Practice Makes Perfect....

Hello Ladies and Gents and how are we all on this beautiful sun-kissed evening? I just can't get enough of it hence the lack of blogging! As I've decided to have a lazy evening I thought I would share with you what I've been up to...

Well my sewing senses have been tingling and I thought I should start a new project! I was merrily looking at the gorgeous Bernie Dexter collection on the What Katie Did website and tweeted a link about the delightful Veronique Blush Dress in the collection and how much I needed it in my every expanding collection of retro and vintage dresses. My tweeter friend 'inkfairy' saw my tweet and said that there was a great pattern of a similar design that I should give a go! I thought ok, lets have a look at this pattern. The pattern is by Sewaholic and the pattern is the Cambie Dress which is a pattern specifically designed for pear shape ladies like myself. I did some research (as always) and it said the pattern was for advanced sewers... this put me off a little (for the moment) so thought what else can I sew instead? This is when I had a brain wave (or was it a heat wave???) and decided to see what fabrics I had in my stash before I embarked on such grand ideas. I saw I had some waterproof fabric and some satin fabric along with plenty of other pieces... I thought to myself 'I know what I can do...I'll make a shower cap for my mother-in-law and a quilt for my friend who is expecting any minute!'

Sewing in the Sun!

So I assembled my tools and took my sewing basket outside and set up camp. I started preparing all the fabric for both the shower cap and the quilt and before long I had 30 squares of 4"x4", the backing of 28"x24", 2 x 20"x2", 2 x 28"x2" and two large circles all ready for the Singer! Soon I was cooking from the sun so decided to have a break and lie in the shade!

The afternoon quickly rolled passed and I ventured in to start all the 

Shower Cap!

sewing. The shower cap literally took about 30 minutes of sewing and 5 minutes to thread the elastic through! I was amazed at how simple it seemed compared to the first time. I then started to make the quilt which again only took about 60 minutes to complete. I was so impressed with myself - particularly as these two projects seemed so simple the second time round!

Quilt front and back!

What I'm trying to share with you all is that practice does make perfect. I was surprised at the ease it was to make these two items and even more that I didn't need to refer to my blog as I had logged how to make them in my brain sack. It did make the experience more pleasurable not having to check instructions every two minutes but if I start a new project I will of course follow the instructions the first time! This opened my eyes and perhaps the stunning Sewaholic Cambie Dress will have to wait a little longer. I feel I need to practice the skills I've all ready learnt before taking the next step. With this new found flare I'm now on the hunt for some tiki fabric to make another 'A' line skirt...so watch this space!

Below are a links to my previous blog plus a few other great links...

• Rockabilly Stitch Quilting Blog: http://rockabillystitch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/quilting-rockabilly-stitch-way.html 
• Rockabilly Stitch Shower Cap Blog:http://rockabillystitch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/shower-cap-circles-thread.html 
• What Katie Did/ Bernie Dexter: http://www.whatkatiedid.com/product/984/bernie%20dexter%20retro%20veronique%20blush%20dress 
• Link to inkfairy's blog: http://vintageinkfairy.blogspot.co.uk/
• Link to the stunning Sewaholic Cambie Dress: http://www.sewaholicpatterns.com/product/1202-cambie-dress

Happy Practicing x

P.S. The Bernie Dexter Dress will be in my collection soon...it's just so fabulous!! 

P.P.S. I just wanted to let you know my dear friend was over the moon with the gift of the quilt for her baby boy and here it is all ready in use. I'm so proud that I was able to share a gift that I had made with a dear friend. I hope it comes in handy and helps keep his little knees warm in winter.

Quilt being model by Baby Aidan

Shower Cap... Circles & Thread

Hello Ladies and Gents,

Over recent months I've started to use dry shampoo and can't believe I've only discovered this wonderful product now. So with my new found love of dry hair shampoo, the need to wash my hair daily has decreased so I thought a shower cap would be a great sewing project. I did my usual world wide web search and found these great blogs by Junie Moon - One Yard Adventure: Shower Cap Tutorial and SewDelish - Some Sewing - How to Make a Shower Cap - Tutorial - links below:

http://junie-moon.blogspot.com.au/2008/08/one-yard-adventure-shower-cap-tutorial.html?m=1

http://sewdelish.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/some-sewing-shower-cap-mini-tutorial.html?m=1

I assembled all my equipment and started to make the shower cap (see tutorials above for this information). The first challenge was how big was my head?? I got out the tape measure and measured it - it was around 22" (is that big??). After reading the tutorial to calculate how much fabric I'd need I added a buffer of two inches to this to ensure there was enough fabric to fold over and still fit my head.

Tools for the circle

Circle outline

The second challenge was how do I make a perfect circle? After thinking about what I had in the house, I got a large piece of paper, string and a pen. I folded the paper into quarters, cut the string to 12", tied the string around the pen and drew the circle. I then cut the circle out of the paper and laid this on top of the fabric and used my rotary cutter to go around the fabric. I did this for both the waterproof lining and outer fabric.

Paper circle on fabric

Cut fabric - ready to stitch

Pinned fabric

After all this prep I was eager to start sewing...so I followed the instructions and basted the material together in order to keep the fabrics from slipping. So after basting the fabric together, I went to the ironing board, ironed over about a quarter of an inch and then a further inch - when sewn this makes the pocket to thread the elastic through. As I ironed over the fabric, I pinned it down....and this is when I started to wonder if sewing a circle was such a wise choice after all...anyway I had got this far so I persevered. 

All pinned and ready I went back to the sewing machine and started to sew...this is when my patience was well and truly tested. At first I could not understand how to follow the circle - I kept having straight lines! So after a lot of unpicking and re-ironing I started again. This time, I realised I had to nip in little bits as I went round in order to make the circle. I was very pleased with myself that I had worked this out! So feeling confident, I was merrily sewing when disaster struck.... I ran out of thread - how could I run out of thread????

AAHHHHHH!!

With no thread my shower cap project came to an abrupt end -  I couldn't get over how annoyed at myself I was so top tip: always have a spare thread!

A few weeks later, armed with mountains of thread, I carried on with this project... I had mastered how to do the circle and went around the one inch hem (leaving a two inch space so the elastic could be thread around) and stitched around the outer edge. I cut the elastic to 20 inches long, put a safety pin at the end and thread it through. At this point I found it tricky, so I will explain how I overcame the challenge.

When threading the elastic, pin one end at the opening. Use a safety pin on the

Pinned ends

other end of the elastic and thread it all the way through. When back at the start pull the elastic through, safety pin the two ends together and spread the material around over the elastic (by doing this you will be able to see if you need to trim the elastic). I did need to trim the elastic and took off a further 4 inches. With the safety pin now holding both pieces together I hand stitched the ends together. Once happy the ends were secure I undid the safety pin and machine sewed over the top to ensure the elastic was secure...and ta-dah, one finished shower cap!!!

I was so pleased at what I achieved making this. It may seem simple and the tutorials are detailed and easy to follow, but for someone who is new to the sewing bug it used lots of different skills and own initiative to complete this. My next project involve zips so lets see where this takes me!

Hint and tips

• Equipment: Paper, string, pen, iron, cutting board, rotary cutter, water-proof fabric, fabric scissors, pins, safety pins, needles, THREAD, elastic and a sewing machine
• Check what you have in your sewing box...I double check everything now so I don't run out of thread again!
• Research - find a tutorial that works for you
• Patience - I do mention this every time, but it is important. I did take me a good 3-4 weeks to carry on with this project, but I'm so pleased I did as I love what I've made!

Enjoy and take your time!

Happy Stitching x

Finished shower cap!