MachMade

I have been busy. So busy. Work work work. Family. Work work work. Sleep. I haven't made anything for over a week, so when I had a free afternoon today (putting off the marking...) I knew I needed to scratch that itch! I started off small. I needed an achievement, so I made this: I made the spotty one (in case it isn't obvious!).   I am looking forward to wearing it in my hair next week at school. It is from one of the cute cards from Mollie Makes (I think I get them because I'm a subscriber - totally worth it!). Tempted to make them in every colour. I reckon I can carry off bows. Once I'd made that, and felt I was back in the swing of making stuff, I wanted to make something I've been planning for ages. I have this awesome shiny steel grey skirt fabric that (surprise, surprise) I got from the bargain bin at the local Haberdashery. I wanted a pencil skirt, and I wanted to use one of my stash of zips. I didn't have a pattern though. The long term plan is...

I am not good at fitting. YET. I am working on it. This is a stage in that journey. This is the second SewOverIt top I've made. My first one was made out of a floaty fabric that made me look like it was subtly hiding a killer bod. I really love it, despite the fact that the shoulders keep slipping down my arms. This time, I wanted to use some amazing stashed fabric with bones on it! It is much more solid than the first fabric, and I decided to make it in the smaller size to reduce the shoulder issue. BIG mistake. This is how I looked when finished: Please excuse the TERRIBLE photo. Mr M was busy and this is the biggest mirror we have!  I think you'll agree that this is not the most flattering of tops. Nor trousers, but that isn't the point. I couldn't wear this out, but I LOVED the fabric. So it needed to be fixed When I grabbed the back at my waist, it looked like this: Probably the best I'll be able to get... So I got busy. I found a length of blac...

Yesterday Mum and I spent the day at the Handmade Fair, at Hampton Court Palace. My view on arrival... it was a loooong walk round to the back to get to the fair! It was such a brilliantly put together event, there was nothing I didn't enjoy! I was smiling all day, and by the looks of it so was everyone else. We had booked ourselves into some workshops already, so we made sure to arrive in time for our 10am Edwina Ehrman (in conversation with Kirstie Allsopp) talk. Kirstie and Edwina on stage, discussing wedding dresses. Edwina is the curator of the current wedding dress exhibition at the Victoria and Albert museum. Her knowledge of wedding dresses and textiles was amazing, and I particularly loved that she gave the stories behind the dresses. At the end of the talk, she gave way some books to the ladies in the audience who had been married for the longest - 50 years! After that, Mum and I had some time to explore before our 2pm calligraphy workshop. We wandered aroun...

Yes, I said I'd review OWOP on Sunday... but I got home from the school trip and went to bed. I'm still exhausted now, so forgive me if this is total garbage. OWOP was really fun. I've never done anything like that before. Here is a summary of my outfits: Lesson 1: a variety of left arm positions makes photo collages more interesting. I'll try to remember for next time! Lesson 2: The more I sew a pattern, the more confident I feel. I think that rather than aiming to sew lots of different things, I'll focus on sewing items a couple of times to see clearly how much better I get! Lesson 3: I cannot fit in much sewing during the week. One of my aims of this blog is to share how I squeeze sewing into my life, but be assured that a normal week does not allow this much making. I am now significantly under pressure to catch up on work. Lesson 4: Knee length is the best skirt length for my parsnips legs. Lesson 5: Darts are more important than I thought. Taking...

Ending on a high... This is my favourite outfit of the week. Possibly my favourite item I've ever made! It's the top - I didn't make the trousers! You'll know when you see trousers that I've made as I'll be shouting about it. Trousers are HARD. Waaaay back in the late 90's/early 00's, I had a weird skirt/trouser mix thing. It was a pair of black stretchy trousers, with a skirt attached. I wore it rather a lot before it became deeply unfashionable (and I grew out of wearing stretchy trousers!), but that experience put me off ever wearing a peplum. Until now! After making the skirt on day 2, I wanted to have a go at making a top. But the bodice sits just on my waist, so the only way to use the same pattern to make a top was to have another little 'skirt' from the waist. Urgh. I decided I'd give it a go, but didn't have much hope. Despite my negative attitude entering this project, I love this top soo much. It was easy to ma...

This dress has a story... Check out our beautiful wedding gifts - rose plant, sundial and potted trees (in the background!) I've been wanting to wear more orange for a while now. I even had a bizarre urge just days before our wedding to completely redo all the flowers and decorations to get more orange in there... glad I didn't! I'm pretty sure Mum would have cleverly talked me out of it, while making me believed that I'd just changed my mind. So, anyway, when this challenge came up, I knew I needed to use some orange! I had just enough of the orange flowery fabric for the bodice, and just enough of the creamy stuff for the skirt. Bingo! I got cutting. The skirt fabric was a dream. It practically velcroed where I wanted it, so I cheated and didn't use any pins at all (saved me minutes - worth it!). The orange is just a reasonably solid cotton/polyester, so I left it unlined. First layer made, I started to hold it up to myself and noticed that a)the top f...

Hi from day 3! I made this from a budget bedsheet from Dunelm! I wore it for the first time for our engagement shoot in June, then for our pre-wedding BBQ at Ma 'n' Pa's house, then today! I really love the pretty flowers on it. I adapted this a little bit - it has a bodice a size smaller than the dress. I have a really tricky body - narrow shoulders and waist, with big hips and bust. That means that fitting is a big pain! I took the back seam in a bit, which made it narrower at the shoulders without losing anything from the bust. I'm not sure if that's the right way to fix it, but it appears to have worked! It gave me an opportunity to wear these incredible shoes that I had to fight for in the shop. Unfortunately they're so high and painful that I only made it to break time before switching to flats.  Awkward car park picture Our engagement shoot was on a pick-your-own farm! Tomorrow's outfit is made from the exact same pattern (duh - it...

Today was a simple make - I just used the skirt section of the Butterick dress pattern (B5748 if you're interested?). So  basic circle skirt. I shortened it a bit and made a waistband. The fabric is a pretty cool swan print that a super awesome colleague donated to the cause (thanks Debs!) and I was really stuck with what to do with it for a while. I think I made the right decision in making a skirt. There is enough fabric to make another one, so keep your eyes peeled for when I decide what to do with that! You can't see the print too well, but each of the round blobs is a pair of swan heads. Here: OWOP going well so far!  Also, massive thanks to everyone at work making the effort to check out my blog even though you see/hear about everything all day anyway! You're brilliant. :) Emily

Okay, I'm cheating a bit. OWOP (One Week, One Pattern) is supposed to be Saturday 6th to Friday 12th. But I don't have time to think at the moment, let alone sew, so it has dropped down the priority list a bit. So I'm doing Monday to Friday, One Pattern (MtFOP??). Here is day one: It is a Butterick dress that I LOVE! I made it over a year ago while still learning to sew and I still wear it to work regularly. It's made of a green fabric with teeny tiny little pink, yellow and white flowers. I put a yellow zip in too, just to make it fun. Worn with my big white heels and jacket, I think it's suitably smart to impress the kids at work. I'm excited about this week - I'm wearing a mixture of old favourites and new makes. Fun, fun, fun! Emily.

Back to school! I started back at school on Monday and had a brutal re-introduction to real life. During the Summer holidays, it's easy to forget what my term-time life is like (hence managing to start a sewing blog). But now the harsh truth is very much a daily reality. I wake up and go to work, then I come home for about 6, eat dinner, and continue working until 10pm. Then I get up and do it all again. Not a whole heap of sewing time scheduled in there... This evening I have about 15 minutes before I really need to get back to work, so I could either finish a sewing project or write a quick blog post. Clearly I've opted for the blog post!! So here is my 'in progress' trousers. They are my first ever trousers from scratch and I'm pleased with some of them. Unfortunately, being cursed with disproportionately huge thighs makes trousers really tricky both to buy and to make. I had to make these in a size 20 (I'm normally a 14!). Initially I thought that I...

When I first started going to sewing classes almost 2 years ago, one of my fellow beginners attended purely to learn how to hem trousers. If only someone had shown her how easy it could be with this method! So Mr M bought these trousers a while back... They're a touch too long! They're great trousers - lightweight, lots of pockets... but they are definitely a bit long, which isn't ideal for outdoor activity trousers! So we decided to have a go at taking them up - the quick and easy way ! First we pinned them - making sure to leave a little bit extra for the hem to fold back down (yep, that's right - no hemming in this speedy project!). Then we sewed around the trouser leg, just at the edge of the hem. We aimed to line up the seams so that it looked nice and tidy at the end. We trimmed off the excess fabric at the bottom using pinking shears to reduce fraying. Gave it a good press to make the hem stay pointing downwards... Ta dah! S...

This was a fun challenge! I've had this fabric for quite a while but had no idea what to do with it, so when I found this pattern (although I don't remember where it came from...) I knew it was my chance! I found it quite fiddly. The fabric slid all over the place, so I had to pin it like crazy! It has ended up quite messy, but I still think it's really fun. The hem isn't a perfect curve, but it looks okay. The facing keeps trying to flip out, but it's okay. Luckily I LOVE the print, which makes up for all the okay-ness! I wore it for a jolly outing to Stonehenge! Looking a bit weather beaten! It was pretty windy, so it doesn't really show the top off to it's best! It is sliding off my shoulder, but that's the cardigan pulling it off - I promise it does fit! Really love this one! I think it's a strong contender for my OWOP pattern! Covering up my derriere. Modelling in the sun (not The Sun) Emily

As a teacher, I'm constantly on the hunt for things that are useful but also fun, cheap, exciting, new... - stationery fills that role very successfully. I've recently bought some super cheap biros for the naughty little tinkers who turn up to lessons with no pen lesson after lesson (yes, this is very frustrating - I could complain for many, many blog posts, but I won't). I needed somewhere for my 'naughty student' pens to go! I found the shape and a basic tutorial on Pinterest (I love Pinterest so much!). I like it because it looked like it opened really wide, so I wouldn't be rummaging around too much. The fabric was part of a cheap fat quarter pack I picked up from Hobbycraft in a sale ages ago. I completely love the colours - I don't have many green things as blue is usually a safer colour for me.  Oh, and this was (mostly) another hand sewing project for me - Mr M and I have been rewatching the Star Wars films, so it was nice to sit with him w...

Beautifully modelled by Dolly, this is my first attempt at the  Sorbetto Tank Top   from  Colette Patterns .  I decided to keep it simple first time round - this is just some lovely fabric that I had saved for a rainy day (and it certainly has been rainy here in Warwickshire today!).  This is the first time I've used bias binding - I think I did a pretty good job! I chose to hand stitch the inside, which was time consuming, but rather satisfying. I also thought that my front pleat was a little bit wonky, but I think I was being over critical - on Dolly, it looks fine. I was pretty much exactly into the size 12 measurements, so I was very chuffed with the fit. Usually my handmade clothes divide into 2 camps - too tight to get on, or too baggy to stay on! I will be wearing this for an outing very soon - watch here for pics! My next project is a pair of trousers, which I'm currently half way through. I think I may have already gone very wrong. More...