Sunday 31 May 2015

Least Interesting Blog Post of All Time

*WARNING* The post that follows will not be at all intersting. It will, mercifully, be short.

Over this last week I made 10m of bunting out of fabric scraps. I made it for my daughter's birthday party this weekend... I love making bunting. It's so easy, but so effective and summer fete-y. Which is quite kitsch I suppose!! I've compromised my very own raison d'etre with 10m of bias binding and some left over fabric!




I made it by cutting out triangles, sewing their wrong sides together, turning them right sides out, pressing them and then sewing them into the fold of a long piece of shop bought bias binding.  Just one d'oh moment when I managed to miss one of the flags and just stitched the bias binding together! To fix it, I simply needed unpick the bias binind and restitch it more carefully with the flag in place.

I've also been working on the shift dress in the jersey fabric that I mentioned at the end of my previous post. It was going spiffingly until I had to add the zip. That was very hard and it might just be an in unpickable disaster! I'll return to it over the next week and let you know!

Sunday 17 May 2015

Reasons to be Positive

Within minutes of of publishing my last post, a number of people who I admire and respect wrote compassionate and inspiring pieces about the importance of not getting angry and the power of positive action. So now I really do feel guilty about my rant last week... I'm not going to delete it because it will serve as a reminder to me not to wallow but to DO SOMETHING. But what? I've spent this week looking for positive responses to the election and complied this short list:

Owen Jones has begun what I'm calling a crusade for hope over the last week. As he says, it "comes down to a clear message of hope – exactly what the SNP offered in Scotland. The politics of fear might seem pretty invincible now". He is great. Watch this and get inspired (and, if you're anything like me, indulge your silly crush Owen):

While you're on You Tube (and while we're talking about my silly crushes) you should also check out Jake Yapp's "All Mouth" videos. They started out as "All Mouth and No Trewsers" - a response to Russell Brand's you tube channel "The Trews" (which I also really enjoy and throughly recommend), but he's also posted a message of positivity and understanding and an interview about proportional representation.

Jessica Hynes used her 'best female comedy performance' speech at the BAFTAs to slam austerity and promote the Arts Emergency charity. She is also offering 20 days of her time to 20 state school drama departments to encourage young actors/writers into her profession. If you're reading this, I assume it's because I tempted you here with talk of sewing and craft and those little acts of human creation that we hold so dear. No, they can't always be commoditised - but they are always worth doing.

Abi Wilkinson wrote this piece for the mirror. A direct,  to the point and very useful list of 7 things you can actually do to make a difference if you oppose this government. I'm at 5/7.



I've also dusted myself down, ordered some new fabric and got the sewing machine out again. Whilst its not going to bring down the government, it does make me feel good. I've been making bunting out of fabric scraps or upcoming birthday parties and cutting out the pattern to make a shift dress out of this lovely (but a bit scary) Ponte Roma Jersey from Backstitch. This will be the first time I've worked with Jersey.  I'm terrified. Wish me luck (and note the use of tinned tomatoes to try and keep it from moving!!)







Saturday 9 May 2015

I Don't Get It

I'm not going to blog about sewing again this week. Not just because I haven't done any (which I haven't), but because something more important has happened and it's all I can think about. #GE2015. I've never had the courage to write about politics before. I've wanted to. I've drafted things. But I've always been too scared about getting into arguments with people who know better than me, or, well, of just looking a bit silly. Well not anymore.  That all changed yesterday. I don't care if I look daft or naive or people argue with me. I'm angry and I'm disappointed and I feel compelled to write about it. And I'll fight my corner if I have to. I want to do something. I don't know what that is yet. But something. And this is the start.

You'll need a tiny bit of background before I launch straight in. I'm a Labour supporter. I voted Labour on Thursday and I genuinely thought change was coming. I didn't think it was going to be easy but I did think there was a chance. Maybe we'd have to vote against a Cameron Queen's Speech as he tried to cling on to power. Maybe we'd have to rely on the SNP and the Greens to get ours through. But I thought we could do it.

And then the exit polls came in. And then the result came in. And I was crushed.

I DON'T GET IT!

I don't get the SNP landslide. To those who voted for them, what were you hoping for? Was it independence? Rightly or wrongly, at the referendum in 2014 you voted against independence. You can't think that the Tories (who you've let in) are going to be offering up another referendum any time soon? Even with your 56 MPs ... And especially now it seems Scottish Labour are no threat anymore. Or was it the desire for a progressive left wing government? I can understand that.  But, well, that's well and truly scuppered now too. Labour might not be as progressive as you want, but surely a better result would have been a centre left party that could have been pushed further once the Tories were out. Instead we have five more years of this awful right wing agenda. And left wing Scots are left as unrepresented in government as the Labour, Green and Plaid supporters are down here. Which brings me on to my next point...

I don't get a system where the representatives elected by an entire country (that's you Scotland) and the majority of the representatives elected by one of the world's most influential capital cities (down here in London) will not form any part of a majority (all be it a tiny majority) government. We're forever being told that the  the UK is too Londoncentric - that London has too much influence and power. It doesn't feel like it right now. If anything, London shifted further to the left on Thursday. So what do our votes mean? What are they worth? Talking to people down here, it is almost impossible to imagine why others elsewhere would ever vote Tory. Especially after the last 5 years. Perhaps that's why their supporters are all so bloody 'shy'...

I don't get Shy Tories. If you're too ashamed or embarrassed to admit which party you are going to vote for (even to a complete stranger who's trying to compile an anonymous poll) then you are voting for the WRONG party. If you know deep down that voting out of some misguided self interest for the Tories is the wrong thing to do, then you shouldn't do it. Or, at the very least, you should have the balls to admit that you really are 'that kind of person'. Because your coyness makes a difference. I think that the polls published during the campaign, with predictions based on your bashfulness, influenced the results. I don't really think that all of those Scots would've voted SNP if they had realised that it would result in a Tory government. I think they saw the polls and, understandably, interpreted them to mean that a Tory majority was impossible and that their SNP MPs would be able to support (or even improve) a Labour government. We don't have secret ballots in this country to stop your neighbours finding out that you're a mean, selfish coward. We have them to prevent voter intimidation. Sadly they can't prevent voter indoctrination ...

I don't get why so many people still trust the right wing media. Wasn't the awful pantomime of the  phone hacking saga enough to show that these organisations and their all powerful leaders are beneath contempt? Their lies and propaganda are continually exposed, but people keep swallowing their crap! Some have argued that their power is diminishing, but the way I see it is that their reach continues to cross class and wealth divides in a way that social media doesn't (just imagine what a room filled by readers of the Sun, the Times, the Daily Mail and the Telegraph would look like). By its very nature, social media only to shows you the views of people you chose to 'follow' or 'friend'. As such, all it does is reinforce your own views. It was this 'echo chamber' effect on Twitter that gave me so much hope that the result would go the way I wanted. On the other hand, the right wing media promotes the views of a powerful, rich elite who are nothing like you, but who use their vast resources to make you believe that they are. This sort of brainwashing is one of the only reasons I can think that people (or at least people who are not in the top 1% who the Tories actually represent) would ever vote Conservative.

And finally, I don't understand why any former Lib Dem voter would turn Tory. Don't get me wrong, I get why you wouldn't want to vote Lib Dem anymore. After all, they did break that pledge on tuition fees. But what sort of tortuous train of thought that gets you from that to voting Tory. It can't be the principle of raising tuition fees that's got your goat because that was a Tory policy. So in that scenario, voting Tory would make no sense. So it must be anger at the broken promise. Again, I get it! It must have been a low, low blow. But you must realise that the Tories have broken their pledges too. Ladies and Gentlemen I give you : cuts to front-line services; increased VAT; means tested child benefit; top-down reorganisation of the NHS; the abolition of Education Maintenance Allowances; the closure of 566 Sure Start centres;  the abolition of the Future Jobs Fund; and for heaven's sake, whatever happened to "Vote Blue Go Green"?!

So where do I go from here? Two of my initial plans (formulated in a haze of disappointment and tiredness on election night) were to either move to Scotland (not really sure what this would achieve) or to establish the London Independence Party. I was basically fantasising about independence for compassionate,  empathetic, understanding, progressive London and screwing all the self interested Tories in the Home Counties. The bankers and hedge fund managers would need their passports to get into the city each day and they would have to pay a hefty fee for a work visa. I'm so tired of the rest if the country stereotyping Londoners and unfriendly and uncaring. So we're not a bunch of smiling goons embracing strangers each morning on the tube. At least we're actually on public transport rather than each being cocooned in our own horrible, polluting little cars. And this election has shown that do we care about what really matters. We vote for each other, not just ourselves. We welcome others. We're not scared of change. But that's just a daydream borne out of anger and resentment - neither of which are good motivations for anything, least of all a new political movement. So, for now, the best  I can do is stay informed and try to get active. I'll keep blogging about sewing and gardening and lovely things like that because it's really important to share the nicer things in life. But I'm also going to do what I can to fight for electoral reform. And an end to this TTIP thing - which sounds so evil I still can't believe it's real.

Monday 4 May 2015

Simplicity Blogger Challenge


Remember when I mentioned a couple of posts back that I wanted to enter the Simplicity Star Sewist Challenge? Well here is that entry! 

Fittingly (as I'm sure you'll agree) I went for the 'Best Newcomer' category. This requires entrants to use Simplicity’s It’s So Easy 2286 sewing pattern "as a basis for your own bespoke creation".





As soon as I saw the pattern I knew I wanted to alter it. I just thought it needed to be a bit more funky ... So my idea was to transform it into a really cute little beach skirt to throw over a swimming cossie. I chose view D, but then altered the pattern to make it (quite a lot) shorter and to change the ratio of skirt to overlay. The idea is that the  skirt should give a dramatic flash of colour underneath the overlay rather than looking like a double layered skirt.

I began by making a practice version of the skirt out of curtain off-cuts.  Unfortunately, it went so disastrously wrong that you're just going to have to trust me when I say I did it. There is NO way I am going to publish any photographs of it here! If I were to desperately clutch at a few straws, I suppose I could claim that it was of some value to test the ways in which I wanted to alter the pattern - and it did at least force me to read the pattern in full before I started the final skirt - but other that that it was hopeless!

Selecting funky fabric on the other hand was fun!!! In the end I went for a striking monochrome print called  'Mounains and Valley' by Michael Miller for the overlay with a flash of bright yellow for the skirt underneath. I got both from Fabric HQ. A lot of fiddly trimming and decoration isn't really the 'not quirky, not kitsch' way, so instead I got some pre made, bright yellow bias binding to finish the bottom of the overlay and visually unite both layers of the skirt. A funky but uncomplicated palette.

Constructing the skirt was as easy as promised by the pattern. (I promise this is true - my practice version only went wrong because the fabric was impossibly thick and I was rushing through it). I only had two d'oh moments, (which is remarkable with my track record!) which I've captured in the step-by-step photos below.

Step 1:  Altering, Tracing and Cutting Out the Pattern. 

Easy street. I really concentrated hard on this bit to make sure that my alterations to the pattern were accurate, that I cut out the fabric as neatly as possible and that the pattern was vertical and straight at the centre of the overlay. This step went really well with no hiccups.



Step 2: Construct overlay.

Another simple and straight forward step (there's very little room for error anywhere in this pattern really!). I finished the side seams and hemmed the overlay neatly and my unpicker remained tidily tucked away in my sewing box. *** Don't worry, this unbearble smugness wont last much longer. ***



Step 3: Apply bias binding (D'oh moment No. 1).

This step began by applying to bias binding to the bottom of the overlay. Again, I did a really careful, neat job of it and I was feeling very pleased with myself ... until that is, I noticed the stitching for the hem. Now the pattern doesn't anticipate bias binding, it anticipates a thicker trim along this edge -  and that would cover up the stitching. The bias binding I used was too narrow and left the stitching fully exposed and, well, just plain ugly.



There was nothing for it. The unpicker had to be unsheathed. I unpicked all of the hem and restitched it in place using a slip stitch that is not visible on the right side of the overlay.


Step 4: Construct Skirt

Here, you just repeat Step 2, but this time for the skirt element. Again, there really wasn't much room for error and I managed it without any mistakes!

Step  5: Construct Waistband (D'oh moment No. 2)

At this point, the pattern quite clearly says "pin WRONG side of the overlay to RIGHT side of skirt". However, no matter how clear that instruction might seem, I still managed to get this wrong. It really was one of those inexplicable d'oh moments when , no matter how many times I checked what the pattern said, studied the accompanying diagram, held the pieces together, envisaged the final skirt... I still got it wrong! As the blurry, frustrated photograph below shows, I had RIGHT side of overlay to RIGHT side of skirt. D'OOOOOOOOHHHHHHH!!!


Frustratingly I had already basted them together before I realised my mistake, so out came the unpicker again.


Gathering these upper edges and creating the casing both went really well. This is the bit that I had anticipated having most trouble with (especially following the disastrous test version), so I took my time and didn't try to be clever. It paid off! (Who'd have thought it hey?!)


Step 6: The Big Finish

I hemmed the skirt and voila, my skirt was  finished. Here are some shots of me wearing it*.











* I have been desperately waiting for  a sunny day to take these photographs - to get that beach, summer holiday vibe I was going for. Pretty good for a May Day bank holiday in East London hey?!