I normally get quite a lot of sewing done on the weekends, but this weekend was particularly fun because Susannah of Cargo Cult Craft came over to the boat on Saturday afternoon for a big, fat geeked-out sewing session!
She brought her stash of ALL the 2010 Patrones issues, plus her assorted stash of Manequims, and I lugged my KnipModes, other Patroneses, and Manequims out of my sewing batcave. You should’ve seen the amount of pattern magazines on our saloon table! It was downright decadent, I tell you…
I ended up tracing two Patrones patterns then and there:
This cape jacket (295-22)
And an asymmetrical, yoked blouse (291-23)
Susannah fell in love with two Knips (a gathered knit dress – April 10 #14 and a long sleeved knit cowl top – Feb 10 #19) and traced those on our saloon floor, too. Poor James could barely find a scrap of carpet to walk on between my brown kraft paper and her Swedish tracing paper!
I borrowed three Manequim issues to trace and give back to her, and I’ve been very good in limiting myself to one per issue:
This colour-blocked one shoulder dress (10/2009 #400)
This utterly perfect sleeveless knit draped dress (06/2010 #250)
And this batwing velvet top (07/2010 #307), though I’ll definitely not be making mine in velvet!!
Then we had a bit of a skills exchange – I brought out my beautiful vintage hand-crank Singer and she showed me how to thread it and wind the bobbin since it’s similar to her beloved hand-crank Featherweight (jealous! I can barely lift mine it’s so heavy!). Then she brought out a super cute striped knit Jalie dress and a silk jersey top (in the same colour as my birthday dress last year! Yay for Classic Textiles!) that needed hemming. I’m afraid I may have given her the lust for a coverstitch machine, but all garments are now totally finished, and I sent her home with a ballpoint twin needle, too (don’t worry, Arielle, there’s still plenty left for you!).
This was just what I needed to motivate me to do a few sewing tasks I’d been putting off. Namely, sitting down and figuring out how to use the old Singer (I carried on after she left and it’s all ready for Jalie jeans topstitching now!), and finally getting around to making a silk jersey dress for my sister-in-law that I’d promised over a year ago. But more on that after the lucky recipient sees it herself!
I’ll be popping up to the Walthamstow market for a bit of cheap and dirty fabric fun this Saturday along with Karen‘s gang, as I’ve not been to the market in ages and it seemed like a good excuse. Anyone else coming along? I promise to wear FehrTrade so you can recognise me!