Some holiday charity shop finds

I love searching charity shops for any sewing relating finds, but I have come back empty handed from my recent trips to local charity shops. However, my luck changed when I ventured further afield whilst on holiday.

My first finds were a vintage pattern for £1, nearly 5m of black out lining for £5.50 and a scarf for £1.50 which I found whilst spending a few days in the Lake District. I’m not sure of the age of the pattern, but it is certainly pre-1971 as it is priced at 4/-. Although I don’t know if I will make the dress for myself, I love looking at the old instructions and seeing how things have changed.

The scarf design looked familiar (given my slight obsession with Liberty prints) and sure enough, there was a Liberty label on it. Unfortunately the previous owner of the scarf was obviously a smoker and there were no washing instructions on the label. I decided to risk a gentle handwash in cool water with a delicates detergent and looking at the water afterwards, I’m glad I did! I removed most of the water by rolling the scarf in a towel and then line dried it which got rid of the last of any smoky smell.
 

My second find was one that I thought I had missed. I first spotted this quilt block encyclopaedia for £4.99 in a shop at the end of August. At the time I decided not to get it, but then spent the next few weeks regretting the decision.  Knowing that we would be visiting again in September, I decided to leave it to fate and was delighted to find the book still in the shop on my second visit. I follow various blogs by Barbara Brackman and know that this book is now out of print and not easily available from UK-based sources. The illustrations are hand drawn and it is very much a reference book rather than one with complete quilt patterns, but with some modern technology (such as Touchdraw or Quiltography for the iPad) I’ll be able to try some virtual quilt designs using the blocks.

As I said at the start of this post, I struck lucky with these finds. You definitely need perseverance when hunting for sewing items (or any specific items) in charity shops. When visiting a town, I can easily check out half a dozen charity shops (or more) and come away empty handed, but occasionally I end up being in the right place at the right time.

Review - Seams So Easy Madam Butterfly Wristlet

A few months ago, The Sewing Directory had a competition to win kits from Seams So Easy. I wasn’t a winner, but Seams So Easy were looking for bloggers to review their kits and I was sent the Madam Butterfly Wristlet kit. 

The kit contains everything you need to make the project (with the exception of thread for machine stitching) and the idea is that you customise the item with your own interpretation of their embellishment suggestions.

The supplies in the kit are generous – after covering the butterfly wings with sequins, there were still a few remaining. For the hand stitching on the back panel, I used an irregular running stitch with three strands of embroidery floss rather than the recommended two strands. There are yellow running stitches between the rows of pink and blue, but they are not showing on the photos. I did find it necessary to mark guide lines to keep my stitching straight, though this was not suggested in the instructions. I decided I would prefer a narrower strap so I folded the tape in half and secured with coloured stitching to match the back panel.

Floss supplies, like the sequins, were generous - there was still plenty of floss left over despite my extra stitching on the strap and using three strands not two (there is less yellow floss left as it was also used to sew on the sequins).  I did find that the needles supplied with the kit were not ideal for the embellishments – it would have been easier to thread the floss through the long eye of a crewel needle rather than the round eye of the sharp needle supplied (though a needle threader was also provided) and the needle was too large for many of the beads. 

The embellishing was the main part of this project and I did it over several evenings, but the assembly of the wristlet went together quite quickly and was completed in just one evening. The instructions tell you to embellish the front panel and attach it to the zip and then to embellish the back panel and attach it to the zip. I chose to complete all the hand stitching before starting the machine stitching. For the zip, I added an extra line of top stitching to secure the lining to the zip tape and to stop it getting caught in the teeth. The instructions make no mention of seam allowances and my printed version had no mention of the strap, so a bit of unpicking was required when it came to sewing the bag together, however, details of where to attach the strap are in the online instructions. I added a further customisation by boxing the corners of my pouch (if you wish to do the same, this should be done to the main fabric and lining before turning the bag right sides out).

 

I enjoyed making this wristlet – I like hand sewing and chose to add lots of embellishments, but the beauty of a kit like this is that you can do as much or as little as you like. As everything needed is in the kit and no other supplies are needed, it would make an ideal present for anyone who has access to a sewing machine.

Disclaimer: I was sent a Madam Butterfly Wristlet kit by Seams So Easy for the purpose of this review. All words and opinions are my own.

Step back in time to the 1960s

One of my favourite shopping expeditions is to hit the charity shops in a town to see what treasures are waiting. My latest find was a Woman’s Realm sewing and knitting supplement from 1967 for the bargain price of 49p!
  

So what has this mainly monochrome magazine got to offer? My favourite project has to be this “upcycling” feature on how to give two hats a brand new look by cutting holes in one and sewing the patches onto another!
  

 

Festival of Quilts 2013 - trying to fit a quart into a pint pot

(... or rather trying to fit seeing everything at Festival of Quilts into four hours)

If you had asked me a few days before Festival of Quilts if I were planning on visiting the show my answer would have been no. Then along came a ticket giveaway from The Crafty Quilter and my plans changed. Fortunately I was able to book annual leave at short notice and last minute train fares were not prohibitively expensive, so on Friday I found myself heading down to Birmingham.  The times of the cheap trains meant that I only had about four hours to spend there, but I was determined to fit in as much as possible.

I had been lucky and won a pair of tickets, but could only use one so the first thing I did was find a random person in the ticket queue and share my good luck with them. Next was to try to work out the stand number system and find the Sizzix stand in the hope of getting a space on one of their workshops.  I was successful on all counts and had great fun trying out the Big Shot machine and making a block using the square, rectangle and half square triangle dies.

I then had 45 minutes free as I had arranged to meet Helen from the undomesticatedscientist blog for lunch and to hand over some spare dinosaur fabric scraps for her dino-loving daughter.  I used the time for a whistle stop viewing of the quilts, taking photos of any that caught my eye.  There were a lot of quilts that were just not my “thing” (such as pictorial and pixelated quilts) and a couple that I felt stretched my definition of a quilt. I'm pleased to say that the only patchwork clothing I spotted were these shirts in the children's display area.

The quilt that I found most relevant and inspiring on a personal level was one of Cathedral Windows in which different coloured "frames" had been used and not every “window” had been filled.  After learning this technique at Fat Quarterly Retreat, I was intrigued to see this interpretation of the pattern and it is something I will consider when I try making my own Cathedral Windows quilt.

After lunch, it was time for a wander around the stalls. There was nothing I desperately needed, but I had managed to come up with what looked suspiciously like a shopping list whilst on the train. I didn’t deviate too much from the list, though I changed my mind about the weight of Aurifil thread and couldn’t resist some FQs when only £1 or £1.50 each (from Doughty’s and Fabrics Galore, respectively), nor some scrap bags from the Project Linus stand. Then, before I knew it, it was time to head back to the station and to get the train home.  

Four hours is not really enough time for the show – looking at other blog posts there seem to be so many quilts that I missed seeing.  With a last minute trip like this, many of the official workshops were fully booked and so perhaps next year I would like to go for a couple of days and book some of the workshops in advance.  I’ll end this post with photos of the quilts that caught my eye for various reason, and I apologise for fuzzy photos and not getting any of the quilt makers’ details.

Review - Sewing World Magazine

Sewing World has recently been revamped and I was sent a copy of July's issue to review. I used to subscribe to the magazine, but my subscription lapsed over a year ago and so this was the first time I had seen one of the new look issues. My first impression from the cover was of a much brighter and more modern magazine.

I received the printed version of the magazine for this review, but the magazine also thinks of those who prefer digital issues and the pattern sheet is available to download from the magazine website. Each side of the pattern sheet is available as a separate file, with each file having about 10 pages to print and stick together. However, I couldn't spot a size reference square in the PDF, making it difficult to check if your pages have printed at the correct scale. A single digital issue is approximately £1 cheaper than a single printed issue.

Looking at the contents page, I was pleased to see articles relating to dressmaking still featured strongly in both the technique and projects sections as other magazines have dropped these in favour of "home" projects. This issue had 10 projects to make - two items of clothing (plus one from the techniques section), a doll, a bag, a sunglasses case, a machine cover, a quilt, cushions, coasters and a machine embroidery project.

The project instructions are presented in a variety of styles with some authors using photos to illustrate their instructions and others using line drawings. Some of the projects assume prior knowledge, for example, the quilt project just said "baste and quilt" and "bind as desired", but with information being readily available on the internet, this shouldn't be too much of a problem. I liked the mix of projects - some were quick and easy projects that could be made from your stash and others would take a little more time and planning.

The magazine also features many giveaways each month - in this issue there were nearly 40 prizes to be won, as well as a subscriber only competition. Again, the magazine has thought of its digital readers and the competitions can be entered via email. Unlike some women's glossy magazines, the number of advertisements are not over whelming and you don't end up flicking thorough pages and pages of adverts looking for something to read.

In conclusion, I was impressed by the mix of projects and articles which seemed to cater for various abilities and interests. I do hope that the magazine will continue to feature dress making as I think the UK magazine market is lacking in this area. After seeing the new look magazine, I would certainly consider buying future issues, though probably as the digital not the printed version.

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of July's Sewing World for the purpose of this review. All words and opinions are my own.

Fat Quarterly Retreat - giveaway winner

Thank you for all your comments on the giveaway post. I hope that those of you who have not been to FQR yet will be able to go in the next few years.

In order to make sure that everyone got their full entitlement of entries, I numbered all the comments and let random.org do its work and the winner is ...

Kiwijo!

 
Congratulations to Jo and I hope you enjoy the little bag of goodies.

Fat Quarterly Retreat – sewing, shopping and swapping

I’m back from three days away in London at Fat Quarterly Retreat and I could do with a day off to recover but I’ve learnt lots such as:

• The weather forecast was right for once and there was no need to pack a raincoat.
• I’m rubbish at remembering names and faces.
• Unpicking is not fun when you used a stitch length of 1.3.
• You have no hope of winning the pub quiz when you have more team members than points.
• Cathedral Windows can become draughty windows if your points are a bit iffy.

I didn’t take many photos during FQR as I seemed to be too busy sewing or talking, but here’s a quick rundown of the weekend.