How to make a simple sewing machine cover …

And keep your cats out of your stuff!

As you can probably guess, not having a proper sewing room, Simon and Sophie love getting into my stuff! (I use a small sewing cabinet on wheels, which I love. It lets me sew in any room or corner of the house!) Before today, I covered my sewing cabinet with a towel and my sewing machine with an old tee shirt – classy, huh?

I decided it was time to protect my sewing cabinet with a washable mat and protect whichever sewing machine I was using with a proper cover.

The sewing mat was quite easy. I measured the cabinet top. The bottom black layer of the mat was cut from a pre-quilted cotton remanent. The top layer was cut from a remanent of the fabric I used to make this swimsuit cover up. I just sewed the two layers together and added black bias tape around the edges. Easy to wash and handy for poking the odd pin into too!

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A long drawn out battle with beautiful fabric …

and I’m not quite finished yet!

Let me tell you what’s up …

I have been searching for a pattern and fabric to make a “replica” of my mother’s and aunt’s dresses in this photo. My Aunt was a seamstress back in Europe and she not only sewed for clients but also for herself and my mother. She used no patterns and could make anything! I thought I had the magical combination for this dress with this 100% Rayon Denim Challis I had in my stash – a favourite fabric of mine!

I still think this pattern, Vogue 1395, might work but it doesn’t have the rounded neckline that I want. Being lazy, I thought I might just make two bodice backs and use those to make the bodice instead.

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Salvage operations…

After sewing my Motor City Express jacket for possibly the whole of last month, I decided to tackle the small projects lying around next. Mending, shortening Mr. G.T.’s shirt sleeves from long to elbow length, and salvaging a few garments that I have made but don’t wear. Like many I have had a few Me Mades that turned out perfectly fine, BUT were not perfectly fine on me. Continue reading →

Still working on my Indie Patterns…

And I am sooo enjoying it! This time I am using a pattern from Skinny Bitch Curvy Chick, the Tonic 2 – with a few modifications.

Tonic 2, photo from SBCC

I have made the sleeves shorter for the summer and have made the hemline shorter in the front and longer in the back (like a mullet?).

Nice dress! Thanks, I made it!!

I found a material with a snake skin pattern on it. When I purchased it I had in mind to use the nice mellow solid blue (wrong) side, but after turning it this way and that I decided to go with the snake skinned side.

This definitely was an easy pattern: front, back and sleeves, then a few long strips for the self made bias tape around the neck, sleeves and hem – not something instructed in the pattern, but something else I decided to try. It was easy to sew with my sewing machine using a ball point needle and a long narrow zig zag stitch, holding the fabric taut as I sewed.

I used the blue (wrong) side for the bias tape, sewed it all on (blue side to snake skinned side) and then folded it over to the inside and pinned it so I could sew it again with my blind hem foot. This foot sewed the bias tape down, travelling in the ditch on the right side of the fabric, completely invisible.

Blind hem foot