Does anyone else make their own clothes

shazrobo

sethsgran wrote: »

Hope this is the right place to post this

http://www.fabworks.co.uk/

This is an amazing mill shop for fabric. Note they don't open weekends.
When my son married 2 years ago I was making the bridesmaids dresses, 5 adults, and I bought the fabric there. The total cost for the fabric, not lining, was £35 for the dresses and boleros. That was for 5 dresses not 1. Fabric was £1 per metre.Worth a look inside the mill. They have a good choice of furnishing/curtain fabric many at £5 per metre.

thanks for that, i live fairly close to dewsbury about 15 mins in car, will definatly be popping in to take a look, thanks for posting

Old_Meanie

Hello All Old Style Sewers and wannabe sewers.

On Monday evening on BBC Panorama is going to tell us why we can buy cheap clothes from Primark and similar stores - by companies using child labour. So I think we can sit back, polish our halos, and feel good about all the clothes we have made ourselves or are going to make that will help to stop the use of child labour. I shall watch to give myself an extra bit of motivation to carry on even though it is not easy at times.

Justamum

In my Radio Times it says Panorama is about armed gangs. Maybe they've changed it then

flea72

i know by sewing myself, that i am cutting out the clothing sweat shops, but sometimes i wonder where the actual fabric i buy comes from, and the conditions it is produced in. with most fabric in the UK being £4/m+, i just wonder how much it really costs to produce, espec when identical fabric can be sourced in the US at a much lower price, im assuming its pence/m so unethical trading must be going on in the production?

Flea

too much thinking time, not enough sewing time

HappyMrsG

i

know by sewing myself, that i am cutting out the clothing sweat shops, but sometimes i wonder where the actual fabric i buy comes from, and the conditions it is produced in.

I too have these concerns but there may always be things we don't know about when buying manufactured goods. Then there is the flipside about poor people suffering if we stop buying their goods. It isn't easy having a conscience is it?

Must get back to sewing that zip in my dress now.

Mrs G

shazrobo

can ask you sewer's if you can help me. got new machine today, and all was going well, til i came to a corner, lifted foot up, to turn fabric, and forgot to put foot down as i started sewing it has become caught up in machine under needle plate, and i have no idea how to free it, plase help
thanks

HappyMrsG

Shazrobo - I think you are just going to have to pull it out & hope for the best!

Good luck

shazrobo

have tried that, not bothered about damaging the fabric, but afraid of damaging machine as it was expensive

AussieLass

shazrobo wrote: »

can ask you sewer's if you can help me. got new machine today, and all was going well, til i came to a corner, lifted foot up, to turn fabric, and forgot to put foot down as i started sewing it has become caught up in machine under needle plate, and i have no idea how to free it, plase help
thanks

:rotfl: Sorry. Don't worry, I've been there, done that. Cut the material off first. Then you will need to unscrew the needle plate. Well that's what I did with mine. It was the only way. Hope you get it sorted asap.

Mrs_Flittersnoop

shazrobo oops! I've done that loads of times, especially with flimsy fabrics. You won't damage your machine, at worst you may bend or even break the needle. As Aussie says, you're going to have to take off the needle plate (or at least loosen it if you're trying not to damage the fabric). What I do is unscrew the needle so that it's resting in the fabric and v-e-y slowly turn the hand wheel towards you, wiggling it slightly back and forth until the mess of thread underneath begins to loosen a little, then, with my very sharpest scissors, snip away at the tangle of threads wound round the bobbin case until I can gently free the needle. Once that is done, you should be able to wiggle the fabric free, with, hopefully only a smallish hole left in it. Make sure you clear all the tiny little bits of thread completely out of the bobbin case and round the needle plate, otherwise a teensy bit might get stuck somewhere and mess things up for you.

When you finally get everything free, check your needle very carefully to see if it has bent, because if it has, you need a new one. Using a bent needle could damage your machine by knocking out the timing.

Don't panic! it's ok, you will get it free from there. Good luck.

flea72 it's an interesting and vexing question, isn't it. Unless you are prepared to buy a sheep, shear it and turn the fleece into wool to weave on your own loom, I suppose the answer is that us mere mortals have no way of checking really. I have bought 100% organic bamboo knit fabric before which I suppose is half way there but of course I have no way of knowing how many poor people were pressganged and paid 1p for their expertise in actually producing it. I just sit on my moral high ground and think well at least I'm cutting out some of the exploitation by making up most of my clothes myself, and, as it's sadly a dying art, there are many millions of other people who are happily paying those poor people's wages by buying their cheap t shirts from Primark. Difficult one. Maybe it's time we all went back to wearing figleaves :eek: :rotfl:

No sewing for me for a while, I've been horrendously busy and today is catch up with the housework day