seamwork – FehrTrade

20 March, 2024Gallery

Midnight blue Moji trousers

Sometimes my sewing starts with a fabric. Other times it starts with a specific pattern. But this time it started with a wardrobe need – after 6 months of Long Covid spent almost entirely in bed, I have very few trousers that still fit me and I desperately needed more.

Since the Seamwork Moji trousers I made back in 2020 are one of the few that do still fit, I pulled that out again to make another pair rather than have to print, adjust, and tweak a whole new size or pattern.

When I I originally made this pattern I made heavy modifications to this pattern, so definitely read that post if you like this style because there’s easier shortcuts available now!

The only thing I don’t like about the previous pair is that the CB rise is still far to low and they give me “plumber butt” that I’m constantly hoiking up. So before I cut these out I added 7cm to the CB to stop the “plumber butt”, and also added 3cm length to the hem.

11 July, 2022Gallery

A repurposed bamboo tank & rose shorts

For my birthday this year, I made myself a Named Rauha tee, but I mentioned in that post that I had also made the dress version, but found out the hard way that the style really doesn’t work in a flowing fabric. Okay, that’s being kind – it looked like an enormous muumuu on me, and there wasn’t much to be done besides throw it on the Hook of Shame and repurpose the fabric for something else.

4 June, 2021Gallery

A sunny bamboo top and matching headband

I don’t buy fabric very often, but I recently fell headfirst into a few sales of shops which stock one of my all-time favourite fabrics, bamboo jersey! So my stash has been replenished and you can expect to see quite a few bamboo jersey garments over the next few months. But first to hit my machine was some sunny yellow bamboo jersey from Lamazi Fabrics. The “mustard” colourway appears to be out of stock now but they have some other colours in the Allure bamboo jersey range.

I absolutely love wearing the bamboo teeshirts I’ve made over the years so I only bought 1m, thinking I’d probably just want to sew a standard teeshirt again. But I had been tempted by the unique, pleated sleeves on the Forget Me Not Patterns “Iris Tee” since it came out, and I thought it might be a nice way of adding a bit of flair to an average tee.

23 November, 2020Gallery

Perfect Pandemic trousers – for her!

After the success of James’s pandemic trousers (he’s barely taken them off since I gave them to him!), I decided that I needed some elastic-waisted joys of my own to wear while working from home (and relaxing from home, and eating from home, and socialising from home, and everything else from home!). And then I realised that I actually already had a casual woven trouser pattern (complete with separate drawstring waistband!) that I had printed onto A0 a few years back and never sewn – Seamwork Moji!

30 October, 2020Gallery

What to sew when you have no mojo

As I mentioned before, I lost my sewing mojo at the end of summer and start of fall. Usually around this time I’d be buzzing with ideas for new, colder weather sewing projects – coats! sweaters! warm running and cycling gear! party dresses! But with shielding continuing long throughout the winter, I literally have no need of any of those things, and my wardrobe is already bursting with clothes (I literally don’t need any more clothes).

6 July, 2020Gallery

Mustard wool pleated shorts

Now that I’m staying at home all the time (and will continue to do so until there’s a vaccine, to be honest) I’m finding a need for shorts in my wardrobe that didn’t really exist when I spent the majority of my week in a climate-controlled office. I absolutely l-o-v-e the denim Pietra shorts I made at the start of the summer but I thought I’d branch out and try a different pattern for some stretch wool suiting that I bought at the same time as the linen denim I used in the Pietras.

I bought this lightweight, mustard wool blend suiting from New Craft House (now long gone, as nearly all their fabrics are fashion industry deadstock) and it’s absolutely perfect for these shorts! Some people think wool is only for winter, but it’s a great year-round fabric if you get the weight right, and this isn’t itchy in the slightest, either. I overlocked all the edges of my pieces as soon as I cut them to prevent fraying, but I constructed this on the sewing machine.

27 January, 2020Gallery

A blue Tacara dress

I definitely have A Type when it comes to dresses. In general, I like them close-fitting, or at the very least with a pencil skirt. I mean, there are exceptions – some dresses with a very different shape that I end up loving, but in general I stick to what I know I love to wear. I guess this is my way of saying that when I branch out from my comfort zone, I’m never immediately convinced whether I like it or not – it takes some wearings and time to try and figure it out. And I’m still on the fence with this one.

I wasn’t convinced when Seamwork magazine (referrer link) released their Tacara dress pattern as it’s outside My Type. But I kept seeing it on more and more women and liking the way it looked, so I got it printed in A0 (those are some BIG pieces!) and I bought the required 2.2m of lightweight blue cotton spandex jersey from Ditto, when we were at their shop in Brighton over the holidays.

2 October, 2017Gallery

James’s black velvet tee

Just before we went to France a few weeks ago, James expressed a desire for a black velvet teeshirt with a V-neck and 3/4 length sleeves, but lamented that he wasn’t finding any in the shops and asked if I could make him one. He specifically said that he loved the way the grey Paxson I made for him last winter fits, and when I offered to fix the few shoulder/neckline issues in it, he said he liked it that way, so I left the pattern as-is apart from turning the round neck into a V and shortening the sleeves.

20 July, 2017Gallery

The Cityscape dress

I was in need of a palate cleansing easy make after I returned from competing in Malaga and promptly came down with a cold (and made a wadder in the form of some deeply unflattering culottes that make me look 10 feet wide). Luckily, I had an invitation to attend the 25th birthday party of my local fabric store, Fabrics Galore, and while I sipped some bubbly I couldn’t help but do some shopping…

30 January, 2017Gallery

A pale blue Seamwork Eugene henley

The final Christmas present I made this year was a long-sleeved top for James, using the Seamwork Eugene Henley top pattern and some pale blue cotton lycra jersey he’d picked out last time we were at Ditto Fabrics in Brighton. I’d inadvertently picked up a remnant of their cotton lycra jersey previously and James raved about the fabric so much that I finally just brought a scrap of it in to their Brighton store for Gill to fondle and ID for me! Luckily for him, it’s something they always have in stock in a bunch of different colours…

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