Adventures in Dressmaking, Episode 2 - An Applique Cardigan

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Adventures in Dressmaking, Episode 2 - An Applique Cardigan

I am not a dressmaker and these projects are massive learning curves and really just a beginning. What is amazing to me, is that so far, both projects have turned out to be wearable and perhaps a little bit more even... amazing. I put this down to the fact that the garments are made in 100% soft cotton jersey. It is more forgiving and yields to your body shape however many curves you have and I do have curves.....

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ETSy, Embroidery and Ever so much to tell you!

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ETSy, Embroidery and Ever so much to tell you!

With that back to school feeling hanging in the air, it seems the perfect time for new ventures.  I have to say though,  starting your own small business in the creative genre, on your own, in this mega techy world, is not easy. You have to think of the idea, do the design, make it, write the pattern and be sure it is comprehensive, find out how to get it to the market place and source the supplies and then when you get there, it is just a sea of choices, a minefield of technology and a zillion competitors. It has taken me time to wander along this path. I have spent hours and hours learning how to do computer graphics and discovered that it is not easy to develop a new idea from the design wall, to the sewing table to the finished product, then back again to the design wall and the computer to try to put it into pattern format and then back to the sewing table and finally back to the computer. It has been a massive learning curve and although it has been fun, it has also been really hard work.

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Woven winter topiary Garden!

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Woven winter topiary Garden!

I wasn't really planning another blog post before the holidays, but somehow it has come to pass.  My sewing room sort of pulls me in somedays and I get totally lost in the idea of the moment.  Even so, I am not entirely sure how I came to be making this project now....there is an internet trail of clicks I suppose. It went from thinking about what to do with a patch of our garden, to looking at images of topiary gardens, to considering that these were a good topic for embroidery, to researching knot gardens, to sketching an idea, to raiding my fabric stash and picking up my needle.   I am not always a massive fan of the internet, which seems to take over our lives and especially that of our children, but actually it is a huge resource, when ever an idea pops into our heads and we can instantly find a world of inspiration out there.

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The Textile Collection at Gawthorpe Hall

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The Textile Collection at Gawthorpe Hall

Last weekend, I was lucky enough to get to visit Gawthorpe Hall and to see a sprinkling of the wonderful textile collection housed there.  When I was working towards my City & Guilds diploma in Sweden, I came across this collection in my research and first learned about Rachel Kay Shuttleworth - the founder of this extensive collection.   My first glimpse of her came in these wonderful books about the history of embroidery by Gail Marsh.  These books are simply wonderful if you love the history of embroidery - full of stunning photographs and packed full of information and techniques, these are ever present in my sewing room and much drooled over.  When I looked further into Gawthorpe's textile collection,  I made a mental bookark to visit this place on my return to England.  As it turns out, amazingly, I don't live too far away and last Saturday we made our first trip there. 

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Adventures in Dress Making with Alabama Chanin

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Adventures in Dress Making with Alabama Chanin

So excited to write about this one - really, I cannot tell you how much.......Where to begin....at the very beginning, I suppose.   Last year, when I was finishing up my City & Guilds course, I was doing some research on 'reverse appliqué' and confess I was rather unenthusiastic about this part of the module.  That was, until I came across 'Alabama Chanin'.   It opened up a whole new world to me and oh boy...it is just totally fabulous.

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Traditional Stitches...Contemporary Design!

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Traditional Stitches...Contemporary Design!

Hope you had a good Christmas and are ready for some sewing and some new projects for 2016.  I have been a bit sluggish on my blog, I know, but that's because I have been busy scheming and designing and stitching - at least I was until my sewing room got squished into a corner to make room for the Christmas Table Tennis arena!  It's all very well and the daily house competitions are fun, but I do have itchy fingers after a week without a needle and thread.

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A City & Guilds Course brings a whole new challenge

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A City & Guilds Course brings a whole new challenge

I know I have been away for a while, but it is a busy time of year and my first pattern designing ideas are very time consuming.  More about all that soon, but I wanted to write this week about my experiences of distance learning and the City & Guilds course that I have now completed.    I started the course while we were living in Paris and continued to work on it, once we moved to Stockholm in Sweden.  

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A Long Apprenticeship...of sorts! (continued)

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A Long Apprenticeship...of sorts! (continued)

In 2006 we moved from Moscow to Paris.  It was a big upheaval and quite an adjustment.  Paris of course is a beautiful city and we lived in a charming western suburb near to the British School.   The children were all in the senior school by now and slotted into life in our new enviroment easily and  John was buried in the maze of a Head Office of a huge multi-national company.  What would I find to do this time.  Brushing up my french, of course .... but I had itchy fingers and my needles & threads had spent weeks in boxes in transit.

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A Long Apprenticeship...of sorts!

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A Long Apprenticeship...of sorts!

I have been completely buried working on, what I hope will be, my first pattern designs and I hope to be able to show them to you soon.  But in the meantime, I am taking a tea break to catch up on the blog and I thought it might be appropriate to tell you how I actually came to be doing any of this.  It has been a long and accidental apprenticeship of sorts.

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