Search Results for: mini me

An all black pair of Duathlon Shorts

Ever since I made my pair of (nearly) all black Tenacity Leggings, I’ve wanted a similar pair of shorts. I’m not one to shy away from plain fabrics, but to me, entirely black leggings and shorts are just SO boring! But since making the leggings, I realised how incredibly useful they are for cycling around town, meeting people for pub garden drinks, running errands, getting to hospital appointments, etc when you want to be comfortable on the ride yet blend in when you get to your destination (and it’s too wet to wear cycling jeans).

And I needed something similar for the warmer months! So I took the same black supplex from Tia Knight out of my stash and decided to make a pair of Duathlon Shorts (biker length) so I could have easy access pockets, too. This particular supplex is currently out of stock but keep an eye on their socials because when they restock it, it sells out super quick because it’s such great quality and ridiculously cheap!

Two more sports bras – from scraps!

Our boat renovations are in their last few weeks, which means that everything is in disarray and even the meagre folding table I had been using to cut out fabric is now out of bounds, blocked in place by several massive sheets of plywood. But thankfully I planned ahead and cut out a few projects before this happened, the last of which I’ve now sewn – two more Jalie Coco sports bras, made entirely from activewear scraps!

If you recall, I made two of these last year, one in each view and with a few crucial tweaks to increase the support in order to be enough to run in. Please refer back to this post for the details of what those are, as I’ve done the exact same tweaks here. After wearing both the Y-back feather bra and the cross-back Tokyo bra for a few months, I can say that I definitely prefer the Y-back view. It’s easier to get on and off and feels a bit more supportive, even though the cross-back is perfectly fine! So for these, I just cut the Y-back (view B in the pattern) to make my life simpler.

Buy my book – without Amazon

If you or someone you know would like the gift of sewing their own activewear, but you’re not keen on supporting Amazon, there have been a few great options popping up recently that strive to a) pay their taxes (like, shouldn’t this be the bare minimum??) and also b) help struggling independent book shops. If you’re able to get to your local bookshop and they stock my book, that’s fabulous! But if, like me, you’re doing all your holiday shopping online this year and are stuck for places to look, then read on!

DIY Period Panties

I’ve been trying to reduce my single-use plastic consumption over the last year, buying in bulk and seeking out plastic-free options wherever possible (Lush is wonderful for this!), and generally trying to lessen my impact on the planet. But one area where I am just not ready to give up the convenience of single use plastics is my period products.

A sequin party top

About three or four years ago when I was in Ditto’s shop in Brighton, I bought a remnant of matte silver sequin fabric. And for the intervening years, it sat in my stash, as every year I somehow missed sewing it up for “sequin season” so it stayed there for another year…

But not this year! This year I was determined to make something with it and started looking for a basic tank with minimal lines that could let the sequins shine. It turns out I’ve had the perfect pattern for even longer than the fabric and hadn’t realised it – Colette’s free Sorbetto top pattern (which was revamped a few years after its original release, if you weren’t aware). I’ve made the older version a few times, always without that central pleat (ugh), and it turned out to fit nicely into the scant metre of fabric in the remnant.

Burda magazine November 2018

I’m gonna apologise right now that this review is late, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to pick up with the rest of my usual monthly Burda magazine reviews. I managed to scan this issue literally on the last day before we packed up everything in the flat at the start of December. Now we’re back in the boat, but living in the very small Captain’s Cabin while we finish the renovations on the front/main part of the boat. But in the meantime, 95% of our stuff is in boxes so until we have a proper lounge again, I won’t be able to scan these magazines to do the reviews (though I did do a mini review of the January issue on my Instagram Stories this week so it’s worth following me to catch those!)

Dutch sewing pattern magazine roundup

A few weeks ago J and I took a long weekend away in Amsterdam, but the majority of these patterns actually came from a different trip he’d made for work a few weeks earlier. It turns out that the newsagent inside Rotterdam station is a haven of sewing pattern magazines, who knew?? So rather than do a post on each of these, I thought I’d pull out my highlights, and take the chance again to explain how accessible the pattern sheets and instructions are for non-Dutch speakers…