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!

Matchy mommy and matchy munchkin

My local Asda has inexplicably started reducing bits of clothing to £1 and putting them on a little rail next to the 'Travelator'. Most of it is useless - bikini bottoms with no tops, or huuuuuge bras*, but there have been a few star finds.

A few weeks ago there were two sun dresses made from lovely cotton, one a size 22 and the other size 24. 'No problem' I thought, 'All the more fabric to play with!' Here's dress No. 1 in its original state:

And here's the top I made for me:

I cut it a little too short initially, so I added a band at the bottom to lengthen it a bit:

Here's the back:

The elasticated bit was already in the dress, which gave the top a nice shape around the chest and then made it a bit smocky as it widened out.

And here's the skirt I made for Munchkin:

This was so easy. All the hard work was done, as I used the bottom of the dress as the bottom of the skirt. I just sewed up the side, made a casing at the top and popped my elastic in. And I still have some fabric left over! Enough to make another Munchkin skirt, although she doesn't really need two.... maybe I'll make it and run a giveaway.

I still have to tackle dress No. 2, which is a lovely sage green colour. It's just a shame it's now autumn and I'm going to have to wear chunky big cardigans over my new sun tops :)

*Ok, maybe these things would be useful to people who don't mind topless sunbathing, or who have huuuuuge bosoms.