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Magazine

La Maison Victor – their first English-language magazine!!

If you’ve followed this site for any length of time then you’re probably already aware of La Maison Victor magazine, as I’ve been buying up issues whenever we’ve travelled to France over the past few years. It’s a Belgian pattern magazine, which started off as quarterly in the early days, expending to 6 issues a year and publishing in French, Dutch, German, and now… English, too!

This is super exciting because I love La Maison Victor‘s aesthetic – definitely more like a fashion magazine than a sewing magazine, and unlike some *cough* Burda *cough*, each of the patterns has incredibly well illustrated instructions, so they’re suitable for beginners, too.

Magazine

Burda magazine July 2017

We may be in the peak of summer here in the Northern hemisphere, but in Burda’s world July is the last of the summer issues, normally full of floaty beach wear and rectangles-masquerading-as-clothing but there’s surprisingly a lot to like in this issue, too…

Inspiration

Fabric (and gold!) shopping in Malaga

Apologies for the radio silence over the past few weeks. If you follow me on social media, you’ll know I’ve had an absolutely intense 3 weeks of training culminating in my competing in the World Transplant Games in Malaga, Spain last week.

I’ve written a comprehensive race report over on my running site which gives a bit of insight into the amount in training and sheer effort that went into my performance at the Games, which (spoiler alert!), ended in my bringing home 6 golds and one bronze!

Inspiration

XYT Workout Top – now a layered pdf!

Happy Friday everyone! I’ve got some great news for all of you who’ve loved our XYT Workout Top pattern over the years – it’s now available as a layered pdf!

The XYT was our first ever pattern back in 2013 and when it came out, layered pdfs weren’t even a thing! Our most recent patterns have all been layered, but it’s a really tedious task to re-organise everything in the older pattern files in order to add this functionality. But we’ve got some big love coming XYT’s way next week (*cough* Print Club *cough*), so it was worth the extra TLC, especially since this pattern has English, French, and Dutch translations on the pattern pieces, too!

Gallery

We made espadrilles!

Along with making my first pair of socks a few months ago, I got to tick off another First this weekend when my friend Sophie came over and we made shoes! These actually weren’t her first pair of shoes – last year she took an intensive shoe-making class where she got to use lasts and industrial shoe-specific sewing machines, but making espadrilles using home-friendly methods was new for us both.

I’ve been wanting to make shoes for a while, encouraged by other sewists like Jasika who make very professional-looking shoes that you’d actually want to wear! So when the opportunity arose to choose some Prym products (aka Dritz in the US) to try out, their espadrille-making supplies were high on my list, and they kindly provided the soles in my size (EU40) as well as in EU37 and EU45 for good measure. The other sizes, miraculously, correspond to Sophie’s shoe size and James’s, so they’ll all get put to good use!

Magazine

Burda magazine June 2017

No sooner had I shared my picks from the May issue and suddenly June turned up in my postbox! The cover declares this to be the dress issue, and with my proclivities towards separates, I wasn’t expecting much (especially since it’s a summer issue!), but there were a few treats inside…

Article, Inspiration, Press

I’m on the Crafty Planner podcast!

Recently I had the opportunity to chat with the lovely Sandi from the Crafty Planner podcast and we had SO. MUCH. FUN! It turned out that with her based in San Diego and me in London, the hardest part of the whole process was finding a time that worked in both our time zones – after that the conversation just flowed, and I think you’ll really enjoy listening!

In this episode, we chatted about sewing (activewear in particular!), my recent Threads article, my running and competing at the World Transplant Games, some of my top tips for first-time activewear sewings, and (of course!) my upcoming book, too. Since I cycle commute to my office job these days, I listen to the bulk of my podcasts while in my sewing room, and my last job was actually at a podcasting company, so I think it’s safe to say that I’m a big fan of them, and Sandi’s in particular!

Inspiration

On location with my athlete models

My sewing activewear book won’t be out til early 2018, but due to lead times in the publishing world, the words are already written, illustrations drawn, patterns drafted, and samples sewn. Some of you may think I’m just being a cruel tease by not showing you all 13 designs right now but honestly, it’s better this way – if I revealed all now, not only would you still have to wait til next year to sew them up anyway, but they’d also be tired and old in your mind – “Didn’t I already see this design somewhere before…?”. So at least this way you may have to wait a while to see everything, but you’ll be able to start sewing them without too much of a gap. When I do have bits I can share, however, I’m happy to do so as I know so many of you are as excited as I am to see its arrival, which is awesome!

One big advantage of working with a major international publisher is that they know how to best shoot and show off the designs I’ve created. From the very first meeting I requested to bring my own athlete models, as I wanted to showcase real women who workout – not just models doing a fake run for the cameras. For the 13 designs we’d need 3 athlete models, and since some of the shots would be in a studio, it made sense for the publisher to source an athlete closer to their base in Devon – and Jade is every bit as strong and lovely as the ladies who’ve modelled for FehrTrade Patterns over the years!