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!
It’s finally here! The long-awaited second Print Club fabric kit is finally available! We’ve followed on from the success of our first kit with Laurie King to team up with a second illustrator who designed some exclusive and limited edition fabric for our activewear patterns.
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!
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!
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…
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!
My subscription issue arrived weeks ago but life got in the way – for once it’s not an […]
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!
After the twin mammoth accomplishments of running London marathon and handing in my book manuscript (and illustrations, patterns, and sewn samples!), I really needed a break! The next few days were filled with sports massages, a spa day, visiting friends, and packing.
I’d only ever visited Copenhagen once, back in 2013 to run the marathon, but I really only got to see the sights directly along the race route, as I had to fly to Miami the next morning for work. Through the global running crew movement I’ve got a bunch of friends there, though, and my friend Christina in particular has stayed with us a few times over the years and when she and her partner Troels were over in January we all sat down with our calendars and finally picked a date for James and I to come stay at theirs and finally see the city properly. As it turned out, Troels ran an ultra the same weekend as I ran London marathon, so the weekend after would be perfect for us all.
If you’ve never been to Copenhagen, I definitely, definitely recommend going. It’s a compact, green, and pleasant city to visit, and it feels like the Danes just really nailed quality of life. Apart from eating everything in sight (smorgasbords!!), we did our usual boat tour, visited the food market, met up with friends, went to three different cocktail bars, and drank a lot of Mikkeller beer at their brewpub, War Pigs.
This marathon has been entwined with writing my book since the day talks began with my publisher, as the deadline for the writing has always been the day after the marathon. Some people groan when I tell them that, but honestly, the day after is perfect. If the deadline was a week or two after the marathon, my head would’ve been full of all the things I needed to finish and stress on getting everything done. Having the deadline the day after meant everything was already finished, I could relax, and use the race not only as a celebration of all my hard training, but a celebration of writing a freaking book, too!
My publishers asked if I wouldn’t mind running the marathon in designs from the book to help with marketing down the line, and as it turned out, I was able to squeeze in not only a pair of shorts but a top as well! I’ve run all 6 of my previous marathons in me-made gear, but I usually wear a Run dem Crew shirt or vest on top. This time I wanted to both rep my crew AND show off my book designs, so I made my shorts and vest from modified designs which will appear in my book (coming out early 2018), and took the vest up to Big Teezar in Camden to get the RDC logo and my name vinyl printed onto the front.
