What I are not lerning

The few of you who read my blog regularly might wonder where my college course updates have disappeared to. They haven't been written for a variety of reasons - one week was an assesment week where we re-organised our folders for submission (booooooring), one week was half term, and last week I missed because of some evil cold flu virus thing which currently is making me feel like someone has stuffed a whole packet of cotton wool in my ears before submerging my head in a goldfish bowl.

But the main reason I haven't posted about my course is that I'm really not feelin' the love for it. It is not what I thought it would be AT ALL. We do lots of sketchbook work. We have to look at architecture. We have to choose an artist to research. We have to do mood boards every bloomin' week. Which is great, if that's the sort of thing you want to learn about, but not so great if you still don't know how to do button holes. Or cuffs. Or place a sleeve. Or do a placket, whatever one of those is.

I'm not going to drop out, as I paid a lot of money to enrol (a lot for me, anyway), and so I want to see it through to the end. But there's really no point me writing any more updates on it because I don't feel there's anything useful to pass on to you peeps. I might post some photos of the jacket we're currently making (which involves no real technical skills - we're given the pattern to use, it's open fronted, so no fastenings, and it has no collar or cuffs). And our final project is turning a design of our own into a pattern, which I'm hoping I'll be able to develop and test and eventually maybe even *gasp* sell, so there will hopefully be a few updates on how that's going.

The one thing I have learnt is that I want to make my own patterns. By the end of my course I should have the basic skills to be able to do this, which is great. Although they'll have to be patterns for garments without fastenings, cuffs or collars of any sort :)

Guilty as charged

If there's one thing I'm good at, it's guilt. I feel guilty 80% of the time. And the other 20% I'm asleep. Is it a female thing? I asked mr pickledweasel whether he feels guilty about things and he just looked at me strangely and asked if I'd been on a major fabric buying spree and was trying to confess :)

I feel guilty for crafting. Because the living room is messy / the bathroom needs cleaning / there's a huge pile of ironing / I haven't read any grown-up books for ages / I don't watch the news any more. I feel guilty for doing housework because it's time not spent with Munchkin. I feel guilty for spending time with Munchkin because I never do any housework.

I feel guilty for taking my college course, because it costs £150 and I don't have much money. I feel guilty for not doing my college course homework because the course cost £150.

I feel guilty for not buying Munchkin annoying electronic 'educational' toys when I see how much she enjoys playing with them in hospital waiting rooms. I feel guilty for going out and buying Munchkin an annoying electronic 'educational' toy because it is plastic and uses batteries. I buy a second hand one from a charity shop and it eases the guilt somewhat :)

I feel guilty for blogging. Because it takes up time. Because I'll often sack off doing other (more important?) things and write a blog post instead. Because deep down I know I only do it for attention. I like it when people comment. When they 'follow' me. I want people to say, 'Ooooh, look what you made / said aren't you clever / funny!' And that makes me feel guilty, because I think that maybe I shouldn't need to seek validation from random strangers on the interweb.

So I'm making a few changes. I won't blog every day. I'll try and focus on quality rather than quantity - two posts a week at most. That way I can do a few tutorials, book reviews, give you hints and tips from my college course, rather than just post pictures of Munchkin and wait for the compliments to flood in. I was getting bogged down by trying to blog frequently, and not thinking about whether my posts offered any value to my 'readership' (*waves* hello readership!).

Hopefully you'll notice an improvement in my photography skills as well - I'm trying to take well lit photographs so that my blog looks 'proper' (although a lot of things I need to do this are on my Christmas list, so it might be January before you notice an improvement :). If I'm going to blog (and still feel guilty about it) then I'd better do it well :D

All this thinking and changing and trying not to feel so guilty has been brought about by a fabulous online course I signed up to about blogging, run by the amazingly wonderful Sister Diane, she of CraftyPod fame. It's really made me think about what my blog is for, and changed my perspectives a lot.

In the meantime I'm sure I'll find something else to feel guilty about in the place of blogging. Biscuits, not replying to emails straight away, forgetting birthdays, buying new moisturiser before I've finished the old one, wanting shoes, not exercising.... the list is endless :)

What I are Lerning - weeks 5 & 6

I've decided to summarise two weeks classes in one post, as it helps with time management (anyone know where I can buy an extra 24 hours a week?!?) and it seems we're alternating between exciting weeks and boring but necessary weeks, so it makes for more interesting reading :)

Last week we still didn't get round to buttonholes. We did buttons though. I never thought there could be so much to learn about sewing on a button :) The best tip was to use a cocktail stick for spacing.

When you sew a button on, you need to leave some slack thread so that the fabric with the buttonhole in will fit nicely when the button is fastened, and the thread won't be stretched.

This week we started to draw up a basic pattern. There was maths, there were set squares, and there were pieces of paper so big I had to work on the floor because they wouldn't fit on the table. It was all a bit scary to begin with, but it started to make sense towards the end of the lesson. Next week is half term, so no college, but I have plenty of homework to be getting on with. I've also started to make another boob tube dress, with the idea that I'll wear it to my works Christmas do.

The fabric is a lovely stretchy cotton with grey, pink and green stripes. Unfortunately it's not quite stretchy enough, and so I've had to make the top bigger to accommodate my boobs, which leaves a bit of bagginess around the waist area. I'm thinking some kind of ribbony lacing at the back might work to help shape it up, but I'm not sure about all the technicalities.... I'll let you know how it turns out :)

What I are Lerning - weeks 3 & 4

I've combined this week and last week for a couple of reasons - because I was ill I missed my class on Monday and went along on Wednesday instead, so I haven't really had time to do a post about it, and it was a bit of a boring (but necessarily so) class.

My excitement about buttonholes and pockets was short lived, as our tutor has slowed things down a bit and we did seams. Yawn. We have been promised buttonholes next week. I think because there's 15 of us it's taking a lot longer to cover topics, and some people are complete beginners, so the pace has been adjusted accordingly.

I did learn things about seams though. The first thing was if you don't have an overlocker and you want to neaten seams but you're a bit lazy and don't want to zigzag everything, use pinking shears. The second thing was I need to buy some pinking shears. The third thing was I really want an overlocker.

This week was far more exciting. We made a dress! From jersey!! Which up til now has been my most feared fabric. Yet I have conquered it :) It's a very simple dress - rectangular boob tube up top, rectangle skirt below. Mine is all shiny because my theme is around Ndidi Ekubia's work, and she works in metal. You can wear it loads of different ways - I've decided to fold the boob tube bit double, so the skirt is shorter and more tunicy. Here's the dress with the boob tube at its full length:

I don't think it looks as nice this way, it's a bit too eighties, although that may just be the fabric (£1 a metre from the old magic fabric shop). Plus it makes me look short :) Here it is with the top doubled over. See, much taller!

I managed to get the whole thing sewn in class, although when I got home I looked at it closely and really wasn't happy with the gathers along the skirt, so I unpicked it all and redid it. We'd loosely pinned the skirt on to the top at 8 different points, and our tutor suggested we make the gathers up as we go along, pulling the top tight and runckling the skirt fabric as we sewed. My runckles weren't small enough and so looked very patchy. Instead I pinned little rough pleats and then sewed so it's a bit more uniform.

It's not quite finished, as I want to make a belt to go under the bust line with some of the leftover fabric. Grandma pickledweasel's given me some interfacing, so I think I'll do a broad shaped band with some sort of stitching on the front, but I need to give it a bit more thought. This dress is our first assignment, so we have to reflect and evaluate the whole process, as well as provide sketches. Eeeek. Drawing. Help! Our homework for next week is to do four still life sketches. I won't embarrass either you or myself by sharing my feeble efforts.

I'm not planning on wearing this sparkly affair by the way, it's just for my assignment. And apologies for the 'I don't know what to do with my hands' modelling poses :)

What I are lerning

I started a college course a couple of weeks ago, and I thought it would be a good idea to do a little post about what I've learnt each week. It's a 30 week course entitled, 'Developing Sewing Skills for Fashion', and it's exactly what I have been looking for for about the last five years. It covers a little bit of arty farty stuff - aspects of design, how to develop ideas, that kind of thing, and then the rest is practical skills - button holes, cuffs, pleats, overlocking, waistbands etc.

I haven't done a post for the first week as we covered things like what to do if the fire alarm goes off, what equipment we need, and who they should contact in an emergency (like if we sew our finger to the table or something), and that's all very important but not very interesting.

This week we made our first mood board, which involved lots of sticking and cutting and felt very primary schoolish, but actually looked quite good. Mine was based around the two photos of metal objects, which are part of an exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery. They're by an artist called Ndidi Ekubia, who was born in Manchester but now works in London.

On the practical side of things we got to grips with the industrial sewing machines (eeek!), and learnt about pleats. In class we just ironed fabric into pleats to get the idea, but I thought it would be best if I tried to put them into context just to see them work properly. So here is a version of the ruffle sleeve top from Sparkle Power's blog with an inverted pleat in the front:

It took me a while to work out the alterations I needed to do to incorporate the pleat, and I did about 20 squillion more things than I needed to do to make the band across the front, but I like the way it turned out.

It's dress length at the moment, but I really don't think it will be warm enough for winter, even with tights underneath. So once it starts getting properly cold I'll shorten it to a tunic top length.

I also had a bit of an epiphany moment - just before I added the ruffly straps, I looked at the dress and thought, 'I've completely unintentionally made a really cool skirt for a small child!'. So I'm thinking I'll keep it when munchkin grows out of it, whip off the straps, and use it as a skirt.
I have no idea about sizes for bigger kids though - does anyone know what age child has a 20" waist?

Next week - button holes and pockets, woohoo!