Christmas update and pics to come!

Christmas has been and the flat is now overrun with toys! I went to my parents on Christmas eve, had Christmas day just the three of us, then boxing day morning at my parents then afternoon at Marc's grans. We had Korean food for Christmas dinner as it's my fave. What I really fancied was Japanese sashimi but you need really fresh fish for that and there's not much chance of that round here despite living on the seafront! I've not had a proper Christmas dinner for years as we always do something a bit alternative. We had sort of a Christmas dinner on Boxing day at Marc's grans, but nice as though it was, it was without cranberry sauce and gravy so it doesn't really count! I did have some turkey and roastie leftovers though at mums so I haven't missed out too much!
Anyway, I have been busy with the old sewing (still using Mums machine...it's just soooo nice!!!). I have made my sofa covers which look quite jolly. I also made a red tartan dress for Christmas with this pattern. I wore it with a black polo neck and black boots. I was sewing very late at night on it. At 1 in the morning I was tying bits of fabric around my waist to make a sash (like on the picture of the designer dress in the last post) but I was so tired by then I had to stop. It looks just as nice without a belt though. Picture coming soon I promise!
I have just made two more nappies for James using a free pattern from Ottobre magazine website. One is made of hemp with a sewn in microfibre booster pad and a green microfleece inner. The other is made of green towelling with a removeable hemp and microfibre soaker pad and also a green microfleece inner. To those unfamiliar with nappy making, hemp and microfibre are fabrics with good absorbancy. Fleece or microfleece is used to line nappies to act as a stay dry barrier to wick moisture away from baby's bum. So there you go. I have photographed them before testing them on James. I wish I had photographed all the nappies I made for James before they got faded in the wash. When I was pregnant I made a load of nappies and I used to spend hours stacking and restacking them in the bathroom as they were so cute and soft. I wish I had photographed them before the inevitable wear and tear after he was born.
Anyway, photos to come... I promise!

An update...coat and sofa covers!

It's been a long time since I updated because the PC broke down so I have been using my old ibook running OS 9 which has problems letting me access some web pages fully for some reason (something to do with Javascript). OH is installing OS X on it today so hopefully that will sort that problem out.

Anyway, I am updating this from work, so no pics today I'm afraid. I've completed my coat and worn it a lot. I'm very pleased with it. It was well worth all the extra time spent on the little details such as the bound button holes. The collar looks a bit big, but the retro look is still in so that doesn't matter too much! I'm so pleased to be able to wear a coat that only cost £25 to make. Even the cheap coats in the shops at the moment start at about £50.

I wore my coat last weekend on my two trips to Manchester. On Saturday I went by myself on a Primark-Abakans run! I bought fabric for the sofa covers. I bought 26m of orange upholstery weight chenille for 75p a metre, and I was only charged for 22m! needless to say, I chose the fabric for the price not necessarily the colour!

I then had to carry all that fabric home on the train. Don't ask how I managed to walk with it from the shop to the station, it's a bit of a blur to be honest! Put it this way, it was bloomin heavy and damn awkward to carry. The poor lad in the shop had a job folding it then put it in the thinnest bag imaginable.

Anyway, I have started the sofa covers using my mums brother sewing machine which is a whizz compared to mine. Multiple layers of upholstery fabric not a problem fro this machine! They covers are not turning out as fitted as I expected them too but at least they're better than what I had on the sofas in the first place.

I also bought a couple of metres of red tartan dress weight wool as I want to make a dress similar to the one pictured above for Christmas!

Ready to sew

It's been a while since I last posted as the computer broke down and blogger is a banned site at work (I work at a college, and any site that is regarded as games or chat is barred). Anyway, since I last posted, I have cut out my coat fabric and am ready to sew! The only obstacle in my path is my tip of a kitchen! The kitchen is the only place I can sew when James is in bed as the sound won't travel to his room. Anyway, I am procrastinating by wasting time on the internet when what I should be doing is the dishes, then sewing. I need a coat as it's getting cold so I'd better get a move on! I will post pics as soon as I can. (The idea is that I use this blog to document work in progress)

Coat fabric and shrimps!

A strange title for a post I know!

I got paid this week (hurray!) so indulged in some fabric shopping. I bought some aubergine coloured wool coating and some grey tweed for a jacket. The coat fabric is for Burda 8124
I cut out the lining this evening out of wine coloured satin. I also bought some buttons which are two tone burgundy/blackish purple. They blend in well. I'm going to attempt bound buttonholes on this coat because my machine is rubbish at normal buttonholes and I want this coat to look well made. I will definately practice them first! The only problem is that my copy of the pattern has a major misprint and has completely wrong illustrations on the second page of the instructions! I may have to write to Burda, although I feel fairly confident that I could wing it with the help of my sewing books. I've sewn princess seamed jackets before but I've never included pockets in the seams so I'll need to look up a technique for that.
I picked up the sofa cover pattern and it looks very easy. I measured my sofa and arm chair to determine the yardage and I need 20m of fabric! The length my mum gave me is only 14.75m. There is no way I could cut corners so it looks as if I'll have to go to Standfast and see if they have any fabric for a £1 a metre (as that's all I can afford!). It's a shame as the stuff mum gave me was upholstery quality that probably cost more than £1 a metre. Oh well. I'll probably have to buy different cushion fabric as well, depending on what I can pick up for the covers. I may leave that project for a few weeks and concentrate on my coat and jacket projects.
Now onto something different. I'm not the worlds greatest cook but today I actually followed a recipe with success that wasn't a baking recipe ;) I made devilled shrimps. I bought the shrimps from a local fish shop that sells shrimps caught in Morecambe Bay. My flat overlooks the sea and you can see the shrimping boats going out to sea. Anyway, I fried them in butter and olive oil with garlic, cumin, paprika, salt and ground ginger and served them on buttered toast. They were delicious and a very posh lunch at that! We are making more effort to eat local produce in our household and so the next thing we want to try is salt marsh lamb (which is basically lamb reared on the salt marshes of Morecambe Bay). Anyway I could talk about food but this is mainly a sewing blog so I'll stop digressing now! I'll post pics of the coat fabric and coat in progress as soon as I can.

Tired!

Feeling a bit tired as I have just been typing up a load of ebay listings, which is a very tedious job! Today I sorted out the fabric stash and have a bag of scraps to get rid of and some bigger bits to ebay. I am ebaying some lovely fabric which I really like but I can't see myself ever using!
I have to make room for more fabric of course.
I cycled into Lancaster today (yes in this weather!) to pick up my sofa cover pattern and it STILL hadn't arrived. I did have a good look at the wool coat fabrics in there though as I am going to make a coat! There was some lovely dark purple wool which I quite like, but to be quite honest, I am looking for something a bit more wow, such as bright red or checks. If I am going to go to the effort of making a coat then it has to be a statement piece or I may as well just buy a coat from Asda! (although there are some very nice coats in Asda at the moment, including a bright red one)
The picture shows a piece of fabric I am ebaying, some stretch cotton which is pink on one side, purple on the other...a lovely piece but I just don't wear those colours anymore, so I can't justify keeping it.

Today's Haul!

Had a successful day today sewing wise. It started off with the Croft Mill fabric catalogue arriving in the post, which is always entertaining reading. I will be sending off for several samples from this issue. Then after a board meeting with QSAND (a local arts group), my mother and I bundled James into the car and set off for Standfast factory shop. On route we stopped at Sainsburys to get cash and so I could nip into Fabrix (a very good fabric shop in Lancaster) where I picked up a couple of patterns in the Simplicity sale (4082, 4171 and another one for sofa covers which wasn't in stock so I will pick it up tomorrow.

At Standfast, you have to cross a very busy road to get from the car park to the shop and normally mum and I dodge the traffic and make a dash for it. But with James in tow we had planned to walk all the way to the pedestrian crossing which felt like miles away as we were itching to see the wonderful fabrics! Luckily though, there was a good gap in the traffic so we were able to not waste any time in getting across the road and into the shop (not that I would ever endanger my son's life for the sake of building my stash of course!).

In Standfast, there was a great selection of contemporary furnishing fabrics in stock. I had to pick up some pieces to match the fabric I had aquired for the sofa covers. Basically, mum had given me 12m of a dull mint coloured ribbed upholstory fabric for the covers that she had bought to use as curtains but never used. It wasn't my colour of choice but because it was such good quality stuff it was too good an offer to pass up. My lounge is a biscuity cream colour with cream curtains so I had to find some cushion fabric that would link everything together. I bought three remnants and half a metre of a lovely butterfly print off the roll. I wanted contemporary florals and I think these fit the bill. I have photographed them against the mint fabric although the flash has made the mint look very bright, it's actually a duller shade but you get the idea. I am still worried that the overall look will be too cold looking as at the moment we have dark red throws so this will be quite a big change! To be honest I have had variations of red, burgundy and purple cushions and throws for years so it's time for a fresh new look!

I also looked at the liberty prints at Standfast and was disappointed to see that the price has gone up to £4.50 a metre! When I first started sewing in 2001 they were £2.50 a metre. Mind you it is still very cheap. I think they have had people snapping it up and selling on ebay as now there is a limit to how much you can buy. I love sewing with Liberty cotton as it feels like silk and is so easy to sew.

Then this evening after putting James to bed I sewed most of a dress out of wine coloured jersey. It's an out of print pattern that I picked up for a quid a couple of years ago. I've been wanting to sew it for a while as it's an unusual, but very simple design and is a bit 80's style. I will tell you more about it and show you some pics when I finish it off tomorrow. Anyway, time to go and do some more surfing before ordering my samples from Croft Mills.

And here is the hat in action!

Here is the hat making me look even more stylish than usual (ha!) on a trip to the park with my beautiful son

Where did you get that hat?

It's a New Look pattern that I've used before
It's a baker boy style which are in all the shops at the moment. Very easy to sew and can be made from left over scraps. I made mine from black needlecord left over from a skirt, and lined it with a remnant of liberty lawn in a cool retro pattern. I added a velvet ribbon bow to the front. I love it and I will wear it all season! (unless I make another one!) The pic shows the inside of the hat showing the lining.

Hello there!

OK, so this is not quite the first time I have had a blog or online journal...but I'll do my best to keep this one up this time!

My name is Clare Anderson and this is my blog where I will be mainly posting about stuff I make...hence the title "Clare's Stuff".

My main interest is sewing, and I will be posting pics of stuff I've made, and documenting the progress. I have been sewing since 2001, which isn't that long, but long enough to get addicted! I love buying fabric and patterns, and every now and again I go on a sewing binge and sew lots of stuff very quickly, before having a haitus! I have been very busy during the past year bringing up a baby, going back to work, changing jobs and moving house and so sewing has been on the back burner this year, although I sewed a fab cap the other day which has hopefully started me off on another sewing kick again!