A New Adventure

Welcome to my new sewing blog!  It's my place to show my me-made items, and hopefully get to know other sewing bloggers.

I have always loved sewing!  I learned how to make clothes when I was a teenager with my mother, who in turn learned from her mother-in-law, my grandmother.  My grandmother worked in Rackhams, a big department store in the centre of Birmingham as a seamstress.  She altered all the lovely gowns to fit the rather upmarket clientele.  It was said that she only had to look at a person and she could cut a dress to fit!  She made me several dresses, including my christening gown.  I'll come back to this in a future post.

Through the years I have revisited dressmaking several times, attending various evening classes, making clothes for myself in my 20s, and for my daughter when she was a little girl. I have again returned to dressmaking, and am attending a drop-in sewing class at More Sewing, a local fabric store.  When I rekindled my love of dressmaking one of the first things I did was read the sewing blogs!  I discovered a whole world of independent designers of dress patterns, and gained lots of extra information from tutorials and sew-alongs.  Not only that, but I love looking at the photos of the items made up in all sorts of colours and textures of fabric, and the pattern hacks.

I became aware that there is quite an interest in vintage patterns.  See Marie from 'A Stitching Odyssey' and Kerry from 'Kestrel Makes' Vintage Pattern Pledge.  I began to search in local charity shops and on eBay, and have amassed quite a collection in a very short time.  I adore the vintage illustrations, they are so cute!  The glamour of the 1960s is my favourite at the moment!  Although I love a good 1970s sundress, or a 1980s ‘Lady Di’ haircut! 

So I have opened an Etsy shop selling vintage patterns, and some vintage sewing notions and haberdashery.  I love the cards of buttons, and the old wooden cotton reels!  And the little cards of press studs and hooks and eyes!  Please do pop over and have a look.  I would love to know what you think!