Blog post started 4th May 2015

I have recently started watching The Great British Sewing Bee, and of course, instead of starting at the beginning which is logical, because everyone on the Facebook pages I am a member of was talking about season 3 that is where I started.

I love it , how wonderful to see sewers of all sorts challenged in so many ways. I have been completely obsessed and have ended up watching all 3 seasons over the last few weeks which I am sure is the part of the reason for my limited blog posts.

In The Great British Sewing Bee Season 3, One of the challenges  was to make a boys vest.This made me think of my one attempt at a male vest, and caused me to run up to my sons room and pull out the suit I had made him for a “Boardwalk Empire”themed college party he went to. I made this pattern for him :
In this fabric:

The judges comments made me look more critically at my efforts . It was about 4 years ago and my first male three piece suit , made very hurriedly as it was spur of the moment impulse, with a lot of late night sewing involved ,but I think I did okay. As you can see here , I didn’t exactly match the pattern which is something I now would be very careful about, but it looks pretty good still.

This is a picture of my son in his suit.

In keeping with the loud styling of the suits worn in those days we picked a fabric that is not subtle.
It is a wool blend and feels really nice . He may use it again as a costume I hope so it was a lot of work.
My next  attempt will be a navy blazer for my husband. I plan to undertake a craftsy class to ensure I perfect my jacket sewing before I do it but I will put it up when I am done.

Have you ever attempted a mans suit or jacket? How did you go?
Are there any tips you can give me for tailoring?
Improving my skills is an on going challenge I love.

The other reason I have not blogged much lately  is my decision to completely declutter my home. I started in my bedroom and then at my husbands urging I moved to the sewing room. This is an enormous undertaking as for the last few months I had set up my sewing in the games room of our home as it has air conditioning, a blessing in Summer ,and a huge table. My sewing room had become the family dumping ground for unwanted school books, costumes, bags and seasonal clothes. I had to reclaim it. I have hauled out all the things that were not related to my activities, sewing, craft , scrapbooking and reconfigured the space. I will show you it when it is finished. I have also put all my fabric into zippered clear bags so that they stay free of dust.

I have been sorting all my fabrics and patterns with the intention of donating all that I don’t feel I will use to the Achieve Australian fabric cave in Meadowbank. A wonderful initiative where you can purchase donated fabric and patterns for a really reasonable price and all funds raised are used to help people with disabilities. I stopped in there last week to find out what I needed to do  to donate and also happened to pick up some lovely fabric and patterns . I am thrilled with what I got and will show you as I use it.

I will post my latest make soon.

Happy Sewing ,

Sue 🙂