Mr. Tailor Man... Part.2 !

Hi Guys,

So, I got up really early this morning (well, 8am) to get down to the tailors shop and see if he kept my extra goodies aside... I had meant to go last week, but with all the excitement of joining Rachel's sewing club, I forgot, and it was almost time for him to close.

Mr.G forced me to get up earlier than I wanted and head down. Thankfully he still remembered me, and had left the bits that we had discussed aside for me in the back.

So... these are the boxes I picked up. Can anyone guess what's inside? SewBrooke maybe?

Anyone??

Its a never-ending zip! 

I don't know about you guys, but my mind was kind of blown when I saw this! It completely makes sense, but it never occurred to me that this existed! 

Oh and there wasn't just one.

Because there were 5 boxes, but only 1 bag of runners for the zips, he didn't want to split them up. I was FORCED into buying them ALL! Oh well - MOAR ZIPS FOR ME! So I've got olive green, navy, beige, tan and grey I think? No black which was a bummer! Thankfully I want to get into lapped zips and move away from invisible. He also gave me a little lesson in how to thread the runner on :)

 I could literally cover everything I own in zips for the rest of my life and still have zip left over. 

There's like 200 yards a box. I own, like, a kilometre of zip.

Yes I just mixed imperial and metric for some unknown reason.

My next exciting purchase, another thing I've never seen before...

A jacket pressing board! Its so cool, and such a decent size and shape to drape a garment over.

And even cooler, it might be fancy in the front..

But there's a party in the back.

It has an extractor fan to draw the moisture out of the jacket when pressing it!!

 I assume this would be pretty necessary when you're using one of those crazy professional steam irons. Maybe I'll manage an upgrade someday!

I just think it looks shit cool.

I also bought a yard of thick blue fabric to cover the sleeve board from last time - it's the kind of stuff that he had covered his own board with. Now I've stroked it for a while I'm sort of tempted to go back and get one of the longer lengths to make a dress with.. Maybe the red. Argh, I have no control.

I also bought a piece of tweed that I was drooling over last time. It's not Harris, but its beautiful. It's Holland & Sherry, if that means anything to anyone? There was a piece of Harris but it wasn't very long, and I wasn't feeling the colourway. I stroked some other pieces of fabric but held back. Although I want to go back for that red now. Can't get it out of my head!!

I also picked up the remainder of this card of buttons with anchors on them (Mr.G made me). And he also managed to persuade me to give a home to one of his pairs of shears.

They look old and worn, but they are sharp!

He must be so happy I walked in off the street a few weeks ago.

I am!

LYLT,

Emmie xx

Vintage Fabric & Notions

Hi All,

Just wanted to share the goodies I got last weekend at the Chelsea Vintage Frock!
I took out lots of money when I went (as that usually jinxes me finding something to buy) but I left with empty pockets.. oops :)

I sure as hell didn't go there expecting to find any sewing bits, but I sure was wrong!

First thing I found was some vintage Grosgrain. I had encountered this before, and its so stiff, and perfect to support waistbands. This one was even stiffer, and I was bloody delighted. I bought the whole roll and the remnants of another. That was my first score.

Then on the same stall, I found this lovely fabric. I thought it could be a beautiful Shirtwaist dress so I closed my eyes and asked for the price.... and he said £25 so I snapped it up! There's just over 2 metres so I should be able to squeeze something out of it!

Then I stumbled across this beautiful vintage dress stall, although at £150-£300 they were well out of my price range! But he had some lovely patterns too and I got these two.

THEN I found this little old lady with beautiful notions and lace, and I carefully chose a few bits. I tried to ensure I would use them all, so I spent a lot of time picturing what I could do with it. I thought the lace and Broiderie Anglaise could trim a skirt or waistband to make them more vintage styled. I even thought I could make a press stud waistband with some of them.

She also had some cards of button, so a picked out my favourites of those too! I hate when I want to do a project and I don't have any buttons and she was selling them off cheap!

Happy happy happy.... The OH has told me that I need to stop buying things now and start using them!

(Shhhhh...... also picked up these two patterns on eBay.)

Don't tell!!

Love Emmie x

The Fabulous 40+ Sewists

Hi All,

Feel the need to gush about last Saturday. For those of you not in the know, Saturday the 20th of April was The London Sewing Meetup, one of the best days I've ever had. 

This was my very first meetup. I woke up that morning with that sort of nervous nauseous feeling, when you're doing something out of your comfort zone. But I also knew that it was going to be the best day since... well ever. 

The meetup was organised by the beautiful and fantastic Rachel from House of Pinheiro. Who I now find out lives a stones throw away from me! I think I always assume everyone is in London, cause that's where all the cool kids are. That's clearly not true at all!

Her powers of organisation were amazing, and she herded us around London with ease! 

We started off in the V&A, where we all met and had a coffee and introduced ourselves. I met the lovely Katrina from MuffintopVintage in the Tube station, and we strolled down together (and found out that the difference between level 0 and level 1 in the V&A is a mere few steps!). As a sewing beginner, I was shocked and amazed when I saw people arriving with cute little shopping pull-along trolleys and suitcases. I clearly needed to up my game!

Once we had gathered, we headed into the coffee shop, where I ended (by awesome chance) to end up sitting between the amazing Charlotte and Elizalex of By Hand London. That was a wonderful luck of the draw. After seeing Charlotte's beautiful Elizalex skirt (and of course the other lovely Elizalex dresses wandering about) I now have to have the pattern immediately!

       Look, pure joy on my face!

Then we had our photoshoot with Digpal Singh, where we were all shoot in small groups and in our massive group photo!

Look at us! Everyone looked awesome. I was taking sneaky (jealous) glances at what everyone else had made and couldn't stop myself going up to people being all like "I love your dress!". And I think everyone else was doing the same!

The beautiful Elizalex and Charlotte!

It was at this point I got to meet the lady of the hour - Lizzy from SewBusyLizzy, where we finally gave each other our craft swap goodies! But more on that in another post (this one is already too long!)

We then took a sunny journey to Goldhawk Road, and I'm sure we were getting strange looks off the other passengers for being so cheery and chatty. This was when I got talking to the lovely Katy from Sleek Silhouette. We then arrived and sharpishly started our search for the perfect fabrics. 

My usual haunt is A-One Fabrics, near to Goldhawk road station. I was perusing for a while, and then picked a few bits out that I especially loved. I even bought a matching zip for a possible Elizalex dress, and it was handy to have Elizalex there to ask what length to buy!

I was shopping alongside Katy quite a bit of the time, and Tara from The Amazing Taracat, where we convinced Katy that she needed chiffon in her life, and myself and Tara got some turquoise and black fabric at a steal in an offcuts bin. And yes Tara, everyone needs sparkly denim too.

At this point I asked the time, and was shocked when I realised how little time was left before lunch! I speed shopped the last bit and rushed back to A-One to impulse buy the last few bits I had had my eye on. But I did leave one behind (till next time!).

Then it was onto the Lunch. We had it in a Lebanese restaurant, Cedar Village, chosen by Janene of OooBop!

And man it was good.

For a minute we thought we wouldn't fit everyone in, but as if by magic more tables and chair materialised and all was well again. 

And then the plates started coming.

And coming.

And coming.

And then, when we were all stuffed, the manager asks "So do you girls want to wait a bit, or do you want the main course now?"

Main course?????

We were all very shocked by this, but we all managed to shove down some beautifully cooked meat and rice. That was my only meal of the day for sure after that announcement. 

We were an impressive group! Photo borrowed from Rachel at HouseofPinheiro.

After lunch was the craft swap. The likes of one had never been seen. 

I have some dodgy photo's of what lay before us (it was extremely dark down there so you'll have to excuse them)

Mountains of patterns, fabric, thread, ribbons and other various notions! And on top of this, we had goodie bags! They were supplied by Minerva Crafts and Abakhan Fabric. And they were so generous. I got some lovely fabric in mine, and am dreaming of what I could make it into. 

 I got a couple of things from the swap, a piece of fabric and a few scraps that were left behind! I felt so bad that they didn't have a home!

Then we said goodbye to a few people, including Rachel and Lizzy :( But happy goodbyes as you can see.

Then the rest of us hot-footed it to the pub! Wine and cider all round! After a few drinks we all went our separate ways, most home, and some I persuaded to join me in Camden to continue the festivities!

And here are the happy Tube pics! 

And look we have my happy new friends Sally from Charity Shop Chic and Clare from Sew Dixie Lou


And here we all are in The Boom Boom Room in Camden! Also in the pics are the flawless Nicole from Nicole Needles, and my friend Dee from Twitter.

I had to run for the last train, and was nodding off the whole way home!

I can't wait to see everyone again. Am not sure if I can make the Brighton meetup yet (other plans TBC), but am looking at train tickets for the Birmingham one in June! And of course London in August!

Am definitely gonna have to step my game up and step into the unknown world of the solo sewn dress.

Ahhhh!





I know this was a mammoth post, but I will just leave you with a few photo's of some of the fabric that broke my arms and back! But it was worth it!