So, as we announced on Instagram a little while ago, Becca and I are all geared up for the next round of Sew Up North! We, and hopefully some of you, will be hitting the coffee (and cake) shops of Leeds, probably buying lots of fabric and charity raffling our hearts on September 29th in Leeds city centre.

We will once again be supporting the fabulous Yorkshire Air Ambulance charity. We have got THE most incredible list of raffle prizes, even more than last year, and so we’re hoping to be able to top our fundraising record of £724. So if you’re coming, bring your raffle ticket pennies!

Tickets for the event will be released in the near future (watch this space) as will more detail on the specifics of the day, but we wanted to let you know the high level at this point.

As has already been spotted by some keen previous attendees on Instagram, Costa have cold-heartedly closed the branch on Briggate at which we formerly kicked off proceedings. But never fear! We have located another venue and sweet talked John Lewis into letting us meet up at their 4th floor cafe in the new Victoria Gate store. (To be fair, when I asked whether we’d be OK to bring over 100 fabric mad shoppers together in their usually reasonably calm and quiet cafe on a Saturday morning, they didn’t argue!)

After grabbing a drink (and possibly a bun or a bacon butty?) we will once more disperse into the fabric shops of Leeds. We’ll be leaving this to happen organically (ie we won’t be forcing you to pair up and form an orderly crocodile around the city centre!) but don’t worry if you’re thinking of coming alone; sewists are an unusually friendly bunch and I’ve never yet seen anyone stranded.

After shopping time, we will meet up once more at the Belgrave Music Hall & Canteen, where you will be able to buy lunch and/or drinks from the vendors downstairs (assuming they’re granting us the same space as last year, we will be upstairs), enjoy a grand fabric and pattern swap, grab any last minute raffle tickets and then sit back and enjoy watching more sewing related prizes than you knew were possible being won; who knows, you might be one of the lucky ones?

There are a couple of small changes from last year. Firstly, as mentioned, we’ve changed the initial meeting point, but since John Lewis is a fairly large landmark and definitely still sells lots of nice drinks and snacks, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Secondly, to reduce the stress levels for Becca and myself, we have decided not to hand out goody bags this year. I’m really sorry to anyone who’s disappointed by this, but they took a lot of time and a fair amount of personal investment and this year, we neither of us have the headroom for it. It also stopped us being able to mingle and chat to people ourselves, so we’ve decided to make things more straight forward all round.

Thirdly, and again in the interests of our sanity, there will be another blog post in the next couple of weeks asking for volunteers to help out with certain tasks on the day. So many people kindly offered to help on the day last time, and we were a smidge tired at the end, so we’re going to be sensible and accept some willing volunteers this time around! We hope no one’s offended by this!

Finally (and this is the good bit), according to Becca I’ve got the gift of sweet talking to the Belgrave into allowing us to have more people this time around within their Health & Safety limits. 150 tickets will be available in the next couple of weeks; there is no charge for these, but it does allow us to be sure that we’re not breaching the requirements set by the Belgrave who let us use their space free of charge.

So, pop the date in your diary and keep an eye out for the posts over the next few weeks. We have been absolutely stunned by the generosity of our raffle prize sponsors and we’ll be whetting your appetite with all the goodies on offer. And there will be a post when the tickets go live.

Hope to see you there?

Sally and Becca x

The post It’s been a while crocodile!!! Sew Up North 2018 appeared first on The Yorkshire Sewist.

Hi everyone! How are you all diddling this afternoon?

I finally took the plunge and bought myself the Airelle Blouse by Deer and Doe Patterns. I’ve previously made the freebie The Plantain Top and fitted without any adjustments so thoughT well why not, go out of your comfort zone and try a new pattern designer! Don’t you just love a pattern that you can just sew!

With my previous sew, I decided to go for the size 40 as anything too baggy looks ridiculous on my small frame and it fitted great with my last top.

The pattern does state intermidate and I’ll agree as they don’t give you the technique of making darts or tell you every time to finish seams but I like the simplicity of their instructions as I am intermidate sewer now.

Now I found the most delightful bunny print cotton lawn form b and m fabrics and it screamed to be made into the Airelle!

I tempted fate and bought 1.5m as it was an extra wide and boy did it just get the blouse out of it! Hahaha I am a true Yorkshire lass after all! But it was really reasonable priced at £5 a metre!

I would say this took me about a day from cutting to sewing as it is a good sew, love the yoke and gathered sleeve ( i decided on the 3/4 sleeve) and cuff details and of course the Chelsea collar!

Today was a good day to model my new blouse whilst about in Hull today as it was actually quite pleasant and no jacket needed, say what it’s 1st October, gotta love our unpredictable British weather!

Hull is having a major rehaul as its the City of Culture for 2017 so it has some funky art work randomly placed and annoyingly plenty of disruption of pavements in the centre grrr! But this was at Princess Quay Car Park!

Then of course you can’t go past a Starbucks at St Stephens without sampling their Pumpkin Spice Latte! It was beautiful with plenty of naughty cream on top!

Have a nice weekend!

Sal xx

The post Bunny Airelle Blouse – Deer and Doe Patterns appeared first on The Yorkshire Sewist.