Simple sewing: When you’re not really feeling it.

At the beginning of the year, I said I was going to slow down my makes so that I could concentrate on drafting and fitting. Well, my creative impulses kind of ground to a halt. Not only has my sewing dried up to a dribble, but I did not really achieve any of the planning […]

Designin’ December vs. Little Red Dress Project – Xmas 2022

It’s time for my favourite end-of-year challenge. Linda Maki’s Designin’ December is a sewing challenge to recreate or take inspiration from a designer item that you love. I spent a few years on the sidelines before jumping into this challenge and now this is my third entry. This year I might be able to kill […]

Sleeping Bag Puffa Jacket – I try Upcycling

Often on my semi-regular walks on the Downs, I have admired my friend’s lightweight down jacket that she wears when the weather has just a little nip in the air but it’s not cold enough for a big jacket. I continued to covet my friend’s jacket and also considered the ££££ demanded by outdoor apparel […]

Black Skinny Jeans from PatternLab Block

My latest jeans project uses the Pattern Lab system to hopefully get a good fit on these trousers. I’m using PatternLab.Ldn skinny jeans block with some black stretch denim from the stash. Here’s my Affinity Designer sketch for these classic-looking jeans. The denim is a lovely deep inky black and I decided to use white […]

My FrankenStyle triptych and how I can’t dress down

Oh dear, some scheduling shenanigans happened this is the proper version, sorry if you received this too many times. Autumn seemed to arrive abruptly after the glorious summer of heatwaves that we have had this year in the UK. I find that although where we live, the weather is quite mild, it always seems to […]

Waffle Patterns Kaede Utility Apron

Out of the blue just before my Italian holiday, I was contacted by Yuki of Waffle Patterns. She was testing a new pattern. She must have read my mind because the latest pattern was a utility apron/belt. That’s a bit out of the ordinary, you may think but, for the longest time, I had been […]

Soft Suit Combo – the Trousers

For the last few years, I’ve been focused on perfecting the fit of my trousers and last summer I made the first of what is now a few pairs of linen trousers. I’ve had linen trousers in various colours over the years and they all were worn until they fell to bits. I’ve been meaning […]

Soft Suit Combo – the Preparation

Welcome to part two of the Soft Suit Combo. When I started this project, I knew it would have to be more than one blog. After all, there are three garments here, it would be an extremely long read to put them all in a single instalment. So, one blog for each item? That seemed […]

Sorbet season is here – self-drafted trousers in red shot linen

I’ve always loved linen trousers, especially on the hot days of summer. I’ve had several RTW pairs over the years and I always wore them to destruction. I’ve been meaning to make a pair for ages, but because I wanted to draft my own, it’s taken a while. I’ve also had a piece of beautiful […]

Sorbet season, take two – McCalls 8090

Once again I was hovering on the edge of a trend, the Tiered Dress trend to be specific. It takes a while for me to get my head around whether I like a trend enough to get on the bandwagon. I dabbled a bit last year with my Blouse to dress hack to see if […]

Desiginin’ December 2021: Contender Number 2

This second project for Linda’s @nicedressthanksimadeit challenge is based on an image that has travelled from the internet via various phones to Pinterest over the course of nearly a decade. I saw this catwalk look somewhere and it just stuck in my head. The image was old when I first saw it and for a […]