What, no beads?

Hello folks, 

Yes, I did that thing where I said I was going to blog regularly and then didn’t. Shame on me, I know. But it had been quite a busy time since my last post so perhaps I don’t have to spend too long in the naughty corner?

And what to I have for you on my beady blog for my first post after months of radio silence..oh yes, no beads whatsoever (I’m so good to you guys!)

One of the reasons I’ve not been updating here is because  I finally, after saying I would each series I watched of the Great British Sewing Bee, bought myself a sewing machine and started to learn dressmaking. I’d just gotten quite fed up of high street clothing being made out of nasty cheapo polyester that generates enough static electricity to power a small country in combination with my long hair, or things inexplicably having weird holes in odd places (does the world really need to see a triangle shaped snippet of my rib cage?).

Here’s my new baby (plus Jeff, he’s the dinosaur) just out of the box. As a generally crafty sort I have been going down the self taught route aided by a couple of books, Google and YouTube. The book Love at First Stitch by Tilly from the sewing bee has been especially useful in terms of keeping things simple – paper patterns seem to assume you already know everything even when they say ‘easy’ or ‘beginner’ on the envelope.

I’ve been mostly concentrating on trying to learn techniques, so the fitting of some of the clothing I’ve made is a bit off, but that’s for working on in the future. Here’s a selection of what I’ve been up to….

Funky bird print cushion

Fox top

Deer dress

I also had this whoops moment as I didn’t take into account the fact that my fabric had a directional print when following the cutting layout, lol!

Now don’t worry, sewing definitely hasn’t taken over from beading…it’s just had quite a bit of my time initially because I know nothing, whereas beading I know I can just pick up and do whenever I want. Plus I did take part in Battle of the Beadsmith again this year, which will get its own blog post shortly.

TTFN, I promise beads aplenty in my next post!

Nicole