Does anyone else make their own clothes

mx5driver

Books by Ann Ladbury make life very easy. She used to have BBC TV prog. If out of print try e bay. Local material/habbadash shops carry ads for courses or as is the case with my local shop run them up stairs. WI may hav e someone prepared to offer one to one in exchange for gardening or washing their car etc. Paper patterns for cloths are n ot as good as they6 used to be when it comes to instructions. Charity shops soetimes have old ones.For 50p worth it just to read the instruction pages.I would suggest do not buy new pattern which claims to be easy. The fit is always bad and offtern the pieces do not match. Buy Vogue;I know they are the most expensive but a basic blouse or trouser pattern will last as you will learn to alter it with the fashions. You say you want to start with cushion covers. I am very old,have always made cloths for myself and family but would hesitate to make cushion and shy away from curtains. They are on show,you want they around for a long time,you choose the best material BUT a sharpe corner is the hardes thing to acheive. Enjoy you new amachine. Don't forget the charity shops for size 22 in fab material you can unpick and re- make.That's when the fun and savings start.

purpleivy

purpleivy wrote: »

I've just started to go to a sewing club in Widnes. I found out about it on The Sewing Forum. There is a huge wealth of sewers there all willing to help. ALso local classes and clubs are advertised there.

http://www.thesewingforum.co.uk/index.php

It's OK to follow instructions on a pattern. I always thought that they were the same, but I've just worked from a Burda pattern. Although their patterns are stylish, the instructions and diagrams do leave something to be desired!

Since OP has mentioned Ann Ladbury... on The Sewing Forum someone has posted a message with some links to old BBC footage of her tutorials. Will try and find a link.
.. found it
http://www.thesewingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?p=81830#post81830

purpleivy

kethry wrote: »

the thing i would say is - and i write here from experience - about patterns and sizes is:

1) ignore the pattern sizing. makes sure you measure yourself accurately and then compare those measurements to the pattern (there should be a little table, with most patterns, saying that X waist measurement = X clothes size). It doesn't matter if you're making a 14 when in the shops you're a 12 or a 16. its not like there's going to be a label inside it for anyone to peek at the size!

2) if you have a bust size that is anything other than a B cup, you will have to amend any tops made accordingly. unless its one of those rare patterns that gives different patterns for different cup sizes (they do exist, but they are rare), most patterns assume you are a B cup and leave it to you to adjust accordingly (if you're bigger than a B cup, its called a Full Bust Adjustment and there are instructions out there on the net, just google Full Bust Adjustment - FBA for short).

For this reason i'd recommend against doing a top for your first garment, at least for you (children's clothes, obviously, don't have this problem, but babies outfits, because they are so small are quite fiddly). A skirt is probably the easiest to do.

I'd also go with what Mrs Flittersnoop said about the Reader's Digest guide to sewing. Your local library should have a copy if you want to have a read before you buy, or you can trawl the charity shops as she said.

I'd also go with what Olliebeak said about practicing with your sewing machine. I use an old sheet to make dummy runs of patterns, which is invaluable for me as i'm a D cup, but you could also use it for practicing particular stitches.

good luck!!

keth
xx

p.s. if you ever get into Manchester then you could do a lot worse than to visit Abakhan Fabrics - don't know if you know Manchester at all, but its in the little back streets behind Debenhams. Its a large fabric store - the first floor holds rolls of material, patterns, ribbons, buttons, etc. etc., the ground floor has a craft section (all kinds of crafts - knitting, cardmaking/scrapbooking, beads, the lot), and best of all, a reduced section - both proper rolls of fabric that have been reduced, and bargain "bins", where offcuts of fabric are sold by weight. you can often pick up very cheap material here for practicing with, doesn't matter if the colours/pattern on it is horrible, if its just for practice.. well worth a visit.

Kethry's advice is absolutely vital in terms of full bust adjustment. I would just like to add, that if you are over a B cup and need to do the FBA, the place to take your bust measurement is the above the bust. This is in order that it fits round the shoulders/neck etc. With a FBA you add more to the front to accommodate 'the girls', but if you measure over full bust, the top will be baggy over the shoulders and probably too wide. I speak from experience!

The patterns to which Kethry refers, i.e are made by SImplicity, but there are only about a dozen of them I think. They have ABCD fronts.

There is lots of Advice on The Sewing Forum about this and other very diverse sewing matters, I practically live in there when I'm not here!

RAS

Hi

I am going to take a step back - to cutting out your cloth.

In the early days, you might want to buy the amount of cloth recommended on the pattern but I routinely found that they over-estimate by 10%. As you get more experienced and get to know the pattern companies, you may well be able to reduce the amount you buy by that 10%, which can be quite a saving and allows you to pick up short lengths at bargain prices.

When you start making clothes, it may be wiser to avoid fabrics with very strong designs unless you are making very simple patterns. Although the mismatched look is very "in" at the moment, I suspect this has more to do with the economies of scale and ease of manufacture than real design decisions. Go for plain fabric or allover pattern that is non-directional for your first few real clothes.

Take your time over pattern cutting. Making a simple style, I found that I take as much time to pin and cut out the cloth as to sew and complete the garment and it pays off.

And if you have a cat, keep them out of the room when you are pinning and cutting your fabric - they love using your work as a slide and you will spend forever tidying up the fabric and pinning the pattern back on.

BobbinAlong

Just got my machine back from a major mend - I changed the batteries following the instruction book and when I turned it on the lights were on but no-one was home!!
Took it to my local place - Franklins - and they kept saying they'd phone me back and didn't, then kept saying they were waiting for Pfaff and hadn't even got a price for parts yet. After 5 months I took it off them and went over 50 miles to Sewmaster - a Pfaff specialist who said you can't get parts so it has to go to Pfaff in Germany and be reconditioned. Three weeks later it was ready and even delivered as someone was coming this way. Top marks for service!
No one's mentioned Hansons Fabrics in Sturminster Newton. I've been using them for twenty years and yes, prices have gone up quite a bit but the quality's excellent. Fabricland's still favourite and there's also an aladdin's cave of a shop in Bath - Green Streeet I think.
Am about to raid my Burda mags and these shops to make a formal winter coat (the sort that's about £100 in shops) and a trenchcoat mac (probably need PointNorth for that - must get new samples.)
Happy sewing to all.

top_drawer_2

Mrs_Flittersnoop wrote: »

Hi Jen, sorry to hear you're having problems. Have you cleaned and oiled your machine lately? Sometimes little bits of thread get stuck in the bobbin race and clog it up so that the bobbin doesn't work properly. Have you got your manual, it should show you where to oil and just brush out any lint/thread with an old soft paintbrush.

Secondly, are you sure you have the bobbin in the right way round? Again your manual should help - mine has the bobbin wound so the thread runs out in a '9' and not a '6' shape, i.e. from the top round to the right and then I have to pull the loose thread into the tension spring at the top.

When you start to sew, are you holding onto both the top and bottom threads for dear life for the first few stitches? My machine will tangle and snarl up the threads if I don't do that.

What fabric are you trying to sew? Do you have the right needle for the job? If you're trying to sew stretchy fabric, you need a special stretch needle for that. Is the needle pushed all the way into the holder? Have you threaded the top thread correctly?

It's so frustrating when this happens, I hope some of the above might give you a clue what's wrong.

Yay Justamum that's great! I think bags are a great choice for new sew-ers since they are so fashionable at the moment.

Mrs F who is trying to summon up the enthusiasm to finish off a new winter jacket and who keeps being distracted by the computer...... x

hello,

I'm so sorry I didnt reply earlier ... its been on my To do list for so long I forgot what MSE msg I was referring too... I did all you suggested and it runs better for it I think ... :beer: but the main problem was still there. I got it sorted in the end at my sewing class, it turned out to be that I hadnt threaded the tension properly as its such a old machine that you have to put the thread through the hole and go down, back up and back down again totally unlike the one I use at class.... Its a crown point if anyone has ever had one.

Jen

Mrs_Flittersnoop

I'm so glad you got it sorted out! It's very often the top tension that's at fault, and those older machines have lots of teeny hooks and holes that it's easy to miss when threading up.

Hope you enjoy your sewing now that you have that problem solved.

Mrs F xx

BrandNewDay

OK! I'm about to get serious about attempting to sew. Maternity clothes are just too expensive (and the selection is too poor) so I'm going to be making and modifying some things.

I am a rank beginner...

Does anybody know of any good web sites, resources, MSE threads they could link me to?

THANKS IN ADVANCE!

:j

purpleivy

http://www.thesewingforum.co.uk/index.php is an excellent resource. There is a section where you can find out what clubs are on in your area. I have joined one of these. We help each other...and drink a lot of tea. Beginners thru to expert as well.

Fourcandles_3

https://www.thesewingforum.co.uk is very good for advice and chat.

The only thing I would say is beaware that with the cost of fabric making your own clothes is rarely cheaper than what you can buy in Asda and even shops like Dorothy Perkins are often cheaper.

For comfort you might want to consider fabrics with stretch, but these are the more difficult to sew so do practice on offcuts first.

If you have a sewing shop near you they may run classes, or perhaps a local college?

Good luck.