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Brighton fabric shops

On Saturday we took a “cheer me up” trip down to Brighhton, with the dual purpose of taking me back to my student days (I studied at Sussex for a year in 99/00) and buying some more fabric in some new uncharted ground! I did a bit of research first and found there were a few fabric shops clustered around the North Laines and again on Western Road, so we made our attack plan based on these…

New Fabric Fair
51 Gardner Street, BN1 1UN, 01273 605512

A small shop stocked to the rafters with bolts everywhere, including leather offcuts outside. A huge variety of braided trims, dress polys, stretch lace, and zippers for a pound each. Some great linens, wool suitings, and soft brushed cottons here and the husband & wife team were very attentive, though bring cash as they don’t do cards or cheques!

I bought this super soft brushed cotton (and a matching peach zipper) with this BWOF dress in mind…

Inspiration

Patterns from a suitcase

My mom arrived on Friday morning, bearing a ridiculous amount of American cookies, candies, chocolates, cakes, and kitty treats, but also a few patterns that were on my wish list!

Vogue 1109 is a Sandra Betzina pattern for a knit top/tunic with really interesting seam lines. It kinda feels expected for all sewers to love SB without question, but to be honest, I don’t find her “all that” and this is the first pattern of hers I’ve even remotely liked (though not in either of those fabric choices, ugh) so I wanted to give it a try.

Simplicity 2647 is a knit dress with varying lengths and bodice treatments, but I really liked the short version with the wrapped side even though it’s quite similar to a Vogue pattern I already have.

In Progress

Patrones spring coat – hood and more…

On Saturday I went shopping for supplies with Johanna Lu while she was holidaying in town, yay! We hit up Goldhawk Road and MacColluch & Wallis so I was able to get the rest of the supplies I needed for the spring coat, as well as stock up on a few things I knew would be difficult to get online for the rest of the year, like quality interfacings (I knows it when I feels it, okay?). She had the forethought to bring a camera along shopping, so you’ll have to stalk her blog for the next few days to see us giddy in fabric mecca!

I was very disciplined on Goldhawk Road and only bought three fabrics (at the end of the list there) – grey corduroy, since I adore the cords at one particular shop there and I don’t think I’ll be able to go back before Fall, a red & white cotton poplin with stylised flowers that’s already earmarked for two projects, and my one impulse buy – a very cool lycra jersey with tons of overlapping stripes going every which way. Oh, and the lining for my Spring coat.

Speaking of that Patrones spring coat:

Inspiration

Thank You Part Two

Following on from the post “Thank you!” from a few months ago, I’ve now got three weeks to go before I go into hospital for my bone marrow transplant so I wanted to get my address up for any of you who’d like to send some boredom-relief packages.

Please read the earlier post for an idea of what I’m talking about here (it’s okay, I’ll wait. . . . . All done? Great!). In addition to all that, I will have my little red sewing machine and my Mac laptop (with low-bandwidth internet) in my little room with me, if that helps with ideas.

Ground rules

  1. Please wrap all boredom-buster(s) individually inside the postal envelope, enclosing your name and email address inside! (as I will gather them all together in one place to open one each day so they’ll get separated from their envelopes and I want to know who to thank!) Newspaper/magazine/recycled flyers are more than fine for wrapping!
  2. It is extremely important that you do not send anything if you or anyone in your home has even the slightest cough or sniffle. Please wash your hands for good measure anyway before wrapping, too (I will have zero immune system and what would cause a slight cold for you will result in a serious illness for me on top of everything else!)
  3. I am not allowed any flowers or fruit you cannot peel (though, admittedly that’s probably more pertinent for in-person guests…) because of the chance of fungal infections.
  4. If you’d like to send a card, please hold off – I’ll post up my hospital address as soon as I’m in so they’ll come straight to me (I don’t want the nurses to have to deal with any early arrivers, and I don’t want my co-workers to have to lug in a ton of post for me, either!)
  5. Please forgive me if I sound like a bossy, ungrateful cow. 🙁

Address for parcels only:

Inspiration

Birthday sewing surprises

You may remember that last Fall I helped a friend test a bunch of budget sewing machines for a major newspaper, and one of the machines was a tiny, red John Lewis Mini sewing machine. John Lewis is a chain of high quality department stores in the UK (and the only one which still maintains a haberdashery and fabric department) and this is one of their own branded machines, though it’s actually a Janome under the hood. If you had any doubts – when you order these off the John Lewis website, it comes shipped directly from Janome UK!

Anyway I didn’t have much need for a tiny, portable machine back in October, but happily James’s parents thought I might like to do a bit of sewing in hospital and gave me this for my birthday!

As I knew before, it’s definitely got its limitations, but as a second, portable machine, it should do nicely for me. It is really tiny, and very lightweight – the instruction manual for it is printed on bigger paper than the machine itself, and even I can lift it with one arm! It doesn’t have any accessories, or a light, for that matter, but it sews well, and through denim, too, being a sturdy mechanical Janome.

Inspiration, Magazine

Thank You!

I’ve been so touched by all the kind thoughts and words that everyone has sent to me since I spoke about my illness here. A few of you decided to send cards and gifts, too, which just blows me away! I never expected such an outpouring of camaraderie and kindness, and for that, I thank each and every one of you.

These adorable wooden koala and kangaroo buttons are from Sandra in Australia, through whose quest for instructions on the KnipMode twist top, I discovered the pattern myself!

She got them from this local shop, and I really must find the perfect place to use these as an accent!

Then I got a mysterious package in the post with a card from Cidell!

Inspiration

What the Postman brought…

(Actually, the postie for my office is a very nice lady, but that doesn’t sound as good…) In any case, I received some very nice goodies in the post last week!

First up is the Sublime Stitching Ultimate embroidery kit that I ordered just before New Year’s (there was a weird problem with the post and it was presumed lost so they sent another… which turned up a day after the original one finally came, d’oh!)

It’s got pretty much everything you need to start embroidering stuff (including a half apron and my chosen designs, Tattoo Your Towels), and I’ve already assembled everything into a nice, pink, dedicated embroidery box, ready for transport! Maybe it will impove my very simplistic embroidery skills as seen on my mom and niece’s sleep masks!

The other parcel came from Cindy, my former uni housemate and now Amazon fairy!

She read how I’m not so well and decided to perk me up with the best gifts ever. It’s almost scary how well she knows me!! In the parcel was The Beautiful Fall (a book about Yves St Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld in 1970s Paris), The Art of Manipulating Fabric (more on that below), and Mad Men Season One dvd (which I’ve really been wanting to see but missed when it was shown on BBC4)!

Inspiration

Return to Goldhawk Road!

On Saturday I once again ventured to the ever-brilliant Goldhawk Road here in London. This time I was lucky enough to have Anwen and Isabelle as my partners in fabric fondling, glitter disgust, and pattern and supplier informing. It’s so much more fun to go fabric shopping with fellow sewists, especially if they possess a daughter as patient as Anwen’s and a resolve as steadfast as Isabelle’s (I cannot believe she only bought the two fabrics she came looking for!!).

But really, I wasn’t so bad myself. I’ve only got two lengths of fabric leftover from the previous trip: red corduroy which will still become trousers at some point, and dark heathered grey jersey, which is being made into a pyjamas set as we speak! So clearly my stash needed replenishing and my mood needed lifting so I was mostly looking for quality I couldn’t easily get elsewhere…

From top to bottom, I bought:

Inspiration

Sewing Gift Guide

Christmas is coming up, and so I thought I’d offer a helping hand to all the friends, relatives, and significant others of the sewing obsessed looking for sewing gifts this holiday season. I’ve tried to roughly break this down into “beginners” and “everyone else”, but it helps if you can snoop around their sewing area first to have an idea of what they’ve already got before buying something off this list.

And if you’re reading this and are feeling truly overwhelmed, then:

  1. Print this page.

  2. Google for your nearest sewing or fabric store

  3. Give this page to a store clerk with a smile a “Can you help me please?” and let them show you what some of this stuff is…

For beginners

If you know someone who’s very new to sewing or is getting their first machine this Christmas, it’s a great idea to create a little bundle of all the necessary tools for someone just starting out. You can often find these pre-packaged at sewing shops, or to create your own for a new sewer, I’d recommend placing the following in a zippered pouch, box, or (if you yourself are a sewer) a sewn case:

  • Dedicated sewing scissors (write “fabric only” on the blades with a marker!)

  • Glass-headed pins (plastic-headed pins melt on contact with an iron!)

  • Clear ruler or hem gauge

  • A pack of standard sewing machine needles

  • A pack of hand sewing needles

  • A seam ripper

  • Spools of Sew All (polyester or cotton-coated polyester) thread in black and white (and also grey, beige, red, and navy if you’re feeling flush)

  • A tomato pin cushion

Inspiration

Retail therapy

Ahh, the beginning of the month – when my sewing money comes in, then goes right back out again… I have no problems whatsoever in budgeting in real life, but for sewing funds, it’s gone as soon as it hits my accounts!

First up was a notions restocking from Sew Essential after Laura reminded me that they stock the Vilene bias tape that BWOF is so crazy over for knit seam stabilisation. So I got a bunch of that, plus upholstery thread in grey and also gold for jeans topstitching, and a ginormous spool of Gutermann Sew-All in black as I’m nearly out and hardly anyone seems to stock it in huge quantities anymore. I also picked up a few boring but essential tools like a loop turner (yes, I have survived with a pair of locking tweezers up until now!), and a tracing wheel with a much kinder-to-the-hands wooden handle for tracing patterns. I also got a big ol’ roll of freezer paper for quick stencilling jobs (it’s not available in supermarkets here), and some silver jeans buttons, which were accidentally substituted with the boring brass variety. A quick email later and they’re sending out the silver variety while letting me keep the brass ones – that’s how customer service should be done! My feeling is that everyone makes mistakes, but it’s how they’re dealt with that sets people apart…

With the exception of Pip’s silk, I hadn’t bought fabric in a good, long time, so I suppose I was ripe for falling off the wagon. I’m making a concerted effort to track what I actually wear this month (which you’ll see at some point), and I realised that in cooler weather I definitely gravitate towards trousers and knit tops rather than the dresses and skirts I live in over the spring and summer. So, after a brief tour round the internet, I fell prey to the charms of Crybaby’s Boutique yet again! You may recall that I bought some sturdy denim and chestnut print lycra from them before and was really pleased with the quality, so fingers crossed for this bunch, too.