Hometown glory

Imagine my delight and surprise when I was home in Scotland this summer to find that a sewing shop has opened up in my hometown!



Holm Sown is a lovely shop situated on King Street, the main thoroughfare through the lovely town of Castle Douglas in south-west Scotland, where I happily spent the first 18 years of my life. The shop sits across the road from the Sulwath Brewers - which is incidentally where I was heading when I first saw the shop!

I find seeing physical versions of sewing patterns in a bricks and mortar shop pretty exciting as I'm so used to seeing anything to do with sewing through the screen of my computer. Coming in to real contact with 'sewing things' whether it be in a shop or meeting people you've connected with online is great. Seeing the likes of Grainline Studio patterns and Sewaholic patterns staring back at me through the shop window I had to go in.

I really hope the shop does well. If I'm honest I was surprised to see a sewing shop in Castle Douglas as I wouldn't have immediately thought there would be a huge market in passing trade in a small town. But the fact that the shop offers workshops and has an online shop will surely help. I had a quick chat with Rachel who runs the shop and she is really nice, so I wish her lots of success and I can't wait to pop in at Christmas time with my Mum and see what delights are on offer!

So what did I pick up the last time? I got some Merchant and Mills fabric which I really like but have not dared cut into yet! I also got a Megan Neilson's Darling Ranges dress pattern which I've sewn up in the leftover fabric from my last White Tree Fabrics project.

I made some slight modifications in that I didn't add the elastic or the buttons so it just pulls over my head. There was also some unorthodox fitting techniques at the neckline but I think the flowery fabric is forgiving enough that this doesn't stand out too much. I've now made the adjustment on the pattern so if I make it again it will be a cleaner finish.

And take a look at my earrings below - my talented friend Krysia makes them out of old bike tyre inner tubes!

Chin to the chest

When my yoga teacher said she was looking for someone with a sewing machine to make some rice pillows I quickly volunteered my services. It was a good opportunity to use up some of my ever-growing collection of fabric scraps and as I said in my previous post, sometimes you just need a simple sewing project.

It was nice to make things that will be used by other people too.

The pillows are 21.5cm by 11cm and have an in inner pillow made out of cotton calico. The inner pillow is full of 200g of rice plus a liberal sprinkling of lavender.

The idea is to place the pillow over your eyes at the end of the class as demonstrated in this photo. The weight of the rice is soothing as is the smell of the lavender, and it helps you to relax.

I'm happy to bring together sewing and yoga as they are both two activities I love!

('Chin to the chest' is what my lovely teacher is always reminding my to do as apparently I have a tendency to tilt my head back!)

A new favourite coat part 2: winter is coming!

The coat I started in May is still a work in progress six months on. I'm not going to lie - I wish I was faster at sewing it, but sometimes other things in life get in the way. Since May I've done a fair bit of sewing but when I turned to the coat rather than just getting stuck in, that pesky voice in the head that stops us facing up to new challenges would get in the way.

I would start to work on the coat and then decide to make a dress instead or pontificate about other sewing ideas. While I've sewn jackets before (the RdC Gerard I lade last October is still a big favourite), this coat was out of my comfort zone, and to boot I'm making the pattern up as I go along using my favourite coat as a model.

There were many times over the last few months when I didn't feel like doing much on the coat, even though I felt like sewing.  Exploring this feeling has taught me some more about my relationship with sewing.

If I don't feel that great I might need to feel productive and switch off by going through the motions of sewing something I feel comfortable with. I'm probably not in the best frame of mind for giving welt pockets a go for the first time, for example. If I mess it up (and I'm more likely to with an agitated mind) I'll likely take the failure to heart and blow it completely out of perspective in my mind, adopting an 'oh typical', 'just my luck', 'well I'm shit at sewing so of course I messed it up' attitude.

Whereas, generally, if I feel on top of things in life, content, well, and generally at peace, I'm much happier to push myself and work out new things and get a bit messy - i.e. have all surfaces and available floorspace covered in sewing stuff. And if it doesn't work out I won't view it as time lost or as a 'failure', I'll just be happy to have learnt something and to have been sewing.

I'm happy to report that over the past week I was in the latter more positive sewing groove and have made some steps forward with the coat!

First of all... the zip and zip flap are in ! I wanted to emulate the zip construction on my model coat exactly.






The facing is in! Photos of some unorthodox facing drafting methods. I decided to not have a collar.





And...after much practicing the welt pockets are in!







I think what ultimately sets apart homemade wool coats and 'professional' coats is that it is so hard to press the seams properly! So I need to do some more work to get them as smooth as possible.

Just the lining to draft and sew and I might have this coat ready before the real Belgian winter sets in.