Market ahoy!

It's getting all a bit Albert Square here, but in a much posher way - I am lucky enough to have been given a space at the Jubilee market, Covent Garden, where I shall be asking other people to watch my stall while I get a coffee in Ian's cafe, and selling my hand made and organic cotton kids wear. Prices will be slightly discounted from the website, and I will have market exclusive designs - so if you're in town do pop by and remember, a gift of clothing for the kids is also a gift for hard pressed parents!

Lady Kimonii - experiments!

This week, I have been working on my 'Lady Kimonii' project - to produce my Kimonii design in adult sizes (Somehow saying 'Adult Kimonii) sounds a bit ... dubious, sort of like adult diapers? Anyway...

I found a sari for sale in my local charity shop, it's quite a good one and sometimes has pieces of fabric, and sometimes I find these nice lengths of sari fabric with the sale stickers still intact. This one was a beautiful pink and green, with a lovely gold border.
I was hoping it was more green than pink when I saw it folded up, but it turned out to be more pink than green. The fabric it's self was most odd - sometimes I find sari fabrics to be a little strange in composition, as they are not designed to be cut and tailored as western fabrics are. It had a heavy waft thread, and an almost invisible weft thread, which meant that when it was cut, any pointed shapes such as the crotch shape, were almost fraying out of existence before I could start sewing. I had to over lock every edge of each pattern piece before I could put them together, and although the end result looks good, I don't think that actual sari fabric is the way to go for production - though it's very attractive.

But I am more excited about my next one - a kimonii made from jersey fabric.
If you don't know about these things, jersey or any knit fabric with a stretch can be a bit of a nightmare to sew without the right machines, and I had been advised that what I'd need would be jersey binding to finish the edges.
But that would mean having some made, which would mean an investment I don't have right now, so I decided to think round the issue.
I have never worked in jersey before, so I had to read up a little and then ignore all that and kind of go for it! I put the regular pattern down, sort of blended it together to remove as many of the seams as I could, and reduced it down from a 10 piece pattern to a four piece pattern. I even 'grew' the sleeves on, so that it would eliminate sleeve fitting issues.



This is half way through construction - I decided to not try and hem or turn any of the loose edges but to simple use my over locker to finish the edge and let it ripple where it wants to - in fact, I decided to encourage it to ripple, always believing in making a strength out of a vice as ever!
When putting it together, I over locked the seams together first, then stitched them with a wide stitch afterwards, and it worked really well.

To finish the front edge, I used a grown on facing, and wiggled with delight at my own cleverness by also including a back neck facing to the front facing which I sneaked into position, thus making the whole process much quicker and easier - also removing the need for binding the back neck, way hey!
Anyway - here it is all finished - rippled edges and all -

Black is a wardrobe staple, but it was also the cheapest jersey I could find - however, now I have worked out a few bugs ( crotch depth needed to be dropped by 4 cm, obi belt needed to be shortened and made a little deeper) I shall be looking for a more interesting fabric -


Like this one! Yummy!!!

Lady Kimonii - Threads

Lady Kimonii - Threads

This is just a little blog about my developments with the Kimonii -

My take on the circular vest project - Threads

My take on the circular vest project - Threads

Is this the height of lazy? This is a link to my Threads blog about making my cunning new fleece cardigan!

Thames festival

Hello!

I have finally got my self back together after a weekend at the Thames festival, on the craft trail with we make London.

We had something of a night mare journey, as although we had plenty of information of how to get there, no one could predict that we would spend 40 minuets in the Stainer street tunnel unable to move due to insane traffic lights. Although the South Bank is pedestrianized, we had been granted access, but we were up against the clock and when we'd finally escaped the tunnel, that access was over. We we were turned away, and tried another way, where some numpty in a day glow jacket let us enter. It turned out that he really shouldn't have done that, as we were suddenly driving through crowds of pedestrians giving us evil looks, until we gradually came to halt in a water feature. We were not alone, the numpty had allowed another pair of crafters though as well, and in the end a yellow jacket with a walkie talkie (clearly a sign of rank) lead us back out onto Tooley street.
'Follow me!' he promised, and then promptly vanished, and in the end we parked legally and ran to our stand with arm fulls of cakes and swearing.

But never mind! We made it!
And so did our cup-cakes and kidswear.

The events then went pretty well, there was a steady stream of people and many happy crafters attending the free workshops, all thanks to the we-make-London ladies, who kept it all going through rain and (mostly) shine.
The cakes went down pretty well, and I even sold some kids clothes, which was the main purpose of being there, and I certainly handed out a lot of cards. It's a hard and sometimes disheartening slog building up from the ground, but it's always good to realize that people are trying to make a difference - thanks we make London!