Workshopped

I'm sorry! I've been reimagining my spare/sewing room as a working space and I’ve held my first workshop: I had five paying customers and they all said they would like to come again! I am a happy lady!


Three of them made bags (using my samples as inspiration), one a simple dress with a shirring elastic bodice for her teenager and one embarked on a frilled top for her 6 year-old. There was a spectrum of experience/ability/confidence/perfectionism, which made it interesting for me, and they all claimed they’d learned something they’d not known.

When I was taught to sew at secondary school we all had to make a bag to keep our sewing in, then a roll in which to keep our science instruments, and finally a smocked apron with shell edges on the ties (for our mothers) before we were let loose on an actual garment. At that point we were taught to use tailor’s tacks, pin then tack seams before we could machine stitch, and generally do things properly! It was interesting to watch the various techniques these largely self-taught ladies used: most were determined to put pins in every inch and take them out as they were reached. I confess I rarely do more than the occasional pin and then I put them at right angles to the seam and sew straight over them. This is a risky strategy since if you hit a pin you will break your needle, bend the pin and ruin your machine (i.e. don’t try this at home!). However, I have had my machine since the fifth form and it does me fine. Obviously I don’t need pins if I’m sewing in straight lines nor for most seaming, but perhaps for attaching a collar or setting in a sleeve. In industry there isn’t time to mess about with pins and tacks if you’re going to earn your piecework money, you need skill and practice. It isn’t wrong to tack and/or pin of course, but I hope to increase 'my' tutees skill levels so that they don’t always have to.

I’m looking forward to next week’s session now – though I must get Youngest’s prom dress made by next Friday or there’ll be trouble!

AWOL

I’m sorry I’ve not been to visit here, and failed to visit everybody else, but I have been busy ‘doing’.

Father’s chair is complete and will be delivered this weekend. Friendwithmatchinggirls’ curtains are all altered for her new house and will be delivered tomorrow. I have been out lifting and dividing perennials in my garden where spring has finally sprung: there is frogspawn in the pond and daffodils, pulmonaria and primroses flowering in every direction. The washing's gone out on the line at last. The hall and landings are being decorated so we're living in a certain amount of chaos, but it will be lighter and brighter - and cleaner!

Now, have you been watching The Great British Sewing Bee? (And yes, I thought they were spelling bees, I’m not sure about sewing ones.) It’s Bake Off with sewing. Thing is, I’m definitely part of the target audience as both a seamstress and a keen viewer of many cooking programmes, and I know it’s early days, but it’s not right yet… I want more information about the tasks and how they should look, I want closer detail of the stitching they’ve done so that I can better understand what’s right/wrong about it, and I want a better rapport between the three presenters. Did Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood get it right at the start? I don’t know as I didn’t watch the first series, but they give down to earth feedback without it seeming as though they are trying not to be scathing – I feel the nice lady from the WI and the smart tailor don’t even have a passion for sewing in common. Claudia’s cute but a bit too random in her comments, without the humour that is Mel and Sue. Episode three of four is tonight on BBC2; I hope it gets another series, but with amendments. Watching Paul Hollywood making bread last night affirmed how beautifully food is now photographed at all stages; it would make all the difference if they could do the same for stitching.

In business-ish..

Have got no further with a business plan and rather think I won't bother for the moment. I guess if I was going to go into a major life changing type living off my earnings project I would need to be professional and do the work, but it is more about finding a useful and interesting way to spend my time. I realise that makes me lucky, but since I'm still the chief cook and bottle washer, not to mention decorator, cleaner and taxi driver extraordinaire I don't think I need to feel too guilty.

I've been having a very stitchy summer - and if I was cleverer I'd be adding lovely photos - but you will have to imagine for the moment! I made a pair of curtains for Youngest from an old short pair trimmed with a duvet cover and am now engaged playing with matching scraps to make cushions for her bed. Then I created a curtain to cover a shelf of shoes, cushions, laundry bag and heart for H to go in her new student room in Cardiff in a beautiful grey/blue spotty classic cotton. Next I produced yet more curtains and cushions (baby blue with white spots) for the girls' 'playroom' which I have newly painted in a classic cream in a successful attempt to lighten their north facing room with dark blue carpet. Decorating with hearts and squares from co-ordinating scraps so very little money spent.

Have also done some mending for a friend for which I was paid actual money- not going to make my fortune, but enough to more than cover the cost of the girls' fabric. Two pairs of suit trousers shortened for her husband, and two skirts shortened for her so she might actually wear them!

My lovely hairdresser came yesterday and brought my hair under control. Turns out she has decided to marry her partner and father of her impending offspring, so I dropped in the fact that I might be able to help. She got all excited and insisted on seeing my wedding dress and then went through my scrap book of makes... She's on a tight budget, but that wouldn't necessarily be a problem if it got me some business would it?!