Learning Skills to Love What I Wear

You may remember that I signed up for the Love What You Wear Project a few weeks’ back. I made a commitment not to buy any new clothes from 1st November 2012 to 30th November 2013. In my last post, I talked about learning to sew my own clothes as a response to life on this new planet we have made. About time I got round to something then!

I was pleased to pick up a couple of old dressmaking books in a charity shop:

Both have lots of useful info, but the Batsford book is a particular gem. There are charts detailing which needles and threads to use with which fabrics:

Info on basics like facings and setting in sleeves:

And some very twee illustrations:

Next step is to actually make something!

After the disaster of cutting out a too-small-size pattern for Waif’s pyjamas, I decided that, rather than cut out the actual pattern for my skirt, I would trace off the size I need. This has the added bonus of reducing the number of confusing lines; plus I am less likely to put my thumb through the tracing paper as it is much thicker than pattern paper. My mum gave me a tip, which was to tape the pattern onto the window to trace it, which I did:

I have now cut out my pattern pieces, and washed my fabric, so hopefully this weekend I will be able to get to work on cutting out the fabric and actually sewing something!