So what I have been up to I hear you ask? Not a lot really as I’ve been resting up but I have managed to complete a few garments and challenges.

March Frugal Frocks 2021

As I previously wrote in my Sewing Goals 2021, I wanted to take part more in the Instagram Community. When I saw that Sam and Ruan hosting this March challenge of making a dress pattern that was free and to use material from your stash, I had to say yes!

I finally used this beaut black jersey crepe with white spots on from Textile 9 and the pattern I used was Little Lizard King Galena dress pattern which has different sleeve options and of course I had to go for the cute puff sleeve.

Here I am enjoying the sunshine at my local park.

Sew Yellow For Endo

I took part in Jess’s challenge of making something yellow. If you want to read more about it, it’s on my previous post here.

Mother’s Day

I made my mum a keyring and card using my Cricut Explorer Air 2.

Of course I had to wrap everything in tissue paper and make it bit more glamourous. Plus I made her a new facemask.

That’s about it really, not a lot but my first article for The Pattern Pages has been published too on ways to use up your fabric scraps!

So what have you been up to for the month of March?

Happy Sewing!

The post March Makes 2021 appeared first on The Yorkshire Sewist.

Endometriosis Awareness Month

Jess is inviting you to learn more about Endometriosis and sew up a yellow or partially yellow garment/outfit – yellow is the awareness colour for Endometriosis. Put your sewing skills to the test and support the Endometriosis community by whipping up a gorgeous yellow garment and show it off on 20th March on Instagram! Simples!

I originally planned on my next Felicity Fabrics Blogger Project to coincide with the challenge. Alas, I haven’t finished the garment! I forgot to make a narrow shoulder adjustment before cutting out the fabric. I was lazy and thought nah I don’t need too….. Surprise, surprise I had to unpick the sleeves and take in the bodice. Coincidently, this has set me back!

After raiding through my stash, I found some mustard viscose jersey.

After some persuasion from Catie, Tamlyn and Gemma I took the plunge to make a Friday Pattern Company Adrienne Blouse!

Adrienne Blouse

Here is a little bit more info about the pattern;

The Adrienne Blouse is a jersey top with billowy statement sleeves, you use elastic to gather up at the shoulders and hems.

The pattern is size inclusive with starting at XS to 4X.

According to the size chart my measurements fell into the XL and I graded from the Waist to hem to XXL.

I shortened the sleeves by 2″ and cut the blouse hem at the 4X as I like my tops to sit nicely at the hips.

Don’t you just love the great sentiments that they put on the patterns.

There wasn’t an option to turn off the other sizes, I highlighted my size so it was easier to see when cutting out.

Can you believe it’s just 3 pattern pieces!

When sewing the blouse you use a 1.5cm seam allowance which I found a bit strange as in other patterns from other designers it’s been 1cm. I used my Mr Singer aka Signer Quantum Stylist 9960 instead of my Overlocker.

I set my machine to the lightning bolt setting and a stitch length of 1.6. When sewing with drapey viscose jersey it can be a bit of a sod. So I started sewing my seam about a couple of cm’s in to stop Mr Singer eating the fabric.

This Blouse was completed in a day with myself having plenty of rest breaks. However, If you don’t have a chronic illness, you would probably get it sewn in a couple of hours.

Thankfully, I listened to the instructions of basting the elastic in place as I needed to shorten the shoulder elastic by 2.5″ and the Sleeve elastic by 1.5″. No garment isn’t complete without a Kylie and the machine label!

My Entry

Here is my finished Adrienne Blouse with a Hair Tie.

Of course, you had to see the Blouse modelled on me didn’t you?

If you don’t have the time to sew an yellow garment you can still donate to Jess’s Just Giving page.

My favourite part of the Endometriosis Awareness Month has been seeing the Sewing Community getting together to make yellow garments and to talk about this horrible chronic illness and ending the stigma around menstrual health.

Happy Sewing!

Sally xx

The post Sew Yellow for Endometriosis Challenge appeared first on The Yorkshire Sewist.

How you are all doing? Are you ready for 2021? It seems so strange that a year has passed already yet it has been a very peculiar one indeed!

The lovely Jayne aka Loopymabels_closet and Sarah aka Rosysewsmodernvintage  ran this sewing challenge last year and it was so popular that they decided to do it again this year! But what IS #swapsharesew I hear you cry? Well, in short it’s a swap challenge…you get partnered up with a fellow sewist and send each other a swap parcel which you then incorporate into a sewing project. Plus you get to get to know a liked minded sewist and become friends. Also up for grabs is some lovely prizes from @emporia_patterns @felicity.fabrics @patternunion @mavenpatterns

My partner was the lovely Lynne aka Chadders1965 who is a very busy lady with a heart of gold. I received this lovely package from her… the chocolate buttons was devoured by the kids but made use of the face mask and foot mask right away!

The little zippered pouch is perfect for keeping my little tools safe in one place while working on a project.

For our project, we decided to use the Tilly and The Buttons Indigo Pattern and we chose different fabrics but decided we would send each other the pockets of the fabrics we was making so we had snazzy pockets.

This beautiful Pink Dalmatian Print Viscose is from Sew Anonymous and was an absolute bargain at £5 per metre!! If you haven’t seen Aimee’s beautiful array of fabrics at great prices before, where have you been?! I really would recommend you give her online shop a visit.

The alterations that I made to mine, was the usual sleeve adjustment of shortening the length of the sleeve by 1.5″ and I made a straight size 6 in tunic length. I still draw lines on my fabric to make sure I get them straight when I sew!

To minimise the *Maternity* look of the indigo (*in my opinion it does have that feel to it) I put in some waist ties to bring it in at the waist a bit more which has done it a lot of favours. Otherwise, I’d look like a sack of spuds!! So I made the ties

I cut out two rectangles of fabric – 20″ length by 1.5″ wide. then sewed one end shut then continued along the length to make a tube. To turn these bad boys out so easily was the prym turning tools and made it a breeze!

When it comes to gathering I use dental floss as I try and use the normal method of gathering with 2 or 3 rows of stitching but always end up breaking the threads when pulling…Grrrr!!!

All I do is set my machine to a zig zag stitch and place a line of dental floss at the centre of where the stitch would be leaving an extra “tail” of floss at the beginning and end of the fabric.

Start the zigzag so that it stitches on either side of the floss, but doesn’t pierce it. Then pull the fabric along the floss to gather it. You can knot one end of the floss to keep the gathering tight if you prefer. Et Voila, easy gathers!!

Also you can not have a biccie or two when getting rid of the gather stitches once you’ve sewn it in place eh?

With making this I did retreat to my bedroom to sew in peace but being a mum you don’t get that luxury hahaha the kids followed me.

I was adamant to keep the pockets even though I’ve made the Tunic length, so all I did was shifted the pocket notch up by an inch so no sneaky show of the pocket plus it fits me better this way for my short arms!

Here is my Indigo with a little video, I’m trying to get technical hahaha!

Plus, no garment isn’t complete without a Kylie and the machine label, especially one of her new sweary sewist ones!

I really enjoyed this little swap as I got to make new sewing buddies and such a lovely touch to have swapped fabrics, with wearing my Indigo it will remind me of Lynne

Has anyone else been taking part with any of Instagram Sewing Community swaps/projects?

Happy Sewing, All the best for 2021!!

Sal

xx

The post SwapShareMeet 2020 appeared first on The Yorkshire Sewist.

Recently, Tilly and the Buttons had a sale on specific paper patterns, so i had to have a nosey.

Would you believe i didn’t own either the Agnes or the Rosa so i treated myself to them. I’m normally a PDF lover but it made a nice change to have something physical in your hand and no piecing pages together.

I used many of Tilly and the Buttons patterns before and knew i Size 6 would fit ok for the shoulders and bust and grade to a 7 for waist and hips.

I was kindly gifted this beautiful Breton Apples Jersey in Blue and White from By Graziela fabrics for my honest review.

The Jersey is 95% cotton / 5% spandex 
with a nice weight: 220 g/qm, being 1.50 m wide and also to Oeko-Tex Standard 100

It was beautifully packaged, with plenty of ribbon on which my boys nicked to play with the cat with and the handy tote bag has come in handy for quick trips to the supermarket.

If you haven’t come across By Graziela Fabrics before, where have you been hiding?!! They have a fabulous range of jerseys, sweatshirting and Cotton all designed by Nina’s Mum! Here’s a little bit more information about this great Company – Taken from ByGrazieal’s about us page;

Nina and I founded byGraziela in 2008 to relaunch my Mum, Graziela’s hugely popular and iconic designs in Germany. 

Since the 1970s, Graziela has been working as a successful graphic designer, designing fabrics as well as bed linens, children’s clothing and dinnerware. Her designs are cult classics in Germany and have won her numerous gold medals from the Art Director’s Club.

With a passion for sewing, and having children of my own, I decided it was time to pass all those lovely patterns on to the next generation. byGraziela has grown into a well loved company with a big following in Germany and I am delighted we are now launching our happy and bold fabric range in the UK!

All our fabrics are based on my Mum’s original designs, sometimes modernised, but still retaining the authentic retro feel.

I hope you love our colourful and happy fabrics as much as I do and create some wonderful things with them.

How nice is that?!

I wish sometimes i would design my own fabrics!

The Fabric was delightful to sew with and even Mr Singer didn’t want to ‘eat’ it either! Upon handling the fabric you know that it was good quality fabric and the print was so precise and colourful.

Since the lines were diagonal i didn’t even bother pattern matching, how on earth was i supposed to do that?! I was definitely not in the mood!

It sewed up really quickly and instead of using threads to gather i just got my trusty dental floss for the sleeve head and used clear elastic for the ruched sleeves.

I made such a rookey error, when i was grading my seams after i sewn in the last sleeve….. i accidentally cut into the sleeve itself which resulted in this!!!

ARRGGGHHHHHH!!

As you can imagine there was a lot of swear words involved and even shared my mistake over on instagram to share with the world no matter how much experience you have sewing, mistakes do happen!

Thankfully, i let myself cool down and called it a night with it. I carefully unpicked the sleeve and cut out a new one with some of the left over fabric. I’m a Yorkshire lass through and through and did some pattern tetris to get the most out of the fabric with some spare for instances like this!

Phew, my Agnes were saved!! No Memade garment isn’t complete without a label! I just love Kylie and The Machine labels

Here she is paired with sunshine bright Pinafore, the colours work so well together.

Then for everyday wear with jeans and an apple of course!

Now for an sneaky discount and a giveaway!!

To be in with the chance to win 1.5m of any of ByGraziela Fabrics! Yes you heard that right!! How amazing is that?!
All you have to do is comment
on this post.
Giveaway closes 31/10/2020
at 12pm GMT and can be posted withing UK and Europe!

Now for the discount!! Use code ‘Sally10’ to receive 10% off your purchase!

Then follow myself over at Instagram @theyorkshiresewist and @bygraziela_fabrics too

Happy Sewing!

Sal xx

*Disclaimer – I was given this fabric in exchange of my review in form on a blog post*

The post An Apple a day keeps anyone away if thrown hard enough! appeared first on The Yorkshire Sewist.