Category: craft

Not the city (unfortunately) but the Amy Butler skirt pattern. Back in October, I attended an “A-line skirt workshop” at the Make Lounge in Islington and this is the result (excuse the not-brushed-my-hair-or-put-any-makeup-on picture).

I love this skirt. It has somehow ended up being a little big, despite fitting perfectly when I tried it on at the workshop. It’s still perfectly wearable though so I haven’t bothered trying to take it in at all.

The fabric is a red gabardine from John Lewis and is slightly heavier than the cotton that is suggested for the pattern but is the perfect weight for a winter skirt. The lining is a not terribly interesting grey/lilac polyester which I mainly picked to be a nice contrast.

I really enjoyed the workshop. The pattern is well-written and easy to follow anyway but, since this was my first time trying to make anything from a pattern, it was great to have someone there to guide me. I learned how to adjust the pattern to fit my measurements and a neat way of shortening a skirt pattern (particularly one that claims it only makes one length). As always with the Make Lounge, the evenings themselves were good fun, a couple of glasses of wine and some good company can make sewing a surprisingly social activity.

There is a guilty secret attached to this skirt though:

It’s not actually finished! There is just a very little hand-sewing left to do to attach the lining to the zip and to add a hook and eye at the top of the zip. Unfortunately, neither of these things are visible when the skirt is worn so I’ve been wearing it lots anyway and have very little motivation to do the finishing. Maybe now that I’ve admitted my laziness to the internet, I’ll finally get around to finishing it properly.

I mentioned last weekend that I had made a prototype for this year’s Christmas cards but didn’t include a photo. The reason for this was that the best photo I had taken of it looked like this:

For me, prototypes really are prototypes. They are the first attempt to see if it is even remotely possible to physically create something that in any way resembles the vision in my head and maybe, if I’m really lucky, work out some of the initial kinks in the process. Believe it or not, in my world, this is a photo of a highly successful prototype.

However, since I doubted that anyone would find that photo terribly interesting or inspirational and thought that most people would probably pity my poor family and friends for having such ugliness inflicted upon them, I thought I would wait until I had moved past the prototyping stage and made at least one finished article.

Doesn’t that look better?

(In a fit of craft-related productiveness, I even managed to remember to take photographs of the process and have put up a tutorial on Yellow Ginger showing how it’s done.)

Sewing notions rather than knitting notions, for a change.

Steven and I visited the East London Design Show in Shoreditch last night and loved the sewing notions from Merchant and Mills.

The quality of the packaging and design is at least matched, if not exceeded, by the quality of the notions themselves. The sidebent tailor’s shears, in particular, feel absolutely amazing.

Unfortunately, the gift box of notions and the shears are going to be a Christmas present for someone who isn’t me so I don’t get to keep them. I did treat myself to some proper tailor’s chalk but might have to pay their website a visit to stock up on some other bits. (You can never have too many pairs of really good scissors, right?)

There are lots of other awesome designers at the show (Steven managed to do most of his Christmas shopping in just one evening) so it’s worth a visit if you’re in the area. (You can get a 2-for-1 entry voucher by signing up for the mailing list on the show website.)