Blog

Inspiration

Happy 2016! (My year in review)

Each year I like to take the first of January to look back on what I’ve sewn in the previous year. So while this post is a celebration of the new year, it also helps me to put into perspective the year that has just gone. Somehow I always think the year has been a bit low on finished makes until I put everything together for the year’s collage!


Click the image to see it better, or right-click here to see it in a new tab to get a better look!

Tip: If you’d like to skim back through the posts for the above projects, you can click Gallery in the top menu, which will only show you finished projects, without all the magazine reviews and in-progress reports getting in the way! (Though a few of the makes in the bottom row I haven’t blogged about yet!)

The Year in Stats

In terms of pattern companies used this year, I made:

  • 25 FehrTrade patterns (I put my money where my mouth is I guess!?),

  • 9 Seamwork magazine,

  • 6 Self-drafted (including traced from RTW),

  • 4 Jalie (well, the same sports bra pattern four times!),

  • 3 from the Great British Sewing Bee: Fashion in Fabric book,

  • 2 Burda Style magazine,

  • 2 Style Arc,

  • 2 Orange Lingerie,

  • and 1 each from La Maison Victor magazine, Named, Paprika Patterns, Imagine Gnats, Simple Sew, and Kwik Sew.

By my count, I made: 21 tops, 19 trousers (including leggings & shorts), 2 jumpsuits,
2 dresses, 10 pieces of lingerie (bras, panties, slips, etc), 1 bikini, 2 jackets/coats/cardigans and zero skirts (!). I made presents for my mom, sister-in-law, niece, and nephew, and James also received four tops and a pair of lounging bottoms this year, the lucky guy!

Gallery

Santa Hat leggings around town

It’s a bit of a long story how I came to have a meter of Funkifabrics’ santa hat lycra (short version: a friend wanted leggings made, then went AWOL), but I figured I needed to sew it up in December or face it taking up room in my stash for another year. So around the beginning of the month I pulled out my modified KwikSew 3636 leggings pattern and sewed myself a festive pair in about a half hour flat. This time around though, I actually remembered to add in the back pocket from my Steeplechase Leggings pattern, so I can stash my phone in there without needing to wear an armband.

I managed to get a few festive runs in them before the end of the month, and on the last pre-work run before Christmas, I paired them with my teal merino Surf to Summit top and an all-supplex Santa hat (complete with ponytail hole and hidden elastic to keep it on my head!) that I made last Christmas and ran round my usual river route taking idiotic photos just for fun!

First up were some timer shots with Tower Bridge…

…then a selfie with St Paul’s cathedral, where I managed to contort myself in order to get both hat and leggings in the same shot…
Inspiration, Magazine

La Maison Victor magazine Nov/Dec 2015

My bestie Pip recently travelled to Belgium for a pre-Christmas trip round the markets and spotted this for me on her way back through Eurotunnel Calais (the WH Smiths on the Calais side regularly stocks La Maison Victor, which is handy if you’ve got friends or family who regularly travel through there). This is their holiday issue but there are a surprising amount of casual patterns included, too.

First up, this is my absolute favourite pattern in this issue – check out the back on this dress!! It’s actually a really simple effect to sew, too, with two deep pleats in back and a simple hook and eye at the neckline. The front is very plain (wisely leaving the interest to the back) and the dress has an overall shape which is very trendy right now. Plus it’s offered up to size 56, and the silhouette would lend itself to disguising a few extra holiday mince pies, too.

LMV always include as many boys patterns as they do for girls, though this sweet little hoodie could easily work for either gender, depending on your fabric choice. (The men’s pattern this month is just a boring waistcoat).
Inspiration, Magazine

Burda magazine January 2016

It’s the first of the 2016 Burda magazines! Burda have been really hit and miss for me in 2015, but let’s take a peek inside and see what the future may hold…

On the left, we’ve got a slightly odd “dress that looks like separates” with a nice cowl back. Only thing is that there’s an extra layer underneath the cowl, which just kinda makes it look frumpy. On the right we see a casual sweatshirt cape that a lot of sewists have been going nuts over, but to me it just looks like it would be cold with that massive open bottom. Something more close fitting and longer like Paprika Patterns’ Zircon sweatshirt dress would be much warmer IMHO.

Burda are really getting into this separates-as-a-dress thing, as we see the top and skirt seen in this dress later in the issue as separates, too. Though in my opinion, they actually work better together as a dress. And on the right we’ve got another oversize sweatshirt, this time with an asymmetric bit of gathering at the hem.
Gallery

Pale orange Kimono Sweat tank (View B)

I’ve been holding back this version of my Kimono Sweat pattern for quite a few months because it’s a perfect summer workout top, so I wanted to save it for the Southern hemisphere summer. So Aussies, Kiwis, Saffas, and South Americans, this post is for you!

It’s been a while, so to refresh your memory: View B is a sleeveless tank/vest top with a banded, scooped neckline and straight hem. Deep armholes, and loose, draped sides make this a perfect warm weather workout top for those who prefer a looser fit (and showing off a fancy sports bra!).

You saw my athlete model Lorna modelling a red bamboo version earlier this year but I made this one using a pale fluorescent orange marled “cotton touch” tech jersey I got from my Sweaty Betty insider friend (sorry!). You can use pretty much any lightweight and drapey jersey for this view, but if you’re using it for exercise, be sure to stay away from cotton jerseys which will absorb sweat (ewww!).

I designed this view after seeing so many ladies in my running crew cutting up their race tops to have deep armholes, ready for showing off a fancy sports bra. But regardless of your bra, this is by far the coolest and airiest top I’ve ever run in – you get a great cooling breeze as you run but without revealing too much skin, or having clingy fabric around your waist.

I paired this top with my latest Duathlon Shorts in the booty length that I sewed up before the British Transplant Games at the start of August, made in the suitable jazzy summertime “Aztec Stripe” print in the green colourway (it also comes in purple or yellow), with a bit of leftover scrap fluorescent red wicking lycra for the side panels and some grippy elastic on the hems. Together, these are just about the perfect summer running combo!!

Inspiration

The perfect day off – fabric shopping!

I hope you’re all enjoying the holiday season, whether you’re sewing gifts for family and friends, or taking time out for yourself, or as I’ve been doing – a bit of both! I had some excess holiday days to use up at my office job before the end of the year, so I just took some random days off here and there, earmarking the last one for a “stash replenishment” trip down to Ditto Fabrics in Brighton.



I know I’ve talked about Ditto quite a bit here but they probably are my favourite physical fabric shop on earth (with Kantje Boord coming in second!) – the owner, Gill, has an uncanny eye for fashion trends, picking up great bargains from the Italian design houses and it’s just one of those places where you know absolutely everything is high quality, but the prices are really reasonable, too.

I also really like the way the store is organised, too – rather than grouping the same fibre types together, or all the same colours together, or something like that, the fabrics are placed to encourage discovery and browsing, with complimentary colours and printed placed next to each other, which I love. This shelf featured muted, pale turquoises and yellows, and I, err, bought two fabrics off this one alone!

Since I knew which day I was going down, it happened that Claire was able to join me, too, which makes shopping SO much more fun!

It was a really leisurely shop, with a tea break in the middle, then deciding on our purchases, with some of my highlights being a wool Fair Isle-esque sweater knit, a muted turquoise french terry with bows & arrows, a watercolour print silk noile that is just heaven to touch, a matte sequin remnant, some of the robot print jersey I’ve been eyeing up online, and a muted turquoise lace that I’m sure will become a dress by springtime. And two lengths of denim, because Ditto do the best denim and I’m too spoiled by it to try anywhere else now!

Inspiration

French and Dutch Translations plus Facebook and Pinterest, too!

Boy is this a whopper of an update post today! Truth be told, I intended to split it up into two posts as both things are big news but life got in the way of writing this week and I didn’t want to make you all wait any longer…

FehrTrade Patterns – in French and Dutch!

I’ve been wanting to offer translations of my pattern instructions pretty much from the day we launched, but I needed to get a bunch of the admin side of things in order to make it a reality. I started putting feelers out this summer to find out which of my patterns had the biggest demand, and for which languages (since at this point in time I can’t afford to offer translations for all my patterns in every language!).

It turned out that there was a lot of demand for my XYT Workout Top to be translated, since a lot of the advice on power mesh and stretch didn’t really come across visually. So I’m pleased to report that instructions for the XYT Workout Top are now available in both French and Dutch in addition to English! These translations were both done by native speakers who also sew, so they should make sewing your own activewear a lot easier if your English is a little rusty.

Furthermore, I was able to translate a further two more patterns into French, so les couturières francophones can also enjoy instructions for the Duathlon Shorts and Steeplechase Leggings, too!

Inspiration

Fehr Trade Patterns 2nd Birthday Sale!

Can you believe it’s been two years since I launched the first FehrTrade activewear patterns back in December 2013?? In those two years I’ve managed to release 10 different activewear patterns (with more on the way!), and I thought it was high time we all celebrate!

I’ve got a bunch of great stuff planned for the entire month of December, but I wanted to kick things off by announcing a special 2nd birthday sale to send a big THANK YOU to all my loyal readers! So for the entire month of December you can save 20% off all purchases at shop.fehrtrade.com by using the code “2NDBIRTHDAY” (Paypal users note that you’ll go quite far through the process before the coupon box is shown).

I also wanted to take this opportunity to flag up that I quietly released an update to the PB Jam Leggings pattern recently! I’m going back through my earliest patterns and upgrading the illustrations to be more in line with the most recent ones. My illustration skills have come so far in the past two years and I wanted to give people who purchase my earlier patterns the same experience as those who grab my latest ones.

Inspiration, Magazine

Burda magazine December 2015

It seems Burda has been holding out on us – the last few issues were pretty good but WOW there is a lot to love in this last issue of 2015!

I’m a big fan of cropped jackets, as you know, and I like this one has a full closure as well as full-length sleeves (though if forced to choose, I think I prefer the longer, biker version). But what is with the tight trousers without a waistband? How on earth would they stay up?? They just sound like a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen to me.

Since this is the Christmas issue, we get patterns for the whole family as well as some smaller projects that could be gifted. The selection for boys is particularly strong this time around, with this great jacket/hoodie and a knitted woolly hat that I’d wear myself if it wasn’t too small!

The boys jacket here is just a variation on the one above, but I love the men’s bomber jacket (though James is less enthusiastic). Look at the shape of the raglan sleeve joined with the yoke on it!

Gallery

Steeplechase Leggings Times Two

Pop quiz – What’s better than an entire Saturday set aside for sewing?

Give up? It’s an entire Saturday set aside for sewing with a friend! Yes, a few weeks ago my friend Sanchia (whom you may recall as my Threshold Shorts pattern athlete model) was all “we need to set a sewing date and make some leggings!” so we found a Saturday we both had free, and she came round to the boat last weekend! Sanchia has sewn before, but hasn’t made leggings in a while, so she selected some fabric out of my (frankly, overflowing with fabulousness) lycra stash, and we used my Steeplechase Leggings pattern to sew her up a pair without any inner leg seaming.


Tablets are perfect partners for Pdf pattern instructions!

And since we were going to be sewing all afternoon, well, I might as well make a pair for myself, too! Since Sanchia chose my FunkiFabrics “Prism” lycra (I had the Flexcite base but it’s also available on their wicking Titan base fabric, I wanted to choose something dark so we wouldn’t need to change threads, so I used some fabulous cityscape lycra that had literally just arrived from Sewing Chest the day before (they have got some great sales on their sportswear fabric pieces right now, just sayin’!).

We had a good chat cutting out the fabric, and then pinning each step together and constructing them assembly-line style, plus a break for lunch, and then she got to play on my coverstitch machine for the hems and waistband finishing, too. By the time 4pm rolled around, we had two finished pairs of leggings!

We vowed to wear our new leggings to Run dem Crew on Tuesday, where we got another friend to snap some photos of us!