Five go off to camp

Well, that's the plan, anyway. We've only gone and bought a tent! I've always wanted to take my little family camping - I had so many amazing family camping holidays as a child, touring through Europe with a small secondhand tent, and later in a plush eurocamp job. Nothing better than long days outdoors, cooking on a gas stove, playing cards by lamplight and sleeping under canvas. It has, however, taken me quite a while to bring the husband around to the idea. His only experience of camping hithertofore was a doomed tent-in-a-field week as a child with his own family, under the bossy direction of some die-hard no-mod-cons family friends. I get the impression that none of them ever spoke to each other again after that ill-fated 'holiday'.

After hours of research and interrogation of friends and family, we chose this family tent, the Vango Samara 600. It's enormous! We don't have the canopy, and I'm finding it hard to imagine how we could possibly need any extra space.

When the tent arrived, nothing was going to stop me from pitching it straight away in the garden. I shrugged aside the warning that it was a two-man job and pitched in. I was impossibly red in the face when I went to pick the elders up from school that afternoon, but it was worth it. Of course, there's always the danger that the husband will say that I might as well pitch it solo every time now that I've proved how easy it is.

I would really love to hear your family camping tips if you have any - top campsites, essential kit, anything and everything! It's amazing what an evangelical bunch campers are, I've really felt that everyone I've spoken to genuinely wants us to enjoy camping. I really can't wait.

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Frocks away

Well, I was late to the party signing up to  Kids' Clothes Week 2013, but I did manage to finish the puppet show tunic and to whip up a little sundress for my little sunbeam today. Though I haven't made the little gathered cuff shorts yet, I'm thrilled to bits with the tunic, a perfect opportunity to use those blue polka dot buttons I'd been holding on to for a while, and to put that blue floral print and seersucker gingham to use at long last.

I love the finish on this pattern - a curved yoke with topstitched darts, pouffy little sleeves with a button cuff, and the button back closure. The only place where I deviated from the pattern is in making the button plackets and hem - I omitted the hem facing altogether, preferring to finish the hem with some handmade bias in the seersucker gingham used for the yoke.

My mini miss is almost three, but being as I was pretending to be a pro stitcher, I actually measured her before cutting out the pattern, and realised she runs pretty true to a 2T, which is the size I made.

She's looking sideways in all the shots I took, not as a gazing-into-the-middle-distance catalogue pose, but because my mum is holding a packet of chocolate buttons just out of shot as a bribe. There was also another little distraction in the form of a little cousin who kept on appearing in the frame with a cheeky grin! 

After a great many chocolate buttons my model was also persuaded to brave the chill and put on her new sundress. This is a really simple shirred dress, with narrow rouleau ties (though not as impossibly delicate as those Lauren made on the Great British Sewing Bee!). There are plenty of tutorials out there, but this one (found via The Thrifty Stitcher Blog, sewing consultant to the GBSB) is a good one, with guidelines for typical children's sizing included.

The fabric is a very cheap cotton print bought in a fabric shop in Reading, of which I have enough remaining to make a matching dress for my 9-year old. Nothing beats matchy-matchy sisters!

Pressing on

I wonder how many of us have fired up our sewing machines with renewed enthusiasm for dressmaking after watching the Great British Sewing Bee. I'm still waiting on the blouse pattern I ordered for my floral cotton print (it doesn't resemble either of the ones I linked to below - I am nothing if not fickle!). Unable to get sewing for myself, I stumbled on the very timely Kids' Clothes Week sewalong, kitted myself out with the Oliver + S puppet show tunic pattern (thanks, Kate, for the heads up about this being available as a digital download now that it's out of print), and hacked into some pretty blue and white floral print and a seersucker gingham.

The puppet show tunic pattern is super-cute, with pretty little details such as a peter pan collar, puffy sleeves with a button cuff, and a contrast hem facing. I really like the finishing touches on the Oliver + S patterns, like the button placket and hem facing on the birthday party dress I made a good while ago for my eldest. This time the littlest is my victim (apparently puppet show tunics just won't cut it in the 9-year old style stakes!).

pressing the peter pan collar

If there's one thing I've taken away from the Great British Sewing Bee, it's that just as discretion is the better part of valour, so too is pressing the better part of sewing. Did you notice how Ann and Sandra, the two most experienced seamstresses, were constantly seen to be pressing seams, or sending a jet of steam at more delicate fabrics? If there's one thing I love about working with fabric, it's the notion of ease, the difference you can make by gently rolling a seam so that the facing sits on the inside, or working a bit of magic with a steam iron. The peter pan collar on the puppet show tunic is a case in point; a judicious bit of pressing, topstitching, then pressing again, and the collar sits perfectly. I shall be stitching peter pan collars on everything from now on.

topstitched darts

tacking the run and fell seam

run and fell seam

It's been a slow affair, but I'm really enjoying the process, little things like topstitching the darts, and sewing run and fell seams (not called for in the pattern but I'm trying to be a pro like Ann and Sandra!).  I've pressed on with the tunic, and just have a tiny bit of handfinishing to do tomorrow, then I shall try to persuade my model to actually put it on!

puppet show tunic in progress

Feeling stitchy

So who tuned into the Great British Sewing Bee last night? And what did you think? Curiously, it was my husband who had earmarked this for my viewing pleasure as I had no idea it was on. I'm interested to see how the series goes and will definitely be continuing to view, even though I'm reserving judgement on whether the slow-burn of dressmaking quite lends itself to the Great British Bake Off format. I'm also not quite sure who the programme is aimed at yet. The laundry bag 'tutorial' which was spliced in midway through the programme was a case-in-point. Although a drawstring bag is a great beginner's stitching project the speed with which the instructions were rattled off, with only partial views of assembly could have left even an experienced stitcher reeling! I did enjoy watching the contestants getting to grips with the two challenges though, and found myself itching to get out the scissors and snip into a nice swishy piece of tissue paper pattern. And I also found myself window-shopping the fabrics, patterns and haberdashery which were being put to use. The Sewing Directory have posted a great crib-sheet of where to buy the fabrics, tools and notions used on the Great British Sewing Bee programme, as well as a list of contestants' blogs and websites, plenty of good linkage to while away a few hours.

Meanwhile, I'm suddenly possessed by the urge to make an item of clothing again. I have a pretty navy blue floral print in my stash picked up in John Lewis which I want to use to make a top. Can anyone recommend some lovely top or blouse patterns for woven fabrics? I'd love to be able to find a failsafe pattern that I could knock up in a few different fabrics, with scope for neckline and sleeve variations. But I'm steering well clear of anything fitted until I've completed a few more pilates classes and become a more proficient dressmaker. Let's just say I need a little margin for error on both counts!

Source: oliverbonas.com via Helen on Pinterest

Source: whitestuff.com via Helen on Pinterest

I like the shape of these two tops, from my dressmaking inspiration board over on pinterest, the pleats and also the little capped sleeve on the second top, for a simple over-the-head shape with no darts or zips.

I'm also adding a few more books to my most-wanted over on my 'sewing books' page, and would love an opinion from anyone who has used any of them:
 
How to Use, Adapt and Design Sewing Patterns: From Shop-bought Patterns to Drafting Your Own: A Complete Guide to Fashion Sewing with Confidence by Lee Hollahan
Design-It-Yourself Clothes by Cal Patch
Sew U: The Built by Wendy Guide to Making Your Own Wardrobe by Wendy Mullin
The BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook by Nora Abousteit and Alison Kelly

I shall be blaming the BBC if I fail to make a wearable top at the end of all this!

Views from the kitchen table

My sunny-day salad of feta, bacon, red onion, baby leaves and tomatoes, all the more satisfying as it used up lots of leftovers that were past their best.

The button-nosed one making fairy cakes.

A gangnam-style interlude from the elders, to enthusiastic handclapping by the littlest.

And that's the sort of week we've had here.

Could it be that Spring is in the air?

 

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!

St David's Day, the first of March, a sure sign that Spring is in the air! Seeing my little ones dress up in their Welsh costumes (which were once my Welsh costumes!) brings back vivid memories of running around in a sunny school yard swinging our Welsh hats by the ribbons as baskets and pretending that we were apple-pickers. Why apple-picking, I know not, but it was ever so.

It doesn't seem to have rained for ages. And I live in Wales, so that really is saying something.  I never think that I'm too susceptible to being pulled down by the nights drawing in during the Autumn, but I am definitely feeling a surge of Spring energy as the days are getting longer. We seem to have packed in a host of lovely things over the last couple of weeks including a visit back to friends near our old home and a jaunt into London to see my sister and baby nephew, and the following weekend two of my best friends coming to stay for a whole two days of idle roaming, scrabble-playing and leisurely eating and drinking. And then there's the master plan of persuading all my friends and family to move to Monmouthshire, which seems to be finally paying off. Last week saw my brother, his girlfriend and my little nephew move into their new home here, and in just a few short weeks my parents will be moving to a new house a couple of miles down the road! I love it when a plan comes together.

I've even been stitching this weekend. My sister commissioned me to make some cushions for my baby nephew's bedroom a while back now and chose these gorgeous fabrics which I hadn't come across before.The fabric line is Critter Community by Suzy Ultman for Robert Kaufman, and these prints were purchased from Celtic Fusion fabrics.

I see that Fancy Moon has the gorgeous panel print, 'Frames' in both cool and hot, which I am strongly tempted to purchase for my fabric hoard! I've been putting off making some new cushions for our conservatory for a while now, but as these covers will be posted to my sister minus the pads, I shall have 4 naked cushion inners sitting around in the study-o, so there's no excuse for procrastinating any longer really. And I might even squeeze in an hour of sewing in the evening now that there's just a smidge of daylight left to stitch in after my husband gets back from work.