First post in my new blog

Welcome to my new blog!

After receiving some encouragement from fellow sewers on the Make a Garment a Month Challenge, I decided to go ahead after all and create a blog - this time on Blogger. I had decided to create a blog for the New Year and followed some steps and ended up with a domain name and a website, together with ongoing costs and scary high profile but not very efficient support. It was clear that the company expected a high powered website set up to promote a business, sell items etc. All I wanted was a way to chart my (hopefully) progress so there was a clear mismatch! I withdrew from the company but had already paid for my domain name for a year.

I notice lots of blogs on PatternReview.com and follow a number myself. I find them very entertaining and informative. They offer a lot in the way of additional information about patterns and techniques. I’m a beginner but felt that I wanted to chart my progress over a year. I have never managed to keep a diary but resolved that I would start a blog. This is it - so resolution 1 ticked off!

Now I need to use the blog to chart my progress. This is my first posting. I’m not sure how to link and need some photos!

Another resolution I made was to join the Make a Garment a Month Challenge. There was no way I could go on a garment fast as I couldn't sew fast enough or well enough to allow this. But one garment a month for myself sounded feasible. I decided that the garment would be one which I couldn't buy easily and more cheaply such as tops and underwear but would be those that I find virtually impossible to buy such as jackets, blouses and trousers. I am tall with a long torso and this leads to fitting problems - on blouses, bust darts don't point to the right place, body is too short and so are sleeves. Similar issues with jackets. On trousers, the crotch depth is too little - leg length is less of an issue. So a big challenge for me is to get fit right! I want to aim towards garments that look good, that fit well and are finished well, so that they look good inside too. I also plan to use good quality fabrics, a lot natural. Hopefully these garments will fill gaps in my wardrobe and coordinate with each other.

I also plan to go through my wardrobe and prune. A lot of clothes just don't fit well, especially as I have lost a bit of weight over the last year. I have a large bundle of clothes that I planned to alter but perhaps I should just give them to charity now rather than later. And I resolve not to gain that weight back again and to exercise.

For a new sewer, I already seem to have accrued a large stash of fabric! I plan to stash bust largely by using the fabrics as muslins as I don't want to spend a lot of effort to achieve a fitting garment with fabric I don't like or that is quite simply not good enough. I also have a lot of patterns - and books, I'm a bookaholic - so I really need to make some of these patterns before buying new ones. Some of the patterns came with Craftsy courses and I really must complete some of these, certainly before buying any more. Most of these classes are to help with fit and I also have the Sure Fit Designs kit. Last year I started to make the basic garments but because I was losing weight, every time I tried them they needed to be altered again. This was very frustrating so I put the whole thing on the back burner. I'm stable now, so I plan to start the process again.

My fabric stash and various notions waiting to get organised:

 
My threads, fabrics, patterns and everything else were totally disorganised. For my Christmas, my husband bought me a Horn sewing machine cabinet. Today, he has been busy building up a number of Ikea Expedit units to use as book and notion storage for my sewing. This is in our dining room, which is large and not used much as a dining room so perfect to be part used as a sewing room and the dining room table is great for laying out patterns.

Some of my new units:

 I have an old dressmaking model but she doesn't bear much relation to me in shape, I'm afraid. Although she has an adjustable waist, she doesn't adjust long enough and breasts are in the wrong place. I've read a few posts about altering existing dummies, and about choosing new ones. I think we are going to try to make one. We've seen posts on duct tape models, on paper tape models, on plaster etc. David is going to cast me in modrock and use that to make a model. Watch this space!

 By next week, my new sewing space should be sorted out and I can sew again. I will post a picture of my space. These photos were taken very quickly tonight when I realised I'd better have a couple of in progress photos but my next will be better quality as they'll be during the day.

Anne