Learning to sew

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Learning to sew
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nettie

Joined: 02 Dec 2004
Posts: 5888
Location: Suffolk

Posted: Mon Jan 10, 05 8:05 pm Post subject:
Bugs where in the SE are you? anywhere near Essex?

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Mon Jan 10, 05 8:55 pm Post subject:

Course you can do it if I can! I still have to get my trousers turned up professionally though. It's not that I can't sew them, I can't pin the damn things on my own - himself is totally useless - so you will have to tell someone that you sew!

Curtains and cushions and sew on (sorry!) would be easier to start with. I figured out my machine on my own (although it did come with a video) but was used to my mum's, so I wasn't a total beginner (although I never made anything complicated!)

Deedee

Joined: 10 Jan 2005
Posts: 250
Location: Surrey

Posted: Mon Jan 10, 05 9:01 pm Post subject:

a good cheap project (and useful) to get you started would be a pair of garden gloves.If you have old jeans just draw round your hand leaving about 1/2" all round for seams cut and sew.I tend to make mine single thickness but you can double them (depending on the strength of your machine) or line them with a lightweight cotton.I made some fancy ones for my neice at xmas with disney princess fabric lining turned it out over the cuff,looked quite sweet.

Mrs Fiddlesticks

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 10460

Posted: Mon Jan 10, 05 9:19 pm Post subject:

Deedee wrote:

thats a good idea.

I know what you mean about school sewing classes, we made a tennis skirt!

useful in todays world

. But I did do extra lessons in 6th form when I had a free moment, so must have enjoyed it really. It is about practice, and having a go. I've sort of always sewn, made all Sindys clothes - remember her!. But then my mum and gran did too. Have you tried the local evening class scene - I have seen courses for sewing in them - but it will be held in a school sewing room which may bring back bad memories of course.

I'd like to know where to get fleece fabric from - does anyone use a mail order company? Its about time I got back in to sewing ( done more embroidery in recent years)

This has generated a lot of interest - I'm tempted to start a thread for sewing hints and tips as I think there is a lot of experience here that others will find useful.

Deedee

Joined: 10 Jan 2005
Posts: 250
Location: Surrey

Posted: Mon Jan 10, 05 9:25 pm Post subject:
definately go to ebay for the fleece if you have a paypal account ship it in from the states its cheaper I buy all my fabric from the U.S for peanuts in the shops here you're looking at around £10+ a yard on ebay its generally £5.99 in the states its $5 for 2 yards plus around $9 shipping..

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 05 11:32 am Post subject:
I buy fabric from a local place (although not so local as it used to be) just because I need to really see and feel it - the feel is more important than the look for me. Love the sound of the gardening gloves. Gardening gloves never fit me, so I'll be giving those a go - you could waterproof them afterwards too (with Nikwax stuff for cotton)

Gervase

Joined: 17 Nov 2004
Posts: 8655

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 05 12:24 pm Post subject:

If you've got kids, don't let the school know you sew, lest you find yourself doing every bloomin' costume for the Christmas play!
If you do get a machine (and why not - it's a terrific labour-saving device) do raid the local charity shops. As suggested earlier, stuff from there can be re-used, and even if it's absolutely hideous and you wouldn't be seen dead in it, you can still get some good practice - particularly when it comes to thread tension for different fabrics, about which some machines are very pernickety.

joanne

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7100
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 05 12:37 pm Post subject:

If anyone's in the North go and have a look at Abakhans fabric shops https://www.abakhanfabrics.co.uk/ -they sell material at really good prices, a very dangerous place if like me you are a bit of a material pack rat

I've also bought off eBay - got a fantastic deal on some Black and Purple Velvet - being of the gothic persuasion, I tend to buy in bulk around Halloween and then use the stuffas and when I need it

Joanne

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 05 4:34 pm Post subject:

nettie wrote:

Bugs where in the SE are you? anywhere near Essex?

Nope, well, not really, am in Surrey....as I said above

- I fear you do not read and absorb every word I write with the committed and grave attention my words deserve, Nettie

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 05 4:43 pm Post subject:

Deedee wrote:

a good cheap project (and useful) to get you started would be a pair of garden gloves.

This does sound a good project, Deedee. I'd like to do something that can be completed quickly just to make me think it's possible for me to carry on. Today I've got Start Sewing by someone whose name escapes me, and the Readers Digest Book of Sewing and Knitting, which I'm hoping is an ancestor of the one Jocorless recommends (both from the library, which is a rubbish library built for the wilfully illiterate - they don't put the paperback fiction in any kind of order, and more space is taken up by computers and music and videos than it is by books, and most of the other books are not on the shelves when they should be, and I hate it but there's nowhere else to go...went in to the library in my home town last weekend on my way to my parents and it's such a nice building and still quiet. You know. Like a library. Rant over

)

Will let you know what I think of the books later. Assuming they have all the pages in them

- when I borrowed mushroom books all the Liberty Cap pages had been torn out - not by staff, they were marked as damaged. Some people have no imagination. I'd be surprised if they managed to harvest any magic mushrooms intact, you'd think their knuckles dragging on the ground would knock 'em all over before they got to them.

Did I say rant over? I was lying. When I'm prime minister (or president) there'll be hard labour without parole for anyone who wilfully damages books

Deedee

Joined: 10 Jan 2005
Posts: 250
Location: Surrey

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 05 4:50 pm Post subject:

Hi Bugs

sounds a bit like our library and its brand new why more pc's than books?? I thought the whole point of a library was to get books in

Someone suggested charity shops for fabric and stuff these can be great to build your sewing stash.My friends and neighbours also bring in curtains and stuff for me in case I can use them.If they're nice I usually incorporate them into a quilt or something if they are really dire they go in the scraps bin for cleaning my machines

A scrap quilt would be a nice project also to start just cut blocks of around 4 inches square and add to it as and when you get more scraps.Theres a great quilting site in plain english I abolutely adore www.quilterscache.com its so easy to follow a word of warning though you may get hooked!

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45421
Location: Essex

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 05 4:52 pm Post subject:

Deedee wrote:

Hi Bugs

sounds a bit like our library and its brand new why more pc's than books??

Dunno, but ours has always got more people sitting at PC's than borrowing books

Deedee

Joined: 10 Jan 2005
Posts: 250
Location: Surrey

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 05 4:54 pm Post subject:
true so has ours

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 05 5:05 pm Post subject:
Actually, this is such a dear subject to me and quite downsizery, I'm off to start a new thread on libraries. I think I'll do it in chat cos it might get a bit depressing in "does it really matter"

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45421
Location: Essex

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 05 5:06 pm Post subject:
Yup libraries are sad nowadays

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