May 2019 projects

ctmidd
Jun 1, 2019
4 min read

This month I did alterations, shopped for fabric and made a top, it's been a busy month and I've been ill so I don't remember what order I did things in.

I bought a great pair of jeans in a charity shop as mine had become way too baggy, they were boot cut, not my favourite. I turned the jeans inside out and unpicked the bottom hem and pressed it flat. I drew a chalk line following the angle of the seam down the thigh and continued to the bottom of the leg, this would cut off the worst of the flare. I pinned and stitched the new seam, trimmed off the excess and overlocked before stitching the bottom hem back, I repeated this with the other leg. The jeans are now a much more pleasing shape.

I also bought a lace dress in a charity shop, it had a hideous drawstring waist that I decided to take out. I basically unpicked the stitching both sides of the drawstring channel, took it out and stitched the top and bottom back together without it. I haven't finished fiddling with it yet though.

I went to London for a few days, stayed at an airbnb on the canal behind Kings Cross, and had a horrible cold. On the last day I went fabric shopping, I went up to Edgware Road where there are a couple of shops and around the corner on Church Street. I spent most of my time in Joel & Sons Fabrics https://www.joelandsonfabrics.com/ it's a huge place with a massive selection and lots of helpful staff. I didn't find anything that fitted my desires at the time so I didn't buy anything but I would recommend the shop.

I moved on to Berwick Street in Soho, there are quite a few fabric shops down there. I went in one that had a huge selection of leathers, nothing that took my fancy though. I spent some time in The Berwick Street Cloth Shop https://www.theberwickstreetclothshop.com/ they had lots of rolls of lovely fabric and a lot of things I didn't care for. They had a small collection leather hides at the back and I found a distressed bronze/brown one that I really liked. The staff were friendly but not pushy and my purchase was wrapped carefully in tissue paper. The woman in front of me spent £240 on plain black wool and plain black lining, I don't think I would have. I looked in a few more shops and was beginning to lose hope for fabric I liked, and then I came upon Cloth House https://www.clothhouse.com/soho-store a shop that could have been stocked for me. They have a huge range of natural fabrics, hand woven, batiks, Japanese, all sorts of lovely things. I was left alone to browse, I pulled out rolls, felt things, unrolled things to look at, rolled them up again and put them back. I chose one fabric almost instantly and took longer to decide on my second, my mind was made up when I turned one I quite liked over and loved the reverse. This time my purchases came in a calico bag that I gave to my mum. I also went in the silk shop, there were 3 people, possibly designers choosing fabrics, it's a tiny shop so I didn't stop long, I eventually had to leave as their gushing was making me laugh.

My main project this month was a new top made with some lovely striped cotton I got on Nottingham market ages ago. I used an old top of mine for a pattern, I loved it and it's a similar weight of fabric to the striped, and it's now far too big for me. I cut along the seams trimmed off a couple of inches and drew a pattern from it. I cut my fabric and put it together starting with the neck. I put some interfacing on one of the neck pieces, stitched the two neck pieces together, turned to the right side and top stitched along the edge. I gathered the middle section of the front panel and pinned it to the neck and stitched. I added the bottom sections to the front and back pieces, as the top has open sides for the last few inches I tacked back the edges on the bottom sections before stitching the back and front pieces together. I tried it on and it needed taking in under the arms, across the back and needed darts for the bust. I pinned all the darts then drew them in carefully with chalk and tacked before stitching on the machine. I was a bit too quick with my scissors when I was trimming the neck, I didn't leave enough to hem with so I ended up making bias binding from my left over fabric and using that on the neck and armholes, I hemmed the bottom by hand and gave it a good press, It's actually baggier than I was intending, but it still looks good.

Today me and my mum went to the sale at our local furnishing fabrics shop. I wanted something heavier to make a pinafore type of dress and to have a general mooch. I found a lovely slate grey heavy fabric that draped really nicely. I also found a sheer pale grey that had been a display piece, I thought it would go well with a bit of embroidered grey I got in the last sale, I might make some kind of top with those.