And so it begins........

It has been a couple of years in the making but I have finally gotten around to starting my own sewing blog.  Since being introduced to the wonderful world of sewing blogs by my dear friend Lauren from Sew Lonnie I have been meaning to venture into the blogosphere to start creating a record of my sewing projects.  I realised I needed some forum to share my latest sewing project or vintage pattern acquisition with my friends.  I am not on the farcebook and neither do a tweet.  In fact the whole on line oversharing culture just doesn’t appeal to me at all.  But once I realised that there is a whole of community of folks out there with similar interests to mine, it did inspire me to become a blogger.

I guess you could call me a vintage sewer.  This could be (a) because I do like sewing with vintage patterns, or (b) I have been sewing for over 25 years now so that may in fact make me vintage.  I grew up with a super sewer mum who made practically all of my clothes, including school uniforms.  I have great memories of all the 70’s and 80’s ensembles which my mum magically whipped up on her glorious old sturdy Singer  sewing machine.  I think it might even still be lurking about and is sometimes used by dad to sew up blokey stuff like making adjustments to shade cloth and tarpaulins. 

So back to the sewing. For about 18 years of my life my live in dressmaker (aka mum) would diligently make clothes for me.  Even after I started working I would go out buy a pattern and material and bring it home for my lovely mum to work her magic. Probably growing tiresome of spending her valuable time slaving away on the Singer for me, she decided that I should give it a go.  I actually thought this was a bit of a dull idea as I didn’t have any interest in sewing. A whole 6 months of home economics wherein out only completed project was a denim bag confirmed this to be so. This was, of course, the best time to learn when you happen to live at home with your teacher.  I believe my first project was a black shift dress that I even lined. I think it turned out pretty well and remember getting a load of wear out of it.  So this sewing palava wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

Now dear reader I would like to just give you an idea how great it was to be sewing your own clothes many decades ago.  First of all fabric was in abundance.  Every department store had its haberdashery section.  There were numerous fabric stores around the towns.  Even your local suburb had its dinky little haberdashery which was perfect for dropping by if you were in the middle of a project and needed say a zip or cotton. You would merely have to drive a few minutes down the road.  The types of affordable fabric you used to be able to buy seemed of a more superior quality than they are now.  I’m not sure what happened to cotton blend fabrics, ones that didn’t crease like the buggery when you wore them.  In Brisbane we had a market style venue called Paddy’s Market.  It was a large old building in Teneriffe which housed all manner of cheap things.  There was one whole floor dedicated to dress fabric. Imagine something like a big warehouse, just all types of fabrics as far as the eye could see.  Yes, yes, good times.  These days there is just one fabric store in the Brisbane CBD and the suburbs pretty much just have the chain stores.  It’s sad to see only a handful of independent fabric stores still about.  Plus with the cost of fabric I pretty much go bonkers when the sales are on and buy as much of the decent fabric as I can, whether I need it or not.

I have been sewing pretty consistently since I started in 198#@#$?.   Apart from 2 years I spent I London in the early 90’s, where I didn’t have a machine, I have been making most of my special occasion frocks.  If nothing else when there was a wedding or Christmas party I tried to make something. Everyday clothes however weren’t as prominent in my repertoire.  In the last 3 or 4 years I have really stepped up my game and have found a renewed love of all things handmade. I am proud to say 80% of my wardrobe now boasts “me made” clothes. How do I find the time I hear you ask?  Well I work only a 4 day week in my office job and I don’t have children, hence there is plenty of time to indulge in getting down and creative.

I have also been making handmade jewellery for about 10 years now. And when I get organised finally, I will try to sell some online instead of getting my generous friends to take shoe boxes to their work filled with my creations.  I am a bit in love with food too so you will find a few recipes in this blog from time to time. 

And warning to you anti-feline persons out there, there will be quite a lot of mention in these chronicles of my beloved sidekick Polly Jean.  That was another good reason to start a blog, not only finding out there are all these wonderful enthusiastic sewers out there but that so many are crazy cat people.  

I hope some people out there enjoy the chronicles of my sewing adventures. 

Also a big thank you to my talented friend Sandy for her artwork that appears alongside my banner.

FrocknStuff

xxx

Where to start?

I was trying to remember the oldest “me made” frock I had in my wardrobe and it looks like Butterick 3076.  I remember buying this fabric from Skafs Fabrics at Indooroopilly 11 years ago.  I made the original (black & white) in version A and a second version A a little while later. Version B was a 2 tone number but that is currently in my pile of things to mend – slight zip malfunction. 

I intended to make this for a friend’s wedding but then the weather turned cooler than expected and I shelved the project.  It was probably a year and half later it made its appearance at another wedding.  This is a good basic 50’s style sun frock, though the skirt isn’t as full as some other patterns. This is also one of those patterns where I used the same material for the bodice lining giving it a bit of body.  And for us smaller busted ladies it means I don’t have to worry about an annoying strapless bra.  Though as I get older I do question wearing the strappy items of clothing.  Having said that though in the tropics of Queensland I find it hard to wear much of a sleeve in summer.  Summer is not my friend, what with my pasty complexion and inability to cope outdoors on 30 plus degree days.

I’ve certainly got a large backlog of sewing projects to present to you.  Here is just a small example of the state of play in my wardrobe(s). The first is half of my work wardrobe and the second is about a third of my non-work wardrobe.

So as you can see we've got a lot to get through.  Stay tuned.