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Showing posts from November, 2014

November Garment of the Month: November Nights

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Pattern Review: McCalls 6489 and #MMMPR! It looks as though I am catching onto sewing my monthly garments along with the themes. For this month I picked out this very Autumnal/Winter fabric from my stash and paired it with McCalls 6489  (now OOP). It was also my first garment worn for Me Made Mondays for the rest of 2014. Let's start with the fabric. I purchased this jersey in the Summer from A1 Fabrics on Goldhawk Road priced at £4.50 per metre. The thing I liked most at the time is how textured it is. The black bits are almost velvet-like in feel and the fabric is dotted with sparkles. The different textures did confuse my sewing machine a tad when it came to tension, but hey, it was worth it.  I have had McCalls 6489 in my stash for a while, but finally got around to using it. It is not a hard pattern, although for some reason cowls always stump me. I am sure that this is nothing to do with the pattern, but just how my brain is tested when seeing 2D instructio

Mock Wrap Skirt

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Pattern Review: Simplicity 1322 The past month has been busy at work and with a bit of travel. However I am pleased to say that I have been squeezing in a bit of sewing here and there. Some of which has been  Simplicity 1322.   I purchased this pattern during a recent Simplicity sale and decided to make a wearable muslin from some fabric in my stash. Some faithful blog followers may recognise this cotton from my  first ever blog post!   This skirt is a perfect little stash buster as it only uses 80cm of fabric. This cotton print was originally purchased form Fabricland for around £4 per metre and I underlined it with a blue polycotton from my stash, picked up for £1 per metre from good old Brixton Market. Other than the underlining, I didn't really make any changes. I changed the construction order as per the pattern instructions as I used an invisible zipper in the back rather than a lapped zipper. Therefore I sewed the front to the back pieces and then inserted the

Fabric Porn Boston Style

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I was recently in Boston for a work trip. This is the second time that I have visited Boston this year and I did some fabric shopping research beforehand. To be honest I hadn't really heard that much about Boston. I knew that there was a Joann's, but this was quite a way out of the city. In total I visited 4 shops.  The first and my favourite was Winmil Fabrics located downtown. I particularly loved their ITY knit selection, especially as these are harder to come across in the UK. And at $4.98 per yard they were a huge bargain.   I also picked up this pre-underlined lace for $6.98 per yard   And this cotton print for $3.98 per yard. Next, I popped into Van's Fabrics, round the corner from Winmil in Chinatown. This shop specialises in Asian style fabrics. They have lovely silks and brocades. I only purchased one item which is some kind of viscose/rayon fabric for $5 per yard.  There are two fabrics located in the Cambridge ar