What Was Your First - Steph from SewingCake

Things got away from me and before I knew it 4 months had passed since I introduced this series, whoops! Sorry about that. Let's try again and this time get things rolling a bit more regularly. Today we are lucky enough to hear about Steph, the talented lady behind SewingCake Patterns, and her first...

Steph resting in one of her hummingbirds | Source

First, introductions: 
I'm StephC from 3 Hours Past the Edge of the World, creator of Cake Patterns. I've been sewing as long as I can remember, I started out making clothes for my dolls and costumes to supplement my imagination. I would say I'm an advanced sewist.

What was the first "real" garment you sewed? 
The first "real" garment I sewed was a sleeveless rayon bias sheath when I was 12 or so. It was awful! My mom bought me a sewing machine but neither of us knew how to use it. I was undeterred. The fabric was a butter yellow color, sprinkled with blue irises. Grown-up me knows to avoid yellow, but tweenie me loved the color. I wore it to church, very pleased with my new make. A kind older lady pulled me aside and whispered in my ear "You have to put down the presser foot before you sew, it will make much neater stitches that way." This tip revolutionized my sewing. She came by and taught me a few basics about using my machine- winding bobbins, backstitching, etc. I don't know why I started sewing, it's a compulsion. No, I don't still have that yellow dress, definitely don't wear it. I'm not sure what happened to her- I never wore her again once I realized what a mess I made of the stitching!

If you were making it now, what would you do differently? Would you remake the garment now? 
No, I don't think I would remake that dress because I don't wear that cut (bias sheath), I don't wear that color (yellow) and I don't wear much rayon. I had zero clue how to dress myself when I was 12!

If you could go back in time and tell past-you one tip to improve your early garments, what would it be?
Learn to put in a zipper nicely before your early 20's. It's ridiculous the things you do to avoid putting in a zipper, and it's not that hard! You could learn in 20 minutes if you weren't strangely scared of your machine, the zipper, and the fabric. What they ever do to you? Nothing. So get cracking, time's a-wasting.
Tip: Invisibles are simplest to learn.

Thanks Steph! Stay tuned for the next post in this series, hopefully a little sooner than this one was after the last one ;)

What Was Your First - Mel from Seamstress:Poppykettle

Today I am incredibly excited to be posting the first interview in my new "What was your first?" series. The first interviewee is the incredibly talented Melanie, from Seamstress:Poppykettle. I have to confess, I have a bit of a blog-crush on Mel, she has made some absolutely amazing garments. So onto her first...

First, introductions:

I'm Melanie, the sewcialist behind seamstress: poppykettle. I did a wee bit of sewing in high school, but I had my first sewing lesson as a technical beginner in February 2011, so just over two years now! I continued on having lessons for the next 12 months before striking out alone. I'd class my skill range at being somewhere between intermediate and advanced.... as the more I learn, the more I realise there still is to learn!!

What was the first "real" garment you sewed?
The first real garment I sewed was McCalls 5523 - which has four different skirts, I made mine with a pleated lower back. That was back in April 2011! I wore it quite a bit initially because it filled a black work skirt void in my wardrobe, but I made it a bit too closely fitting (the concept of 'ease' took me a while to get) and well, I'm a little more curvy these days ;) It's still in my wardrobe though, waiting for the day I can squeeze back into it!

If you were making it now, What would you do differently? 
I wanted to line it, but I didn't quite get how to do that with a facing. Knowing what I know now, I'd go back and draft the lining separately (rather than just cut out the same pattern pieces in the lining) and include a self fabric facing. I probably wouldn't make this skirt again though - I've discovered I prefer skirts with waistbands. This allows for much 'cleaner' lining application, and everything stays in place.

If you could go back in time and tell past-you one tip to improve your early garments, what would it be? 
Gosh... probably to think a little more about what I would like the end result is going to look like. I was so head-over-heels in love with sewing that I just put pedal to the medal, and quite often the end results didn't match the vision in my head as a result!


Thanks for that Mel, your first garment is exquisite!
Hopefully you've enjoyed this 'What was your first?" post, I'll be back with another one in a few weeks!

Introducing... "What Was Your First?"

Today I am very excited to be announcing a new little series that I'm planning to start here on my blog, called "What was your first?". Have you seen the various interview type blog series around? Like "My Handmade Style" and "A day in the life". Well a little while back I had an idea for one myself so thought I'd give it a go.

In "what was your first?" I will invite other #sewcialists to tell us about the first 'real' item/garment that they made, how it turned out, and anything in particular they wish they could have told their 'past self' that would have made the item more of a success.

When I say "first 'real' item/garments", I'm going to leave that up to the interviewee to decide what I mean. For example, I did a bit of patchwork/quilting as a kid with my gran, and then during uni made a whole host of fancy dress costumes. But I would class my first 'real' garment as the first item of clothing that I made that was intended to wear normally, ie not fancy dress. (Although I do have some pretty awesome fancy dress costumes that I've made that I really should share with you one day)

To give you an idea of what I have planned, I thought I'd answer my 'interview questions' myself, about the first 'real' garment that I made...

First, introductions:
Well, hopefully you know who I am, but just incase you don't (I won't judge!); I'm Rachel, and I've been sewing seriously since about 2006. As I mentioned above, my gran taught me to sew; she does a lot of patchwork and quilting and was very happy to teach me how to as well when I expressed an interest as a child. I then 'nurtured' my basic sewing skills at university by making fancy dress costumes, but it was when I graduated from uni that I had a go at making 'real' clothes.

What was the first "real" garment you sewed?
The first item of 'regular' clothing that I made was a simple gored skirt. I decided to try making one because there were loads around in the shops at the time, and looking at it I couldn't get out of my head "They look like they wouldn't be too hard to make". So, after some examinations of the skirts in the shops, I went to the Bull Ring Rag Market in Birmingham and bought myself some fabric and had a go!

 

True to how I still tend to do things. I jumped in with both feet, and 'drafted' my own pattern and just had a go, making it up as I went along. I still have the skirt, and have worn it a fair few times. Less so recently, but that's more due to my being slightly too big for it than anything that is wrong with the skirt.


If you were making it now, What would you do differently?
Well, I like to think that this skirt was quite a success and I've actually made many more of essentially this skirt since I made it, I think I've made 5 of them in various iterations so far... and fully intend on making some more in the future, hopefully some more in wintery fabrics that can be worn with tights, as they're mostly summery skirts. But with regards to this particular one, I don't think I'd change anything major about it, I still really like the style and the fabric.


If you could go back in time and tell past-you one tip to improve your early garments, what would it be?
I'm going to cheat here and go with two things...

The first is finish your seam allowances!! It didn't even occur to me at the time that I should finish my seam allowances, so there they are, in all their unfinished glory! When I wear the skirt I have to check for any frayed threads and snip them off before I put it on!

 

The second thing is to think carefully about trims and their properties. In this case, the trim needed to be made into a curve, and the ribbon I chose wasn't having any of it! As the top of the skirt is not cylindrical but tapering out towards my hips, the ribbon that I added as trim was a bit of a problem, as it wanted to make a nice little tube. As you can see in the above photo, as I had stitched on the top of the ribbon first, I had to make some little tucks in the skirt below the ribbon to make it work. As well as looking a bit messy, this also made the skirt that bit smaller than it was intended to be.

I hope you're at least a little bit as excited as me about this upcoming series, I'm looking forward to hearing from my interviewees. Keep a look out for the first proper "what was your first?" post coming up soon!