I love living in Greater Manchester, I've been in love with the North and Manchester particularly since I moved here in October 1989. Even the rain has never put me off, and honestly it doesn't always rain.
Woody works in the centre of Manchester and often I'll catch the train in, mooch around my favourite shops in the Northern Quarter and then meet him for lunch in one of the many great bars and cafes.
One of my favourite shops to visit is Fred Aldous, three floors of art and craft materials plus great quirky gifts and cards.
The basement of Fred Aldous is also home to Ministry Of Craft , where you can take workshops in a whole host of  craft disciplines, from absolute beginners getting to know their sewing machine, making a tailored skirt, stitching your own knickers, getting to grips with embroidery, making jewellery and so much more! They even run hen parties, which seem like a lot of fun.

One class recently added to the programme is my very own! I'm really excited to be joining the other fabulous tutors at The Ministry Of Craft to bring you an upcycling class.
As my long term readers know, I love a bit of upcycling, am often found elbow deep in a box of old linens in various charity shops.
I have designed a class for Advanced Beginners; Short and Sweet Pyjamas .



As any regular charity shopper knows, there are always plenty of mens shirts in stock in most of the charity shops, and even if not, mens shirts are easy to come by scrounged from the men in your life. Woe betide any man in my extended family throwing out shirts just because the collar is frayed!
These pyjamas are made using three mens shirts, keeping details and features of the shirts to add interest.



Trim is optional, but adds a cute little feminine detail.



There is an option to use pillowcases instead of shirts for the pyjama shorts. That is what I have done here.





Taking this class you will learn how to layout patterns on challenging fabric, how to make french seams, to use bias binding to finish a raw edge, to make casings and add trim. Once you have completed your first upcycled outfit, I promise you will never look at old clothes in the same way again, everything will have potential!





To book this class, head on over to Ministry Of Craft for more details. I can't wait to meet you!

My third Simplicity 2444. This time I upcycled a vintage tablecloth for the bodice and used some mustard linen for the skirt.
Again, I moved the pleats to the hips to try and balance my top heavy curves and shortened the darts by 1cm. This version fits better across my shoulders than the last one, but it's still not quite right. My round shouldered narrow back, but large ribcage are not easy to fit.
My sewing buddy Mary and I have similar fit issues and have agreed to spend some time over the summer fitting each other for a basic bodice. A project I am very much looking forward to!



The tablecloth works well as the bodice. It was a vintage linen cloth with a border print, so had to do some careful cutting out, but I'm pleased with the results, and have another I plan to use in a similar way.

After the success of my wearable toile for this pattern, I had high hopes for this dress. The only changes I made to this dress was shortening the bust darts by 1 cm each. Otherwise it is exactly the same. Weirdly though, this version is very loose across my shoulders, especially at the back. I have no idea why.



I wore this dress today, but the loose shoulders were very annoying, and so it's gone back out to my shed to be tinkered with.



I am loving being out in my shed right now, the light warm evenings mean I can be out there until quite late. The chickens keep me company, and a couple of the local cats pop by for a cuddle too.

I have made this dresss before, six years ago. The pattern* came in a bundle from a friend, still in it's original postage envelope with a postmarked date of 1968. I made it to wear to a friend's 40th birthday. The dress code was 1968, so it seemed perfect. I thought at the time I might wear it again, I never did and it went in a charity bag.

The pattern is a size 36 inch bust, so too small for me, my high bust is 38" and full bust 42", so a fair bit of sizing up and full bust adjusting went on. I made a quick toile of my first adjustments, then made extra adjustments on the dress...lots of extra adjustments! This dress was a total pain in the behind!I hadn't kept a record of any of the adjustments I had made first time either, so I was starting again.



There were several times stitching this up that it very nearly got thrown in the dustbin, but I loved the fabric, and it is amazing how determined I can be when I know what I really should have been doing was catching up with childminding paperwork, and not sewing at all!



You can see from this photo that the v neck doesn't lie quite flat, and I actually think this neckline on this dress just doesn't suit me.



Here, you can see that the bust dart is really too high. I had moved the bust dart on the rough toile, but then lengthened the bodice on the dress and somehow, somewhere managed to move the dart.

Sad to say, my mess ups didn't end there either!
I managed to cut the skirt pieces too small and had to add in two extra strips of fabric at the centre back. I also had to take out the back  high waist darts because once the zip was in I could barely zip up past my rib cage! You'll have to just imagine that dogs dinner, because I didn't get any clear photos of the back.

Despite all of that though, I did finish the dress, adding a strip of mustard linen to the empire line to give it some shape. I love the fabric, and the colours, but the dress is not for me. The shape is not very flattering on my top heavy figure and it just feels wrong.
I did wear it one day last week, and it is better than a £5 dress from a bargain high street store, I might even wear it as a weekend "stay at home" dress, but all in all not a success.



Will I try this pattern again? I'm not sure. I'm tempted to play with the bodice again, choose a different neckline, move the darts, and add a different skirt shape, but that might make it a different dress all together. We'll see.

* links to an image of the same pattern, but not my actual pattern, as my envelope is very damaged.

I have been meaning to try this pattern for a while, I wondered how the bodice darts would work for my shape. A couple of my sewing buddies had already made this dress and I really liked their dresses.
I used my high bust measurement and cut out a size 16, making a full bust adjustment, and then making a very rough toile, which seemed to fit ok, so I moved on to a wearable toile using this vintage duvet cover I bought some time ago in a local charity shop. I was never quite convinced I could pull off a dress in these colours, but actually I'm pretty happy with the results.



I decided to move the front pleats during making up. I have a fat tummy and smaller hips than bust, so I thought if I moved the pleats towards my hips, I might balance out my top heavy figure and give the illusion of a slightly flatter tum.
I think it worked!
Those darts I was concerned about initially are also really flattering. I'm not skinny by a long shot, and I've gained a lot of weight recently, but I think the darts show off what waist I do have.
I really like this pattern, and will make it again very soon.
I wore it today to go and get my long awaited memorial tattoo for my Florence Violet, if you want a nosey, check out this link to the lovely lady that tattooed me. 

Trying to take self timed photos with Ernest is not easy, but at least he makes me laugh!

Nine months ago I bought this slightly bonkers Dirndl dress in my local charity shop. I suspect it had been made for a theatre production or similar. Despite some of my friends suggesting I wear it as it was, I knew I never could, at least not without two giant tankers of frothy ale as accessories!



Yesterday evening I had 30 minutes of time to myself so whipped up this skirt. I'd already cut out the skirt and waistband several months ago, so it was a simple task of adding in a zip and sewing on the waistband. I've actually made it a touch too big, so should probably re do the waistband. I wore it today anyway with a safety pin to make it the right size. I suppose I should just be glad I didn't make it too small!