My Sewing Studio: A Tour

I've been wanting to do a post for a while an indeterminate number of years about my sewing space, but have always been put off by how cluttered, messy and generally untidy it looks. When is a good time to do this post? Truthfully? If I want it to look tidy, probably never.

I have a tendency to jump right into the next project as soon as I have finished something, and not pack away patterns, scissors, pins, scraps etc. I am also prone to rummaging through my stash and putting aside fabric that I want to make up next, and leave it on the edge of my cutting table. Indefinitely.

When I have a large scale projecct like curtains to do, I am forced to do a bit of a clean up, as I need all the space I could get to manoeuvre multiple metres of fabric around without knocking everything off every available surface. Organising my studio was also helped enormously by putting in my pigeon holes and store room fabric storage.

Here's a panoramic shot of my studio that I took a few years ago - MESSY!

I decided to do a whirlwind cleanup and take photos as part of my January hosting of the Stashbusting Sewalong. What better way to get organised than to clean up your sewing space. When I walk into my studio now I feel inspired to use up all that space and SEW SOMETHING!

Seasonal Sew Wardrobe: Destination

The Sew Alongs and Sewing Contests Facebook group hosts regular Seasonal Sew Wardrobe challenges, and a new challenge started mid August, on the theme of  "Destinations."

I have been looking ahead recently, and realised that there is a gap in my wardrobe for dressy sort of clothes that could also be worn in an office environment.

Lingerie: A cloned bra for my mother

I have been wanting to make a custom fit bra for my mother for ages. I don't get to see her that often though, and when either she is visiting me, or I'm visiting her, by the time I think of it, there isn't enough time left to get it done.

Mother Daughter tops

When my daughter found out that I was making matching mother and son shirts, her first question was, where was hers? I could have predicted this response, and thankfully, I had an answer to her question.

A Purple Dress: Stashbusting Sewalong July 2016

I promise that I finished making this dress in July, as part of the Stashbusting Sewalong July theme of, you guessed it - Dresses! Although I scraped in finishing this dress on the last day of July, it took me a while to get some photos that didn't look washed out, and even longer to write this post.

Mother Son T-Shirt Refashions

I've had a couple of souvenir T-Shirts from my honeymoon sitting in the refashion pile for quite some time. Although they're 12 years old, they haven't been used, so they were still in great condition.

My son has been asking for a new sleeveless sports top for a while, and when I came across these again, I thought it was a perfect match. I took an existing top of his, and traced it out to make the pattern. Before cutting it out, I graded the pattern up a few sizes for him, hoping that it will last for a while.

Swimming Bags: Stashbusting Sewalong June 2016

Every week when I walk my daughter to her swimming lessons, I vow to make new swimming bags for both my kids. They have been using the same bags for about 3 years, and they are quite literally falling apart. I finally drew up a design late last year, and in the previous school holidays in April I finally made the pattern for new bags, cut the first one out, and didn't get any further.

Leather Moto Jacket

The Stahsbusting Theme for this month is actually Unselfish Sewing, but for some reason I thought the start of winter was the perfect time to start the least unSELFISH sewing that I could think of. Last August when I was cleaning up my store room, I rediscovered my stash of leather offcuts, and mentally allocated it to make another moto jacket. After making lingerie for all of May, when the cold weather hit, it was time to start this jacket.

Lingerie: Sky blue and white lace bra and undies

In closing this year's Stashbusting Sewalong lingerie month, here is my last lingerie make of the month, a new bra and undies set. After finishing my last lot of underwear, I was really keen to have a matching bra out of the same fabric, and starting plotting straight away how I would achieve that.

Lingerie: white silk half slips and lace top

One of the things on my to-sew list, is a wrap drape top that I'm planning on making in a semi-sheer fabric that my husband bought in Vietnam a few years ago. I haven't used much of the fabric that he bought for me, it feels too special to use for just anything. Another issue, is the see through factor. It's not the sort of thing that I really want to line. That would make it bulkier, and hotter to wear in summer, which would probably mean that anything I made from these wouldn't get much wear.

Lingerie: Review of free patterns and self drafted underwear

Since I'm hosting lingerie for the Stashbusting Sewalong this month, I've been on a mission to try out some free patterns to share with my fellow stashbusters. I made a decision last year that I would not buy any more underwear, so I'm in need of some more me-made undies. I have a self-drafted pattern that I based on my RTW undies, but have been looking to improve on it. I mentioned at the start of May that I had found a tutorial for drafting your own underwear pattern in a Facebook group, so took this as an opportunity to start from scratch.

Lingerie: The Maya Bra

The second new bra that I'm showing you this month is the Maya bra by Ana Filimon.

This bra pattern literally stormed the internet last year (well, if you're part of any lingerie sewing groups on Facebook, or read lots of sewing blogs it certainly felt like it did!) I love the beautiful curved upper cup on the pattern, and thought it would be interesting to see how a pattern not drafted to my measurements would fit.

Cream and white Lace Bra, drafted from Foundations Revealed

I can't believe that it's been six months since I last made an underwired bra! Ever since I finished making my last wired bra I have been wanting to try out the pattern drafting instructions from Foundations Revealed. Their basic instructions for drafting a darted bra are free, spread over two articles. They have further tutorials for variations that you can make to this pattern and other styles, available if you sign up to their membership, which involves a monthly fee.

Me Made May 2016

So, I'm doing it again this year. What am I doing? Me Made May.

Little French Jacket (Two years in the making!)

Around two years ago, I got the idea to make a Little French Jacket. I had seen a lot of these gorgeous jackets across the blogosphere, and decided that I had to have one too! Although I made the pattern in May 2014, and had hoped to have it finished for Winter 2014, it didn't take that long until it went from a WIP, to a UFO. When that first winter came and went, I think I lost my sewjo on this one, and let it languish. To be honest, the main reason that I decided to get it done ready for this winter, was because I found some black leather in my store room that I'd forgotten about, and now I'm really keen to make a leather jacket. I'll use the pattern from this jacket as my starting point, but to do that, I really needed to have a finished jacket and be able to wear it for a while to assess what changes I need on to the fit before I even begin.

Embroidered Cotton Culottes

Inspiration for new projects comes from many places, and for me, that is often from other bloggers. I didn't know that I wanted to make myself culottes until I saw Sue's culottes that she made in January. Until I read about her culottes, I had not realised that a pattern for culottes was made from a skirt block. I dutifully researched in my patternmaking book, and started work on my own pattern shortly after. I even bought fabric specifically to make these culottes, and actually used it instead of stashing
it.

Sewing for men: underwear

What's more ridiculous? The fact that men's underwear costs $15 per pair, or spending an entire day working out the perfect pattern to make undies for your husband?

A few months ago I offered to make undies for my husband, and in return he would tolerate the fact that I was going to blog about them and show the whole world the undies that I was making for him (as long as he didn't have to model them). I briefly toyed with the idea of making my own pattern from his favourite undies, but then saw a special on the Thread Theory Comox trunks pattern, so decided to buy the pattern and go from there.

Knit tops: Stashbusting Sewalong March 2016

The March theme for the Stahsbusting Sewalong is sewing with knits. I've managed to get two knit tops made up this month, but ran out of time for blogging, so here's a quick write up on both of them together.

Scrapbusting in style: Stashbusting Sewalong February 2016

The theme for February at the Stashbusting Sewalong is sewing with scraps. I figured I should at least manage to sew something out of scraps this month. Along came this blog post from Sue. She made some gorgeous therapeutic neck pillows. The free pattern is available here. What a great way to use up scraps!

Stripe Knit Dress

Following on from how much I loved my first wrap top, half circle skirt knit dress aka Quik Knit Dress (maybe I should come up with a catchy name for my pattern?), I made another one, with a few much needed improvements. I was thinking of making the next one with a plain blue knit that's been in the stash for a few years, but The Husband thought it would look a bit boring all in one colour, so when I took the kids  to the recent sale at the Fabric Store (mentioned in this post), I came home with this striped knit.