Red Gertie Hack

Happy Friday everyone! We've been having a heatwave here, I bet you're bored to death of hearing about it by now. Last night the humidity broke and it poured it down, so today it's a beautiful day with a light breeze, perfect. I've been getting a lot of sympathy due to the heat, which is lovely. However, the office isn't actually that hot it's just walking about that is warm, I am running low on work clothes now which I'm going to have to rectify sometime soon... in all that free time I have (?!)

I finally got a free evening to try and go swimming last night so off I trotted to the aquatic centre to give it a go. Mostly I went to feel the weightlessness of the baby in the water, as it is amazing! So I mostly just floated (whilst trying not to get in the way of the super serious guy who decided to swim fast in the slow lane that me and a lady were happily occupying). I was a bit surprised when I got out of the pool and felt the weight I'd been carrying around, no wonder I'm so slow getting about.

This top... no longer fits. Neither does the skirt! Ha ha! It's under a little bit of strain in this picture, and it only got worse I'm afraid. But I absolutely love it and can't wait to get it out of the wardrobe post-bump. 

The original pattern that I started from was the Gertie vintage blouse. I know there's actually a blouse really similar to the one that I made in the book, but I'm lazy, and as I'd already traced off the one below I just made changes to that. 

I scooped out the neckline, left the sleeves as they were and left out the large darts at the sides. I also left out the button closure at the back as I wanted this to be a very simple top. I was left with a roomy, comfy plain top. 

Construction on this was crazy simple, I followed the instructions for the BHL Anna, whereby you stitch the shoulder seams together first, hem the sleeves, and then hem under the arms. This means that you don't end up with tiny arm holes to hem all the way around on a delicate fabric, hooray!

PGP Update: I overdid it with the holidays (mixed with a bunch of unusual/ uncomfortable beds) which meant I was pretty sore last week. However, I saw the physio on Monday and have been much better since. I had my first full week in work this week, without having to work from home once!! As a note on what happens with PGP, just look at how crazy misaligned I was at this stage!! (This must be over a month ago now) Look at my shoulders! This is me thinking I'm standing straight, no wonder the physio said, ooh yes you are quite twisted ha ha!

Those of you with amazing memories may remember I talked about the embroidery on this blouse in my Sew magazine column a while ago. The plainness of this top made me want to add a little something, as you know I struggle with plain. Instead of trying to make flowers with any fancy stitches, I freehand drew the design I wanted onto my blouse and stitched this in tiny back stitch, sometimes simple is best. 

If you'd like to learn the art of embroidery, then come along to my next class at the ministry of craft, new dates to be published very soon. Ministry of Craft

I reinforced the section to be embroidered with silk organza, which worked perfectly, however I should have zig-zagged the edge of this as it has frayed as you can see here.

The neckline has also been faced with bias binding for a clean finish on the inside. I love bias binding, I know everyone says that but this a true and deep love that dares speak its name. It just makes things like this hack, (where I have drafted the neckline) so much easier as you don't then need to draft a co-ordinating neck facing.

I hope the weather holds for you this weekend, I'm going back to Blackburn for a family do and also going to a Brian Cox stars talk type thing on Sunday, looking forward to it! Though... not sure what happened to 'I'm definitely done with going anywhere' ha ha. Apparently I don't believe in taking it easy. 

Side note: my ankles are massive, that is all.

Me Made May '13

'I, Deborah of dfabrication, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '13. I endeavour to wear at least one me made item twice a week, posting the outfits on my blog at least once a week for the duration of May 2013' 

I signed up for Me Made May! Possibly the hair that broke the camels back or some other such proverb, but I couldn't help myself. I'm trying to be much more involved in the whole sewing community and therefore So'Zo's massively popular challenge (where members wear one me made item a day for the month) seemed a good place to start. Of course, I haven't gone quite to that extent, mostly because of my four skirts, 2 dresses and 2 tops does not a months worth of clothes made. But I thought it would be a great opportunity to try and stick to blogging more, (which is why you can see I've added blogging to my pledge) and a way of finding inspiration for my next make. 

And on to my first pic for Me Made May!

A fabulous pose I'm sure you'll agree... quizzical

This is my second Mathilde Blouse, I loved the first one I made so much I started another immediately, worn with my second New Look 6128. You can't tell in this (rather badly lit) photo, but it's a sleeveless option. I'm so proud of this top, it's made of a chiffon-like mystery fabric (another pickup from my days at Abakhan). And I managed to get the tucks to be pretty darned straight! I've got a more in-depth post planned... But in the meantime Happy Bank Holiday Weekend!

I've got my embroidery workshop tomorrow, only one place left! I'm so excited, and nervous, and various expletives of feeling. Wish me luck,

Deborah

Introduction to Embroidery, and teaching stuff

So over the past few months I have been hinting at a very exciting something coming up in the future. This is something I've wanted to do for the longest time, and I thought I'd share my feelings on why! But first, details of the course.

Dun dun du-dun dun duuuuh!

 

I will be teaching a hand embroidery class at Fred Aldous in Manchester for the wonderful people at Ministry of Craft.

In a three hour slot you will learn how to make this Russian Doll design on a classy tea towel, and take away two patterns for smaller Russian dolls to complete the set.

You will learn basic embroidery stitches, including backstitch and chain stitch, then progress up to daisy chain, blanket stitch and french knots.

The class costs £35 and you can reserve your place here.






So onto the philosophising! I'll begin at the beginning, when I was at School I decided to be a teacher, probably a secondary school teacher (because teaching teenagers for some reason didn't scare the bejesus out of me) and teach them English, possibly Drama. So I went to uni to do Literary Studies, Classic Civilisations and Drama. This was when the train became derailed slightly. I was put off teaching, I had exhausted my brain. I didn't want to go straight into teacher training, I wanted to do nothing, sit around all day and stare at the TV and not think about the future. This is something I've heard from alot of other people at university, that actually instead of motivating you to go forward you feel demotivated, lacking in energy and generally depressed by the end of it. Is this something you've encountered/ experienced? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

So I decided to take a couple of years off, whats the rush? I said, teaching will always be there, and what with the further study and the hell a lot of work involved when you get the job I just couldn't face it. So I worked, first in a fabric shop, where I learnt loads of new crafting skills, and then got into admin jobs (another thing loads of people from uni are now doing). I attempted to sew and sell stuff for a while, but realised that I don't like doing lots of the same item over and over, I don't have the patience for it. Also, selling to people who have that look in their eye (I could make that) became depressing. Therefore all power to those who manage this! I bow down to your patience and perseverance. If you do this, share your thoughts on how you manage it, I'd love to hear them.

And then I moved to Edinburgh, where I decided now was the time to apply for teacher training, so I became a Scout leader to gain experience. I also joined Granny Greens and started helping out on the workshop evenings, throwing in tidbits of help here and there, which then grew to become leading most of the workshops at the craft group by the time I'd left (bigging myself up here). Now I loved the teaching aspects of these (due to the aforementioned wanting to teach) but they took up a lot of my free time, especially Scouts. And it occurred to me that I enjoyed doing this more than I would teaching. I was doing the things I wanted to do, leading young people (Scouts) and teaching crafts!

So! In conclusion, my dream now is coming true, and I'm going to be teaching a classroom full of people the basic skills needing to embroider. I'm so excited, and can't wait to get started. I can do my day job, which gives me the perfect balance of money, challenge, and going home not thinking about work, and I can do extra projects which fulfil my need to teach. I hope I see some of you at the class.

A very excited Deborah