Search Results for: the perfect day off fabric shopping

Another pair of cycling jeans

I’ve made a lot of jeans since I started sewing 14 years ago. I remember I made my first pair before we even bought the boat, which would put them back in 2006 or 2007, and I really haven’t stopped since! I’ve probably made at least 10-15 pairs over the years, with various patterns and weights of denim, but my most recent pair with cycling-specific adaptations have been one of my favourites, so I wanted to have another pair of those in my wardrobe.

The majority of my jeans over the years have been made with Ditto Fabrics’ super freaking amazing Italian denims, and this traditional, non-stretch, dark dye was bought when I last visited their shop in December. It’s no coincidence that we’ve got another trip to Brighton planned in a few weeks so I can restock then…

A watercolour silk noile dress

At my last shopping trip down to Ditto Fabrics in Brighton last December, I bought a great mix of spring and summer fabrics with a few cold weather ones thrown in for good measure. So far I’ve already sewn up a Fair Isle sweater (which I was too sick to blog about properly), that muted turquoise lace dress, a pair of cycling jeans (with another coming later this week).

But I’d bought a length of silk noile with a watercolour-esque muted floral print that the owner, Gill, was raving over, saying it made the most comfortable summer dress. It’s long sold out now, but Ditto have a few other silk noiles in stock. I knew I wanted to make a dress from it – preferably unlined to take advantage of the silk noile’s comfort and coolness, but I needed an occasion to actually sew it up. Luckily, two friends I’d know for years from Run dem Crew got married this weekend, so I had the perfect excuse!

Lace dress for a wedding

Last week I showed you the roses I made for my aunt’s wedding in DC, but I also managed to sew myself a new dress to wear for the occasion, too!

When I was at Ditto’s Brighton shop in December, I fell in love with a wonderful muted turquoise lace and bought a beigey lavender jersey to layer underneath it. I didn’t really have an occasion or pattern in mind when I bought it, but with the wedding trip approaching, I pulled these out of the stash and knew they’d be the perfect starting point.

When making lace dresses, I always look for patterns with a lot of little pieces as I’ve found that the shared seams help keep the layers from separating when worn, such as with the Burda dress I made in pink and grey lace (and still wear a lot, 5 years later!). If you try to make a lace dress from big pieces, you have the opportunity for one to grow or move independently if there’s nothing holding them together in the middle of the garment. I wanted something that I’d sewn before, too, as I didn’t have much time to make it before the wedding and wanted to skip the muslin stage. I ultimately decided on a pattern I’d traced from an ASOS dress and previously made twice – once in a mustard ponte and then again in mustard, teal, and white as a designer inspired colourblock dress.

Interview with Kelli from True Bias

I first heard about True Bias patterns when Kelli released her first pattern last year – the Hudson Pant were an indie sewing phenomenon, and it seemed I was about the only woman who hasn’t sewn a pair yet (and believe me, they’re still on my To Sew List for someday!). I’ve had the privilege of talking to Kelli to find out more about her sewing, aesthetics, and what’s up next, so read on to find out more about the lady behind the label… – melissa


Kelli in her Hudson Pant pattern

You kept a sewing blog for quite a few years before starting True Bias – what was the impetus for starting a pattern company?

Yes, I started my blog about 3 1/2 years ago. When I started it, I always knew that it would somehow turn into a business for me, I just wasn’t sure in what way. I was new to motherhood, having an identity crisis, and needed something to work towards. I was passionate about sewing and the community, so it made sense to focus my efforts there. I entertained the idea of a fabric store for awhile but it didn’t stick. I knew of a few independant pattern companies at the time and loved what they were doing. I had taken a couple of patternmaking and draping classes in college, but I knew that I didn’t have the skills yet to start a company. It wasn’t until after moving to NYC and starting classes at FIT that my confidence and abilities grew. My first pattern, the Hudson pant, was a huge leap of faith for me. And it was super slow at the beginning and scary. I wasn’t sure that this was all going to work, but it did and I am so glad.

What’s the single biggest lesson you learned so far?

Don’t worry about what other people are doing, just be true to yourself. This is SO hard though. The indie pattern market has become very saturated and we are all influenced by the same trends to one extent or another. This means there is going to be some overlap. There have been multiple times when I have seen a sneak peek on instagram of another designer’s pattern and I have had a total freakout because it looks similar to something I have been working on for months. It’s scary because you don’t want it to appear that you are copying, but in the end you have to be true to yourself and your own ideas. Like I said, it’s really hard though.

Kimono Sweat – UK and US sweatshirt suppliers

When I was sewing up my Kimono Sweat samples for myself and my athlete models, I put together a little list of all the great sweatshirt fabric supplies I could find, and then starting thinking about what colours I wanted to play with. Since I made the list for myself, I figured I may as well share it with you, and I’ve added a few US suppliers, too (Aussies and anywhere else, please add your favourites in the comments!).


Clockwise from Top Left: Turquoise Multi Fleck, from Guthrie Ghani, Orange and Pink Star, from Stone Fabrics, Chartreuse Washed Wool & Viscose, from Ditto Fabrics, and Fusion Coral, from Girl Charlee UK

UK shops

  • Guthrie-Ghani – Great colours and prints, including the speckled green I used for my casualwear version (be aware that lengths are in HALF metres, so you need to order “3” for the Kimono Sweat!)

  • Dragonfly Fabrics – Limted colours but they’re organic!

  • MyFabrics – These guys have a milllllion colours, and ship from Germany, I believe.

An extended weekend full of sewing

Last week saw the end of a very good but busy work project, so what do I do when faced with a bit more time and mental energy than usual? Why, I sew of course!*

Liberty, but not as we know it

I received some lovely Liberty gift coins for my birthday, and because Previous Me knows Future Me so well, I had stashed some extra birthday cash along with it in the suede pouch, knowing I’d forget all about it and be pleasantly surprised. Which is precisely what happened!

So now armed with £60 to play with in Liberty, I decided to take advantage of a rainy day and go shopping. Now, I know loads of you go weak at the knees for anything Liberty, but I don’t. I find most of the traditional Liberty prints to be painfully twee and nothing I’d ever, ever wear. So I was thinking I’d see what was on offer in their jerseys, but first I got waylaid by the remnants table, where I scooped up a vaguely-African print silk twill (1m for £25, seen lower left).

The jersey selection was really small and mostly ditzy print (gag), but I kept being drawn to a dreamy, blurry, triangular print that came in a few shades, but only in Tana Lawn. I finally decided that if I kept coming back to this print then I should buy it and figure out a project later. So 1.5m of the palest colourway came home with me (seen upper left above) and brought my grand total to £58. Now that’s budgeting!

Refashioned suede wristlets

A friend had recently given me two skirts which no longer fit her, a suede one and a silk one, and mentioned that I might want them for the fabric. Of course! So I chopped up the suede one on Sunday, making two of the free Cake mini wristlets.


(The colour on the left is more accurate…)

Little bits of sewing

I’ve come to that point near the end of the year where I want to gather together a bunch of little projects I’ve made recently, but yet didn’t quite seem big enough for their own post… You’ll see my traditional, year-end roundup tomorrow (I hope! I haven’t actually started it yet, eep!), but before then, let’s finish off the last little bits of the year…

Twin clutches

The most exciting of these are undoubtably the Cake Patterns Red Velvet Mini Clutches I made for James’s twin, teenaged nieces. They’ve pretty much only wanted cash or gift cards for a few years now, but this year I fancied giving them a little something extra to hold their gift.

The Cake Red Velvet Mini Clutch is a smaller version of the full pattern without the illustrated instructions, but on the plus side it’s free, super cute, and easy to whip up in a few hours with scraps. Here I used satin scraps leftover from my Matthew Williamson birthday dress and my swirl sheath dress and a bit of floral lining leftover from the former, too.

These are big enough to hold your average mobile phone, keys, lippy, and credit card, but not much else, but most of the times I want a little bag to match a dress this is all I really need to carry anyway. These were certainly one of those gifts I’d have liked to have kept for myself, especially since they match my dresses!

Bolster pillow covers

I’m totally less excited by home dec sewing, but we really wanted some bolster pillows for lounging in our big, new bedroom on the boat – now that I’m working from home, I especially need one under my knees while I work on my laptop! When we bought our bedding from IKEA, the duvet cover sets came with four pillowcases, and since we only use one regular pillow each, the others were just sat on a shelf.

Goldhawk Road meetup & acquisitions

I’m lucky to live in London for a lot of reasons, but one of them is certainly the access to great fabric stores and the frequency of meetups at said stores with other like-minded sewists. They usually occur every few months, but with my crazy social and running events calendar, it’s usually really difficult for me to attend. However, this time around, the meetup coincided with a “stepback week” in my running (a planned lower mileage week to give your body a break) so I only had a one hour run on Saturday morning before the meetup. Yes, I realise the craziness of using “only” in that sentence.

In any case, you should go read Claire’s writeup of the day as she organised everything down to a meticulous degree and posted some amazing photos taken by herself and also Dibs!

This post is more about my own shopping and acquisitions from the day, and I know from past trips to Goldhawk Road that I really need to be strict with myself or risk returning home broke and dragging binbags full of fabric behind me. So I came prepared with a shopping list and only £50 cash to spend (in the past I’ve actually left all my cards at home, too!).

Things on my shopping list:

  • Stretch lining for the swirl sheath dress

  • Power mesh in black & beige (for both lingerie & activewear linings)

  • 2m heavy jersey for a travel skirt

Here’s a shot of my total haul. Not only did I get everything on my list, but I stayed within that £50 budget for the day (which included lunch & drinks!).

My first purchase was the power mesh – 1m of both black and beige from A-Z Fabrics for £4.95/m. They had loads of colours, too, and I was glad I bought it there when I saw shortly afterwards that Classic Textiles was asking £10.95/m for theirs! I didn’t buy anything at Classic this time around, but I was tempted by the ponte knits by the door.

Gathering supplies

It feels like I only just spoke about shopping but here I am, back with more lovely things to share! In my mind, it’s important that I have an intended use/project for 95% of the things I buy, and that I actually do end up using it, or (in the worst case) giving it away.

So with that in mind, I tried to make purchases of things I’m likely to use fairly soon, and I’m definitely all set for the long Easter weekend now!

Minerva Crafts

I was approached by the lovely Vicki at Minerva Crafts asking if I’d like to try some of their products. I’m approached fairly often by retailers about this sort of thing and I usually decline unless it’s a) most definitely sewing related (and not just another clothing store wanting to pimp me out for some % off code!) and b) I genuinely think I’d like the product and feel good about recommending them.

Not only are Minerva most definitely sewing-related (and owned by fellow sewists!!) but omg do they stock a gargantuan amount of sewing supplies! Ladies, it took me four days to trawl through the site and actually decide what I wanted. Four days. Not just fabric, but a ton of haberdashery (including supplies I’ve never seen anywhere else, like the stretch/lycra bindings), high end sewing tools and gadgets, patterns, the works. I didn’t even look in the Knitting, Quilting, or Needlework sections!

They’ve also got free shipping on all orders over £20, which is pretty awesome, too, as I’ve seen a lot of places with a much higher barrier than that…

But I won’t leave you in suspense any longer, here’s what I selected!

First up – 2.5m Black and silver heavyweight jersey to make the StyleArc Marie jacket, which coincidentally arrived from Australia the same day (4 working days after the shipping email! Noice!). This feels perfect for the jacket, too – hefty but drapey at the same time, with a nice bit of glam from the silver lurex threads.

Spending Your Money Well

The title of this post isn’t just savvy shopping advice, but a literal comment, too, because I’ve been spending your money, dear readers! I got another Google AdSense payment through and I always like to spend these on sewing things to help cycle everything back into the site. I thought you all might appreciate seeing what I bought with your money, which I feel I spent rather well!

StyleArc pattern purchases

After the roaring success of my Marita dress, I knew I had to buy some more StyleArc patterns, so I created a WishList and waited until there was a monthly free pattern that I really liked. I didn’t have to wait long, though, as any purchase in March comes with the free Ivy knit top (bottom right in my photo). I really like the look of this top and know it’s one I’ll actually wear (as opposed to February’s freebie, an elastic-waisted skirt).