Category: Inspiration

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Inspiration

Happy 2023! (Year in Review)

For the past 15(!) years I’ve posted my year in review on 1 January, but not this year. I lost my sewjo around the end of September so I didn’t really have much to blog about. I waited for it to reappear (as I learned a long time ago there’s no point in trying to force it) and prepped a few projects, tidied a bit, planned a bit, and then fell into a massive “Interview with the Vampire” fandom hole (more on that later), and generally was happier in October and November than I’ve been in a long time (completely unrelated to the sewing) but that’s not the reason this post is late.

This post is late because, despite my best efforts (cycling to/from, FFP3 masking indoors with my CO2 monitor and otherwise staying outdoors) I caught a virus of some sort at the office christmas party which left me practically bed-bound with post viral fatigue for 4+ full weeks (no, not Covid, not flu, not RSV, not anything they swabbed for at haematology, but thankfully not EBV either). Like, 21+ hours a day in bed, and if I sat up for more than 15min to eat or drink, I’d have to lie flat for another hour. So sitting up to type was impossible, and I wrote this in pieces on my phone when I could, not being able to put it all together until I started improving a little bit in the past few days.

So apologies that it’s late, and for the blog silence for the past few months, but hey, 2023 can only get better from this dismal start, right?? Without further ado, let’s have a look back at 2022…

Inspiration

My Threads Luxury Loungewear Challenge entry!

Back in April I worked on a secret project, which I’m pleased to reveal – it was my entry for the 2022 Threads Digital Ambassadors’ Luxury Loungewear Challenge! I was thrilled to be invited to take part this year as one of only four entrants, and I’m super proud of the ensemble that I created.

Head on over to Threads to read about my inspiration and choices for the garments and then the actual construction and couture elements I incorporated into them.

Inspiration

Sewing the Cos “Made By You” Men’s Shirt

As I mentioned in my earlier post showing off this shirt as well as the women’s shirt, this post is to outline how to construct the Cos “Made By You” men’s shirt so that others in the future can construct it in spite of the very sparse video instructions provided with the pattern. A lot of this information may be a repeat of the women’s shirt post since the kits are very similar in structure, right down to the fabric and packaging provided.

Inspiration

Sewing the Cos “Made By You” Women’s Shirt

Earlier this week I showed you my finished version of the Cos “Made By You” women’s shirt kit with the promise of giving far, far more details on the kit itself and some construction instructions so strap on in! This is a HEFTY brain dump intended to help others who’ve bought this thinking they were getting a full sewing pattern, or who bought it and no longer have Cos’s video online to help. Or frankly, if you’re just intrigued about what a high street shop thinks a home sewing product should be!

Inspiration

Happy 2022! (Year in review)

Happy 2022! As is traditional, I like to take the chance on the first day of a brand-spanking new year to have a look back at the year before, step back, and reflect on the good (and not-so-good) things that happened. 2021 was always going to be a strange struggle of a transition year, but I kinda feel like we had a bit of practice going into it, so my outlook was a little better than in 2020. But as this is a sewing blog, let’s first take a look at this year’s output…

Inspiration

Comparing the activewear sewing eBook and Book!

Today I wanted to clear up a little confusion around the content in our new “Activewear Sewing for Beginners” eBook and our best-selling “Sew Your Own Activewear” book, as some people may think that they’re the same thing – and they’re totally not!! In particular, topics that only got a sentence or two in “Sew Your Own Activewear” due to publishing page constraints go a lot more in depth in “Activewear Sewing for Beginners” with photos and diagrams to make things even clearer for those who’ve never sewn activewear or worked with stretch fabrics before.

Inspiration

Writing the “Activewear Sewing for Beginners” eBook

I’m just going to put this out there and say it – writing a book is a TON of work, whether you’re doing it on your own or with the help of an international publisher (like I did with “Sew Your Own Activewear”). When I realised that I wanted to supplement our new beginner pattern with an eBook focused entirely on beginner activewear sewing tips, I had a pretty fully formed idea of what I wanted it to contain, but not really sure of how to get there.

I wrote out a rough outline of chapters and before starting anything, I approached my publisher to make sure that I was legally okay and not breaching any non-compete or future works clause in my contract from SYOA. Thankfully, they could see that both books were fundamentally different and gave me their blessing to self-publish it myself, otherwise it couldn’t have happened at all!

I think most people assume that the actual writing takes up the bulk of the time spent “writing” a book, but for me, getting the actual words onto paper was the easy part. I closed myself into our back cabin for a few days and by the end of it, I had 90% of the text written!

Inspiration

Developing the Tenacity Leggings

Thank you all so much for your enthusiasm for our Tenacity Leggings and eBook launch last week! I’ve got so much more to say about both because omg, they were both so much work! but today I wanted to talk a little bit about the development of the Tenacity Leggings pattern.

Throughout 2020 and my 14 months of shielding, I had zero creativity. But then I suddenly got hit with an explosion of it in spring and threw myself into a crazy complicated, advanced pattern. I went through about 4 test muslins but it still wasn’t quite right, and I felt like it wasn’t the right time to focus on it when so many people felt like they couldn’t even get started sewing activewear. So I parked that pattern (hopefully I’ll release it next year!) and started work on a leggings pattern that would be beginner-friendly, but with enough options to keep myself and other intermediate- or advanced-activewear sewists interested, too.

In Progress, Inspiration

Coming Soon…

Apologies for the radio silence recently, but I promise it’s for a very good reason! Actually, two reasons, because I have been spending every single second of FehrTrade time for the past few months working to release a new, beginner-focused activewear pattern AND a full beginner activewear-focused eBook to accompany it. Wooooo! And even though the pattern is aimed at beginners, there are plenty of opportunities for upskilling that have won it rave reviews from my more experienced, testers, too.