I’m really looking forward to sewing again.
I didn’t sew at all while living in London. Part of the whole “I’m only living here temporarily” mindset which meant I didn’t buy Big Things or stuff which would weigh me down. If you’ve ever sewed, you know how much STUFF you acquire. Machine, overlocker, many spools of thread, various notions, scissors, tracing paper, pencils, needles, pins, more pins, tweezers, quick-unpick, ruler, tape measure, and boxes of leftover fabric.
I’m currently re-acquiring it all.
I have a machine getting serviced at the moment, and have made a down-payment on a new overlocker. Both Bernina. Had a grand time in the sewing machine shop getting all the overlockers demo’d to me by the lovely ladies.
(This might seem a bit weird but the half hour I spent in that shop was a real coming home moment for me.)
I was sorely tempted by a BabyLock but OHBOY. Those suckers are expensive. And really, I don’t mind manually rethreading THAT much. So I went with a Bernina for less than half the price.
In a couple of weeks I’ll be able to pick up both machines and get started!
In the meantime… I have to get my sewing scissors sharpened.
Today at lunchtime I picked up some black thread and white thread, interfacing, pins, and a quick-unpick. I’m going to need a toolbox for all this stuff.
I plan to get a bunch of calico for testing out new patterns. Something I never really did before was draft a pattern in calico and fit it first. I purchased a book on fitting recently. Reading it so far, I’ve realised how much I already know about pattern adjustment. Just I never applied it properly by going through a fitting process first.
What I really want a better understanding of is how pulls/slack in fabric translate to what needs altering on the pattern. Hopefully this book will be able to teach me some of that.
And my mum put me onto this totally strange but clever way of creating your own perfectly customised dressmaker’s dummy. Gaffer tape! Huh.
So I’m looking forward to having, in exchange for time & effort on my part, clothes that:
- fit me perfectly
- nobody else will be wearing
- are true to my style
- won’t have cost as much as in store
