tomorrow

I agree habithat are a great company to do business with, a refreshing change from some I could mention :rotfl: I have always had really speedy service from them. Just wish I could keep up with the number of patterns coming into the house and the pitiful output going out:o

Mrs F x

InkyCats20

Moring Everyone :hello:

I am now in possession of both of my ebay fabric purchases - exciting.

I cut out both of the patterns on Wednesday, you would of thought by now they be able to send out patterns already cut, which would save so much time.

purpleivy - your mention of a trunk got me thinking, I have a sort of trunk / ottaman / storage chest thingy in my bedroom, which I haven't been into for ages, had a quick peek this morning, lots of curtains / quilt covers & surprise, surprise some more fabric but alas it's more home furnishing fabric :rotfl: :rotfl:

essexgal - do you buy fabric locally, if so where ?

No opportunity for sewing yesterday, as I went to a friend to help her set up her new pc :eek:

Might be able to do a little bit today - well I'm hoping to pin all my patterns pieces on the fabric & cut them all out

Off to Windsor tomorrow with a friend, so that'll be somewhere new to nose around for fabric

Bye for now
Happy Sewing :T :T

essexgal

InkyCats20 wrote: »

essexgal - do you buy fabric locally, if so where ?

Hi InkyCats20

Funnily enough I've managed to persuade other half that we need to take a trip over to Tiptree tomorrow.....I could spend hours in 'The Cheap Shop' (not to mention ££££s...:o ) http://www.thecheapshop.ltd.uk/

Other than that there is a remnant & trimmings shop locally - stuffed to the gunnels with 'stash' - had to restrain myself on Wednesday and only buy what I knew I'd need - mainly elastic/trimmings, but still bought some fabric as it co-ordinates with my current projects so it will get used. There are a couple of other fabric shops locally but one of them's more geared to home furnishings rather than dressmaking, and the other never seems to have anything that appeals that much to me.

Lately my best finds have been in the (many) charity shops or at car boots -but then I always seem to be either ahead or behind the current trends..:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

My stash is sadly lacking - I could probably muster 10 metres at most - and some of that is 'furnishing'. Although I have got some rather snazzy red cotton with flowers in a gingham applique pattern that might be next on the agenda......just need to find a plain co-ordinating fabric.......

Happy hunting in Windsor tomorrow....

essexgal

[Deleted User]

It really is a question of storage for me now, what with all this fabric starting to arrive. I have pre-washed two lots and folded two lots and they are all nice and tidy in my really useful boxes. I got a few very long cardboard rolls and have been rolling fabric on them, securing with masking tape and the rolls are storing very neatly behind the door to my study/sewing room. LOL I am very happy that the gigantic amount of fabric is going away fine and I am even happier to now have a CHOICE at home

My mojo came back for an hour today so I took advantage and whizzed (overlocked) up and down the seam edges of a 6 gored skirt that has been cut out for 2 months. I did the 5/8 seams on the regular machine and a good steam press and I did the zip, no pins or tacking. It is the machine I have got, just a fairly basic janome but SO steady and the zipper foot finds the zip easily. That was the end of my mojo,:cool: so I`ll have to finish the rest as and when. It will be a nice skirt and will cost about £4

Who says that sewing isn`t worth while? well it jolly well is these days

thriftlady_2

Apologies if this has cropped up before but it's a long thread and I'm too lazy to read it all:o

I've bought some fabric from 2 US fabric shops. Brilliant fabric, great choice, good prices, excellent service BUT I was less than happy to discover I had to pay customs duty on my parcels £13 and £14 each. I've bought books and patterns from the US and Japan and have never paid customs duty on these.

Anyone know why and if there is any way to avoid it ?

The shops were equilterand Fat Quarter Quilters.

[Deleted User]

thriftlady, I have had to pay duty lately, when I hardly ever did before. I think it is because they can find us easier with computers. The only way is to keep the cost below £18 ie $34. Having said that it is proportionally cheaper to order a lot of stuff and you only pay one handling charge of around £8

Books don`t carry any charges, I think, as they are printed paper

I am starting to find very nice fabrics in this country recently as more sellers are cottoning onto an upsurge in sewing

excellent curtaining
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/discountedfabric_W0QQssPageNameZstrkQ3amefsQ3amesstQQtZkm

this one looks very good
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/FAVOURITE-FABRICS_W0QQssPageNameZstrkQ3amefsQ3amesstQQtZkm

maryb

I've been inspired by reading this thread to get my sewing room sorted out. It's called Mummy's sewing room but most of the time it's evryone's junk room and as it is really very small it pretty soon stops you doing anything.

Anyway DD2 is shooting up now she's 12 and needed new pyjamas and we couldn't find any she liked (or me - I hate logos). 12 is quite a difficult age, too big for most childrenswear and not big enough for adult sizes. Plus she tends not to like perfectly good things if the seams are bulky (princess and the bloomin pea!!).

I had some camisole vests left over which she won't wear as vests (not now she's 12) but which are still quite loose and comfortable and I found a yard of lilac gingham in my stash. I cut up her old pyjama trousers to use as a pattern just making them a bit bigger all round and sewed all the seams with run and fell seams so it will wash well and be flat and comfortable. I reused the elastic from the old trousers - that's real OS.

Then I cut some 2 inch wide bias strips from the left over gingham and unpicked the camisole straps and replaced them with the bias gingham which made straps about half an inch wide when folded and doubled.

It looks really sweet (but not so sweet she would refuse to wear it!!) and I didn't have to pay anything. But even if I had bought the stuff, Primark sells vests for 2 for £1.50 and our local market sells gingham at £2 a yard (nothing metric there!!).

I might try another set - one of the leftover vests vests has little pink polka dots on so if I could get a yard of pink cotton with small white polka dots that would look really good.

Thanks all for re-inspiring me