Our Sewalongs

Butterick 4790

Every so often we schedule sewalongs as part of the LDC group's events.  This is how they work:

Our sewalongs usually start with some members of the London Dressmakers Club deciding that they would like to make either a specific garment or item, or something with a specific theme. Sewalong aren't "meetings" as such.  We don't meet up in a physical location for this, this is an opportunity to sew the item at home, at your own pace: a sewalong is just like a knitalong, you do your own thing and then you compare notes.

The scheduled event gives you a chance to exchange tips and comments with the others who have signed up. You can post comments on the Sewalong meetup page, or upload photos in the suitable photo album.  If you have a query or get stuck with your project, then ask a question in the comments or bring your work-in-progress along to a monthly meeting to ask the others for advice in person.

Meetup allows us to post meetings that last up to two weeks, but no more. The Sewalongs typically run much longer - we like to put them on for anything from two to three months.  It is up to you whether you might like to get started early and get it done, or if you want to space out your sewing a bit over the entire period. Life is busy and it can be a challenge to find sewing time.  It is important to be able to sew in whichever way works best for you.  The Sewalongs can be great inspiration and motivation to complete a specific item.

Some sewalongs are quite informal: we did put a 'simple item' sewalong on a while ago and dressmakers could make anything they wanted. We set a time of two months and invited comments and photos but didn't suggest any other framework or structure.

Other sewalongs were a bit more structured: we split the two months into several two week slots that we scheduled individually and suggested specific tasks for each part.  We will probably keep doing both kinds of sewalongs, some people prefer one to the other.

Our May/June/July sewalong is to make a Summer Wrap Dress - any kind. This came out of several members wanting to make the Walk Away dress (as seen on the Sewing Bee 2015: Butterick 4790 or the vintage edition Butterick 6015. There was even a 'Walk Away Dress, the Mini Version'! Butterick 6204), some of us have the pattern and want to make it up.  It is up to you whether you want to make the Walk Away dress or another kind of summer dress, it doesn't strictly have to be a wrap dress, this is more by way of suggestion.  Go with whichever pattern and style of dress you feel like!

Butterick 4790



Butterick 6015

Do you have any question about our sewalongs?  Don't be shy asking, just post a comment below or on the relevant sewalong meetup page.

Happy Sewing!


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Keeping track - the Android way

Barbara posted a wonderful blog post about iPhone apps to help you manage your fabric stash, pattern haul, cataloguing your thread, notions, books and equipment and other very useful sewing applications.

I am incredibly jealous because those unfortunately don't work on my Android phone. I am gutted! I could so do with an app that allows me to list all the dressmaking patterns I own.



I now found one app now that's pretty good at giving you a portable inventory of your fabrics - it is called Clothio.  You can pick photos of your fabric that you have already taken, or snap a new one from within the app (you get a copy of the photo in your phone camera directory).

You can specify the colour or colours present, whether you own it and how much of it (width and length).  You can tick several types of fibres (more than one if it's a blend) although this may not represent all the different kinds of fibres that exist. And select the kind of pattern, or none, of the fabric.

The header section allows you to name your fabric (I like to go with my initial impulse because I can remember it the best - particularly if it's a really silly name. Like Stardust Ziggy, or Wavy Art Deco - or anything equally wacky), you can make that longer by including the colour or fibre content because this name will show in two lines on the screen, though extremely long names would presumably get cut short.

The shop or source option allows you to list a specific shop or in my case just 'Goldhawk Rd', 'Brighton' or 'Walthamstow' because I can never remember the actual name. It'll do just nicely.  This will bring the named option up when you enter more fabrics, so you don't have to retype the information.

The 'Designer' option is a good one: this will show up as a subtitle under the name you've given your fabric, so if you want to use this for other information (like 'sheer', 'non-drapey' or 'feels plasticky' or anthing else you come up with) then add it here.



Clothio allows you to filter your fabrics by certain options, like colour.  It is really useful to do when you have to remind yourself what kinds of fabrics you have when you are looking to match your pattern with the best fabric. Let me know how you are getting on with this if you are also using it! That would be

I will keep looking for more apps to use on an Android but this one is the only one I found so far.

Does anyone else have a tip for me?  Something you use that works well for you?

I have also considered using an app for something like a photo organiser (I think there is Photobook and Picasa?) and see if I can organise fabrics or perhaps my patterns by using specific tags that will make it all searchable and filterable (if that's a word).  And a sewing app review mentioned a database called Memento that could work too - I'll have to check that out.

Please leave a comment if you can think of anything useful!

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Keeping Track

Some of us have out of control wardrobes and stashes, some have vowed to keep a better record of what they have and acquire in the future.  Below is some information about some sites or apps that I have come across that can help you to do this.  These are just a few and there are others out there.  Also some of you have an efficient manual way of keeping track.  Please share any methods, products and ideas with us by adding them in a comment below.

From The Sewing directory

These below are some apps listed on the Sewing Directory site

Pattern Pal

This app allows you to track your patterns, along with a couple of photos for each pattern, pattern notes plus details of the fabrics and notions associated with your patterns.  It is available from the iTunes store.

Sewing Kit HD 2.0

Taking the Fabric Stash concept a step further this app allows you to catalogue your patterns, fabric, thread, notions, books and equipment.  You can scan the barcodes of products to instantly upload the details.   You can also track the progress of your sewing projects, take screenshots or photos of anything that inspires you and save the measurements of the people you commonly sew for.

It is available in the iTunes app store and you can get more information about it on the developer’s website http://www.vestasoftware.net

Stash Star Fabric App

If your stash is getting so large you are losing track of what’s in there this is the perfect app for you.  It allows you to photograph and catalogue your stash, ideal for when you are out looking for matching notions.  You can also add in a wish list so you will always have a fabric shopping list to hand (not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.....)

It is available on the iTunes store here.

- See more at: http://www.thesewingdirectory.co.uk/sewing-apps/#sthash.8a88HRtf.dpuf

10 apps listed on an American site.

Thought this might be useful

http://appcrawlr.com/ios-apps/best-apps-fabric-stash

 From Coletterie

This site has some great tips, tutorials and ideas.  I’ve selected a few about planning and keeping track of a wardrobe and stashes.

http://www.coletterie.com/?s=wardrobe+architect

http://www.coletterie.com/inspiration/the-wardrobe-inventory

http://www.coletterie.com/fabric-haberdashery/how-to-organize-fabric

http://www.coletterie.com/peeks-in-the-studio/how-to-organize-a-mountain-of-sewing-patterns-

with-your-phone

My sewing Circle

mysewingcircle.com  This is supposed to be the sewing equivalent of Ravelry, but it doesn’t really seem to have got off the ground yet in terms of people using it, despite a change of people running it in December 2014.  However it does provide a way of listing projects, stashes etc and recording your finished projects. 

More about Stash Star Fabric app

A review from I want to Be a turtle Blog  http://www.iwanttobeaturtle.com/

Can I make a Dress in a Day? Part 1- Tracing a pattern from Burda Style Magazine

Of course, I am addicted to reading Dressmaking Blogs and am always amazed when the blogger says how little time it took to make a garment.  I was prompted to try and make a dress in a day after reading of a top with interesting seaming and a peplum that took only 40 minutes to make.  I had a whole day when I thought I had nothing to do so decided to give it a go.
There was a dress that I wanted to make that appeared to be straight-forward with only 4 pieces - Back, front, sleeves and a facing strip.  It was designed for stretch fabric and needed no closures or fastenings.  It was a pattern in a Burda Style Magazines.  If you are not familiar with these magazines, issued monthly, they appear to offer Dressmaker's Heaven, that is a large number of patterns for a small monetary outlay: for example 17 patterns for £4.75.  However, you might not like all the patterns in an issue plus you have to trace the individual pattern from sheets inside the magazine.  This is when Heaven may turn into Hell so I am going to show how I do it.
Each garment is given a number (106 in my case).  On turning to the instruction in the magazine for that particular number you will see a box that tells you which Pattern sheet you want  and what colour the outline of the pieces will be.  It also shows you the pieces and the number that they are allocated on the sheet .  Below you see the information for my chosen garment (plus some pencil notes of simple lengthening amendments I intended to make to the pattern).

So I need to locate pattern sheet B, with a red pattern line, pieces 21 to 23 for style 106 with the type of line marking used for size 36.  Below is the confusion with which you will be faced (this is sheet B and the pieces shaded completely in pink are the ones for a featured garment in the magazine, unfortunately not the one I chose).
But persevere.  Once the pieces have been located I use highlighter to go over the lines of the size that I want and to highlight any pattern markings, such as grainline, notches etc.  You can see the outline of the first piece for my dress highlighted in pink  across the bottom of sheet B.

Here in the picture below  the pattern markings are highlighted.  You can see I am highlighting piece 22.  Should you decide to make another garment using the same pattern sheet make sure you use a different colour highlighter to highlight that pattern.

I highlight each piece one at a time and then trace it before going on to highlight the next piece.  To trace I use ordinary greaseproof paper, cheap and easily obtainable from supermarkets.  The drawback is the limited width but you can always tape a bit on if  the width is insufficient.  When tracing I find it useful to put something solid on which I can rest my tracing hand, this both helps to stop my hand from shifting the paper and provides an extra weight to keep the paper and pattern in place.  My grader's set square is ideal for this, see the picture below.

Below is the traced pattern on which I have marked details such as fold line, gathering points etc. and size, model number and which issue of the magazine it came from as I shall add it to my file of traced patterns in case I wish to use it again.

Patterns in the Burda Style magazine do not have seam allowances included so you have to add them yourself where necessary.  This does mean that you can choose the seam allowance you want, narrower or wider than the standard 1.5 cm for seams and the depth of hem allowance you require.  I use the grader's set square to mark the seam allowance for any straight lines and a seam gauge,as below, to mark the allowance on curves.

Then, at last, I have my pattern pieces complete and ready to cut out with paper scissors before laying on my fabric.  All this took one and three quarter hours, although that does include stopping to take even more photographs of the process than you see here.  And then I went for a tea break, as I am about to do now.  Part 2 to follow later.

Goldhawk Road fabric shopping

A good dozen or so of us went fabric shopping today on Goldhawk Road in Shepherds Bush.  And a lot of shopping was being done!  There seemed to be almost too much fabric to make an informed choice - there certainly are a lot of shops.

We went to the Bush Theatre cafe/bar afterwards - such a welcome chance to rest our weary feet.  It also offered the wonderful opportunity to see and admire what we all bought.

There were such lovely fabrics and trims on show that a few of us started to seriously consider going back and buying more!

I'm glad to say that I didn't, but I'm also a little embarrassed to say that I bought more than the two fabrics I wanted. Now we all knew this would happen, right?

My one comfort is the thought that I have projects in mind for each of them.  Which made me think that a blog post would be great about what we are all hoping to make with our purchases today.

Here go mine, please feel free to add your project plans in the comments, or send me an email so I can send you your invite to contribute directly to the blog (we are hoping that all LDC members want to contribute, either via posts or in the comments)

At A One Fabrics I bought a dark blue wool - I am hoping to make this a straight skirt for winter.  If I make it soon I should be able to decide if I want a jacket in this, so I can go back and buy more.  Right now I only have one metre because it was rather expensive.  I really wanted a thicker fabric for a skirt, this was one of the planned purchases.

I also got a blue on blue batik fabric in the same shop for a sleeveless summer top.

The second fabric I wanted was a mid grey to make a bias cut top to go under a see-through lacey blouse. Success!  Two metre for £2 each, bargain!

I liked this fabric so much that I also got another two metres in a purple - maybe a cowl neck sleeveless top?

The same place also had a loosely woven cotton or linen in a light pink.  The exact shade I was after to make some bunting with that I wanted to make for some time.  I just need a bit of grey and navy fabric and I'll be good to go!

And finally I couldn't resist a black and white linen to make a second tunic out of.  I bought a very similar linen fabric in a big floral pattern from the same place some time ago and regretted not having bought more: this is just so lovely to wear!

Funnily enough Emma happened to buy the same fabric - it'll be really good fun to see what we each make with it.

What did you buy, either on our shopping trip or elsewhere - and what are you hoping to make?  It would be lovely if you add your ideas and plans in the comments, or put them up in a seperate blog post.  Just send me your email address and I'll send through the invite so you can post directly.