'Sewing Bee' Course

Week 1 - Getting to know the sewing machine (Bernina 1008)

 Week 2 - Seams and zips

Week 3 - Creating the pattern on dot and cross print sewing paper with a 1cm seam allowance. Cut it out, found some fabric in the store cupboard for a trial run.

On my week off I went fabric hunting and came back with this washed linen in chartreuse.

Week 4 - Cutting out and sewing.  I weighted them down and chalked around the pattern.

Cut them out with sharp fabric scissors.

Hannah (the tutor) inserted box pleats to the front of both pieces of fabric.

Then pin from the top to the crutch and sew this part only (not the leg) and the same on the other two pieces of fabric (this will make the back of the trousers).

Lay the back piece on the table with the front piece on top of it. Pin from the top down, the outsides of each leg.

Next pin the insides of the legs starting from the crotch and working down.

Next I took the waistband, sewed the ends together, folded it in half width wise and then pressed it.  Check to make sure it fits inside the trouser top, mine didn't and I had to add some more on to it.

Week 5 - Pin the waistband into the trousers with the open edge to the top and sewed nearly all the way around. Put the elastic in, anchored it on one seam and sewed it down, then sewed the other end down and finally the rest of the waistband once the elastic was in situ.  Pinned the bottoms to fit my leg length, cut the extra fabric off, did a 2cm turn up and sewed them.  And there we have it, a finished garment. Sewing Bee, eat your heart out - lol.

Week 6 - working on the actual fabric (yikes!!!!)

Did these different to the first pair as the first pair I didn't use the overlocker.

They are fab little machines, but a bugger to thread up.  They smarten up any ragged edges.

Did exactly the same with the other leg and then joined them up at the crutch.

And the last thing to do for this week was to pin the pleats in and iron them.

Week 7 - Waistband is on and over-locked. However, when I went to try them on to sort the leg length out it was evidence that they were miles too big.  So, rather than rush them as there as only 10 minutes left of the course, I said I'd sort them when I return in September as Hannah said we could do something with the leg seams to take them in.

ATC's

Back to the more traditional ATC's.

Playing with Tyvek

Hilda and I have never had any success in the past using Tyvek, but my Somerset Studio mag arrived this week and there was a techniques workshop using it, so I thought I'd give it a go and these are the results. I painted a piece of Tyvek and stitched it along with lots of other background materials. I 'hid' an image under the Tyvek. Then using my heatgun I melted the Tyvek to reveal some of the image underneath. I added some embellishments and decided to paint the crown and the heart in stream to give it some contrast. I attached everything to a white piece of card for stability.

This one was done in exactly the same way, but it hasn't burnt as well as the first one and was painted darker to start with, so there are shadows over the image which has made it hard to photograph, but it looks much better in real life. I also decided to see if my alteration dies would cut hessian, and they did, see the top right flower!!!!