A sad goodbye

Today I write what is very likely my last blog post. I sincerely hope to start blogging again at some point but for now I need to take a break for health reasons. 

This post also has photos of some of my real favourites that are worn and worn again. Some very old now, some newer. At least as I reach this point I can say I have made some really nice clothing and you never know if I can get my current health issues under control then maybe I can start to sew again - and blog about it. I expect I will still sew some things but its not any longer enough to be running a blog though you never know if I manage a nice top or pair of trousers I may still let you know about it even if it is this time next year.

I have sewed obsessively since 2014 and blogged about my sewing on a regular basis since 2015. And I have loved being part of the sewing blogger community. I have loved wearing my me mades as well as writing the blog posts about them.

Many of the things I made are still loved and worn. But sadly, due to having developed a form of degenerative arthritus I need to stop the sewing and therefore I no longer have the reason to run this particular blog. 

 

I do not yet know if I will start to write on a different blog. Currently writing is also a problem.This is because I am also struggling to type or even to use a mouse. 

As I have got older though so it has become more and more difficult to sew. Some days I cannot use my hands at all, let alone pick up a sewing pin and pin something together. So my sewing rate has slowed to an almost stop on the last two years.

I also now have serious problems typing and using a mouse. My hands simply no longer do what I expect. 

 Interestingly my knitting has actually improved because I found out that knitting works a bit like physiotherapy.

 But I knit very slowly so for example on a sock I might do less than one round in a day so it would not be a viable option for blogging. I think a pair of socks every three to nine months (or even longer!) would not be worth a blog post. 

So I sadly say thank you to everyone who has visited my blog. Thank you for your kind and helpful comments over the years. I will miss blogging most definitely but due to my health issues it is now time to stop.

Wishing you all good fortune and great happiness.

Take care

Bracken.

Red sweatshirt dress McCalls M8138

I began sewing this dress sometime ago. I stopped at the exposed zipper part. 

My joggers are awaiting the elastic waist. Well the elastic arrived so sometime this week I will hopefully get round to the waistband but in the meantime I returned to sewing the red dress.

I did the zipper insert exactly as directed. I am not really happy with the end result though.

It's just not quite right. This is the second attempt. First time I put the zip in too high and the end was completely exposed. Now I think maybe it's not high enough but it's going to need to remain I think. I do not feel confident a third attempt would be better and it may completely reck the dress so I decided to stop here.

When I tried this on I also decided more than likely I will wear it with zip open.

The bottom of the zip looks loads better that way since the pull hides the mess I made of the end.

But the pattern strangely provides no facings for the neck so I now need to make some and then sew up the collar. Probably I should not have a contrast coloured zip since I am so bad at inserting them and it makes it far more obvious its not quite right when its a different colour to the background.

 I decided the zip looked better being top stitched all around rather than just reinforce the end as the instructions dictate. However, now I want a facing it would have been better to topstitch after I think. Never mind!

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000I will live with this way and hopefully remember if I make this dress again. 

Despite my not so perfect zipped neck I may make another of these because I think I shall like the style.

I might have to consider a neck more like this one on an RTW top I was bought for Christmas.

It has taping that successfully neatens up an exposed zip wonderfully meaning you can get away with being a beginner when sewing something like this. Too late for my dress though because I don't think my fabric will stand up to more unpicking and sewing.

Also I suspect once it's worn this will be less noticeable than it seems to me right now. And if it does look awful it will make a rather nice skirt.

Well a day later and I had asked my partner's opinion. He was brutally honest and possibly due to that and the fact my courage has returned so I used yesterday's stitching like basting. Re-sewed around the end of the zip. That looked better so then I undid my stitching most of the way round and sewed as close to the zip teeth as I could. This is the end result 

Still imperfect but I feel much happier with this despite the small pucker by the end of the zip. I think once on me that will almost stretch out. I have since worse recently in a very expensive mountain climbing shop but I cannot honestly claim to be happy with this. Hopefully, this dress being a tighter fit around the top, it will look OK once on. 

It must be said this is the dodgiest zip I have ever seen with me redoing it in bits all the way round instead of as I was taught to do,0. sewing it in one complete run. Despite that I think it's passable now.

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I have also added facings. I have not decided yet whether to overlock around them or to hem them onto the top or just leave them? I think overlocking will work best really. Ideally the facings should be sewn down close to the zip but I am right now at time of writing unsure if this will be a good idea or not. I decided it was time to stop sewing here until another day rather than rush and ruin what is starting to look like an acceptable me made dress even if the zip is a bit wonky. I don't yet know if I can handle unpicking that zip a fourth time. I am considering that. Its such a shame to make a second rate dress out of what is nice fabric. 

Have a great week and thanks for popping by to see what I have made or messed up this week, Either way this is real sewing by an amateur and I hope it does inspire someone to have a go. I manage to make a lot of nice stuff. Though as in this case, things do not always go as sm00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000oothly as I wish for. Its all a learning curve.

Take care

Updating Tiny Clangers clothes

I always said I would do something about the badly fitting tabard I made for Tiny Clanger and the small person who now owns and loves Tiny decided to harass me so much about it every time we saw Tiny so in the end I had to get round to this. 

The red bits of felt are the parts of the original tabard I made for Tiny Clanger. Due to upscaling the knitted toy the patterns for the tabard came out too small so I have taken that tabard appart. I did make them larger than the pattern but they were still not large enough. My toy was knitted in DK. The pattern is for 4 ply.

Well embroidery is really not my thing. I find it extremely difficult so I really don't want to redo that. I also don't have enough of any one colour of felt. Felt is not something I stash so I only have a small number of pieces. Small person decided on purple as a new background colour. I had explained I thought we could just enlarge each piece by gluing onto a new larger bit of felt. I cut the new bits with Small person which was not easy since this is a very young child. 

We got there eventually and ended up with three different background colours. I tried to mix them together enough so the contrast looks ok. I think they will work though we had to wait 24 hours  to be sure they have glued ok.

In the end I decided to sew around each piece because I suspect Small person will find it too tempting picking the pieces off the backgrounds and it was easy after having glued them to just sew around each piece. I think it will ensure this lasts a little longer.

 

Then this time I am going to attempt to crochet a chain in thread between the parts and hopefully it will be stronger than just the thread sewing the bits together. However, despite starting the crochet with good intentions I found it did not work well. I think the front in fact may need a third strand. For now messy as it is its the way its staying until I have more time or until it breaks. It probably will break.

Ah just for info now she has been loved, played with and slept with this Tiny Clanger no longer stands up without a support. Thats why she is leaning on a phone.

Getting the bits together is really hard. I watched the TV program yesterday and they used some kind of thonging by the looks of it to join the bits of the tabard together. Maybe that artificial thonging you can buy by the reel which is for beading might work? I will have to find some for the next time we have to fix this. 

Of course we do not actually know the size of the TV toys. The BBC released a knitting pattern for Tiny Clanger which I used for this toy, b0ut it could be quite different to the original. 

I suspect this will need fixing regularly but for now Small person seems happy. 

Have a great week and thanks for visiting,

Bracken.

Burgundy joggers 118 / 11/2024

I have been ill. Much more ill than I would have expected from a cold so I reckon either flu or more likely COVID. 

I am not really better but the meds the doctor gave me have certainly helped. Hopefully back to feeling normal by next week.

I am though far better than when writing my last post and so I started to sew up the joggers 118 11/2024. Assuming no serious setbacks requiring me to cut a new piece I intend to also make the matching hoody. 

Anyway I began with the side panels and pockets. I did not do it the burda way. I did this my way.

1) sew pocket to side panel. I overlocked.

2) sew side panel with attached pocket to front piece. Overlocked together. But then as expected I missed a small bit where you need to sew a curve at bottom of pocket where it joins the side panel. Well I expected this. Experience tells me I will do this. I don't know if I just expect too much from the power of the overlocker or if it's me not being very good. But I seem to usually mess this bit up so I only overlocked and cut off half the seam allowance then got out my Janome and zigzagged where the seam should be which also reinforced those bits by sewing a second lot of stitches to stop the pockets coming undone when I slouch around hands in pockets in the future. I also zigzagged at the top of the pocket where the side panel is. Burda says baste here. I hate hand swing and this looks fine.

So ended day 1 of sewing this up. I hope smaller bite sized goes at sewing will mean I get something done this week.

 I think the pockets will hide nicely behind the side panels. I might though, on another pair, try top stitching the side panels to see how that looks. This time it's all just basic and hopefully will work 

Day 2:

I actually nearly finished these joggers despite I have not been very well. I had to stop here because I only have 1inch elastic. The pattern requires 2 inch. 

So that's about 5 cm I think. I have ordered enough for 2 pairs of these in case I love them enough to make a second pair. That's quite likely. Though the waistband seems low at the back. It could be it's ok once the elastic goes in. I won't know till I finish these but will let you know. The waist is below natural waist. I never realised but the pattern does say that. Being as I actually prefer lower waist it shouldn't bother me. Again won't know for sure until I can wear them. My other joggers all have high waisted but I tend to fold them over to lower them which really ruins the look. As a (young in the ) 90s/00s girl I like lower waisted jeans. They seem to be back now too. I should perhaps stock up in the sales rather than rely on my not very perfect jeans sewing!

I had a few problems sewing the waistband onto these and ended up doing a row of zig zag inside the overlocked row.

It won't show but I reckon the Brother should sew this fabric easy so maybe I need to take time to do some proper sewing machine oiling and cleaning. It's been at least 6 or maybe 9 months. Probably time for a proper service. I may need to do a weekend of that I think rather than more sewing. It's annoying but hopefully will make all the difference.

I intend to cut a matching sweatshirt for these next and also return to sewing the dress I started. The dress needs a normal machine next not overlockers so I can get on with the that perhaps while sorting the overlocker(s). 

Sometimes you just have to do a bit of maintenance. If that doesn't sort it and it happens with a different type of fabric I may have to consider paying a professional. Unfortunately the last time I got to this point a professional was so expensive it was cheaper to just buy a new overlocker. But now I have 3 of them and 3 normal machines. They all work to a point and I do use all of them. I should set one overlocker up for rolled edges really. 

It's not so bad having 3 normal machines cos one is permanently a zipper foot machine, one has a walking foot, and one is a permanent twin needle machine ( and neither of the others can sew with twin needles!). So it all works pretty well. If only I had space to set everything up permanently. 

With young kids around that's just not an option, so I do get messy but the machines are always locked away if there are any children around.

I am considering another jogger and sweatshirt set in this rather loud but fun Cheshire cat design.

 Though it will be easier to wear as a top than trousers. I did love this when I saw it and bought enough for me and one small person who I think will enjoy it. It would be a shame for it to just be more pjs though. I found several of my "louder" tracksuit sets have become pjs. Though it was very nice when I had to stay in hospital to own them I must say and nice PJ's are good to have. 

you can see the side seams here with side panels. The pockets are cleverly hidden in the side panel.

So this is now another UFO or should that be WIP? It's on hold till I get elastic either way.

Have a nice week.

Thanks for visiting me,

Bracken