All posts filed under: Pattern Hacks

A Sewing Room Miracle

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Some things just never go to plan. When they don’t go to plan in the sewing room, but the creative juices are flowing, a sewing room miracle can happen. I printed off the pattern for the Pona jacket not knowing which fabric I’d choose to make it up in. I initially thought dark blue denim. I love denim and it goes with anything and everything in my wardrobe. So when my pattern was taped together I went to have a rummage in my stash. I say rummage because I had a huge pile of fabric on my table as I was up to my ears in organising my stash. You can’t see it but under there somewhere was a piece of curtaining fabric that I acquired from one of my ‘real life’ sewing buddies. She inherited a close family friends stash who had sadly passed away. The curtaining fabric was from the 80’s and looked big enough for the jacket. It turned out it wasn’t, but before I realised this I’d already cut out all …

McCalls 6612 – A Nearmiss

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Last Monday I woke up wanting to sew. It’s a long time since I woke up with ‘the urge’! I was meeting my crafty friends for lunch and ‘needed’ something new to wear. So after a rummage through my used patterns I decided upon McCalls 6612. A dead easy pattern which I can throw together in an hour or so. It’s actually the first pattern I used when I got back into sewing in 2013, though it took me all day to sew up the first time as I was a bit rusty. I wasn’t 100% happy with it, and it didn’t feel quite right, but I wore it. When I got home after the lunch I had a rethink and decided to finish the sleeves with a band of opposite fabric. I’m a great believer of everything happening for a reason, and here’s proof of that. So thankyou Sewing Gods for my nearmiss and helping me creative something a little bit different which I love. Happy Sewing & Cheerio for now, Thimbers x

Fankenpattern to the Races – Newlook 6648 and 6730

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For the last few years we’ve been invited to Ripon races and I’ve always made a new dress for the occasion. This year I almost deviated from wearing handmade as I finally was able to fit into a favourite RTW dress that has been too small for ages…..or I’ve been too big! Unfortunately I gained about 4 pounds after this picture was taken and it wasn’t as comfortable so I had to have a plan b. I still had some of the blue ITY fabric (from this years SewUpNorth) left after making Simpicity 1613  So then I had a crazy idea to make some pull on wide legged pants (Newlook 6730) and create a jumpsuit if I shortened the dress and stitched them together. I cut out the pants in a small which is a 25 1/2 – 26 1/2 inch waist and a 34 1/2 – 36 1/2 inch hip. I’ve not been that small since I started school but due to the stretchiness of the ITY knit and the close fit I was wanting …

The Cold Shoulder – Lekala 5669

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I was browsing through the Lekala website a couple of weeks ago and stumbled across this little on-trend beauty!  Lekala 5669….. I just fell for it straight away – the cold shoulder detail was bang on trend but subtle enough for a someone approaching middle age to wear – not that I feel it. So it was downloaded and stuck it together before you could say boo to a goose.  Then came the hard bit. I have quite a few jersey’s in my stash.  32 to be exact if I check my Cora App!!!  And true to form I fancied making a muslin of this pattern.  Mainly because it looks a bit confusing how it’s put together, not because of the fit – when I’m sewing with jersey and using Lekala I generally find the fit to be spot on. So I had a rummage through the app on my phone and decided upon this very stretchy see through mesh fabric. I had bought 5 panels, each being 1.2m, for less than £6 inc P&P …

The BIG Vintage Sewalong – Vogue 9082 & Sonja Dress Hack

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What do you do when you’re too excited to sit still and watch TV, not that I’m good at sitting still anyway?!  Well, for me I’m going to drink Rose wine and tell you about a frock I finished a couple or 3 weeks ago. Why am I excited?!  It’s Sewbrum tomorrow! EEEK!!  I’ve wanted to go to Sewbrum for the last 2 years but the dates just didn’t agree with me.  But this year it’s fallen on my weekend off so I’ve bought my train ticket, and I’m good to go! My first Vogue 9082 which I’ve worn 3 times already and had loads of compliments when wearing was only supposed to be a practice for my niece’s wedding.  It was no way a muslin,  I’d already made 3 of them so I knew it was going to fit when I finally cut into the stunning chosen fabric. It was to wear to Ripon races back in June. So the plan was to make another in different fabric. I bought this stretch cotton sateen when I …

Belize Skort Hack

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I’ve had loads of compliments this week wearing my different variations of Itch-To-Stitches Belize Shorts and Skorts – both on and off the golf course.  My favourite feature of all the 5 variations is the curved back skirt on the skort version. I thought I’d have a go at making a version with a curved hem at the front as well as the back.  It was really successful so I thought I’d share it with you. First of all I measured the width of the back curved skirt and compared it to the front short pieces – the ones without the pleats.  I couldn’t use the pointy skort pieces as these overlap so I would have be hard to work out the width. Taking the seam allowances into consideration the skort back piece was near enough the same width as the shorts front so I felt able to just use the back piece for the skort front. I compared the shape of waist/hip curve of short piece to my new skort front (i.e. the skort back!). I’ve drawn an …