The blog has changed!

The reason why I haven't blogged since March is because I haven't sewed since March! I find I have no time, and when I have the time, my dining room is dirty. And then, after all that, I am now broke. There is little point in continuing a project I won't be able to finish for a long time. So I decided I would change the blog...

I have been told time and time again I should start a blog. Thus I started the sewing blog (now extinct, though I shall still blog about my sewing on here). But people kept telling me to start a general blog. I've been refusing, because who would honestly want to read about my day to day existence? I also am a firm believer that I talk far too much, and that no one is interested in my verbal speech, so why would anyone want to listen to my online talk? Yes, I do have self esteem issues. My father put it very clearly a couple of weeks ago when he told me I could do anything I want to do, the problem is that I don't believe in myself nearly enough. This was during a conversation where he told me his friend (one of the people pushing me to blog, on his site, which I will do, just probably a different blog to this one) wants me to send in some "original content". He also told me that the photo descriptions I put on my facebook albums are often very good. My father never gives praise out lightly. Needless to say, it's his comments that have made me decide to change this blog into something else. My father, as you may or may not come to discover, is the driving force that made me who I am.

So, here we go. I'll give a more introductory post in a few days time about "what's my name and where do I come from" (Oh Cilla Black...your voice remains in my head long after your show stopped running). I'm in the middle of a 15,000 word dissertation, and have read a chapter in a book, then taken a break. Once again, said break went from checking emails, to bbcnews.co.uk, to cricinfo.com. From there it degenerated into me looking at my favourite wedding blog (no, I'm not engaged, though I hope I've found the man I will, one day, be engaged to.) and then lead to the inevitable distraction of youtube videos. Oh, internet, you wonderful tool of procrastination!

Right, ok, on that note, I should go and dissertate before the boyfriend comes home from digging in the mud (he's an archaeologist. Somewhere in between Time Team old man jumper type and Harrison Ford type). He will judge me with his eyes if I am (once again) not working. And he will somehow know that I've been on the internet all day, even if I've hurriedly open up word, shut the internet window and open up a random textbook the second I hear him unlock the door . I think it has something to do with the guilty expression and butter wouldn't melt in my mouth smile I give him when he comes upstairs to say hello.

I also promise to do something better with this blog someday soon...But for now: Goodbye Not A Natural Seamstress. Hello The Life of a Stay In Bed Student!

No more work!

After the excitement of the last post, where I'd manage to finish half of the dress, I have done no more work. It wasn't just that I had forgotten to blog, I just had nothing to blog about.

The reasons for lack of work haven't been laziness or procrastination, but that other things have had to take a more important place in my life for a while. First it was our anniversary on the 22nd February. My boyfriend had taken the weekend off work (he wanted to go away somewhere, but alas the life of being a student meant I couldn't afford to pay for my half), so I felt it would be a little mean if I then spent the entire time doing university work/sewing. So I had to get all my seminar work done before the weekend. We planned to go to Cadbury's world, but, luckily for my bank balance and waist line, we couldn't get tickets. So instead we headed to Warwick castle for the day on Sunday. I had an incredibly fun time, the boyfriend had an alright time (he's been to the castle three times now), but we all enjoyed the dungeons. Tip for anyone wanting to go: the online ticket prices are a heck of a lot cheaper than buying tickets on the day.

Here's a picture of the castle

As it was our anniversary weekend, I also made the boyfriend pose for some photo's.

I'm not one of those clingy girlfriends who have to clutch onto their man with both hands...it was just a freezing cold day, I forgot my gloves and, well...it was the perfect opportunity to steal some of his body heat!




I bought him a minature orange tree for the actual anniversary. It was our fifth, and even though we aren't married I thought I'd go for a wooden gift. We also don't usually buy gifts for the day, but I came home to find half a dozen red roses waiting for me. Apparently my tree outshone his gift, but, since I have never, ever gotten flowers from him, and was never expecting any ever, I beg to differ.

We went out for tapas that night. I decided to have a caraf of wine with my meal and somehow got a little tipsy...And sent strange messages to a friend of mine. Who got upset. Not because of the messages, but because I'd gotten tipsy without him. Its a rare occurrance. And apparently I'm rather amusing when it happens. It possibly has something to do with the fact I get more affectionate and also a little child like. I'm usually the boring, sensible adult.

As for this week...my youngest brother is going up a level in his Air Cadets on the weekend, so I'm heading home for Sunday. Which means, again, having to get all my seminar work done. But I'm itching to finish the dress and am hoping to get back to working on it in the next few days.

My biggest problem

Sometimes I can't do the simplest of tasks correctly. It all started when I was born...

Many years ago, many more years than I want to admit to, a little baby girl was born with blue eyes and dark hair. The eyes changed to a more greeny grey, and the hair...well...the hair went lighter. This lightness is the cause of most of all my problems in life. You see...

I'm blond. Not the dumb blond kind of blond. More the lacking in common sense, do stupid things other people don't do, put my foot in my mouth loudly in a very public place while amongst lots of people who don't know me, kind of blond. Even though my hair darkened over time, the problem remained.

What has this got to do with sewing, you might ask? Well, I never managed to get round to sewing yesterday, mostly because I felt really rough and pretty tired. So today I finished off the seminar work I needed to get done for tomorrow, and just a few hours ago I sat down at my machine and got down to finishing the bodice of my dress.

And there the problem began. I followed the instructions correctly. It took me a little while to work out what some of them meant, but I expected that. I'm a beginner, I'm not supposed to understand it all. But, for some reason, as I pinned the facing to the bodice (I am learning new terminology all the time!), something just wasn't right. The sleeves didn't quite match, the back didn't quite fit properly.

It then dawned on me...I'd gone wrong in the sewing of the facing. However, this only dawned on me AFTER I'd sewn most of the facing onto the bodice...I had to get out my trusty seam ripper (best £ I've spent in a long time) and start ripping.

Turns out what I had done was this: when the instructions said sew back pieces 6 together, and then front pieces 5 to the back pieces (not attaching at the front), my simple brain decided to do this:

Sew piece 5 to piece 6 (correct so far). Sew piece 5 to first piece 6 and then the second piece 6 to the second piece five. So instead of the facing going like this: piece 5, piece 6, piece 6, piece 5, it went like this: 5,6,5,6.

I didn't get angry with myself. After all, that's what this ugly piece of curtain was for, to make mistakes like this. In fact, I was very philosophical about it all, the more mistakes I make now, the fewer mistakes I will make on my dress, right? So I ripped the seams and got ready to start again.

I then sewed the piece 5's together instead of the piece 6. You would have thought, having made the mistake the first time, I would remember which pieces should be sewed together...

Anyway, long story short, I FINALLY followed instructions correctly, and the bodice is now done. I am onto the final stages of the dress!

P.S. you are definitely not seeing any pictures of the first mock up. What with the mess I have made of the buttons, and the mess I have now made with the seams, this piece shall never be seen by anyone.

My first project

So, it seems like I've been talking about sewing for a bit now (feels like a few weeks, but I've just realised I only started this blog last week!), but not been DOING anything. Well, I have actually started a project. I started it a few weeks ago. Its a vintage 1950's dress that I am to get done before April the 23rd, for a birthday party. I'll put some pictures of the envelope of the pattern at a later date so that you can see what it should look like.


One reason why I haven't mentioned it too much is because its currently in what I shall call the Von Trapp family stage. We have a pair of ugly brown curtains that we bought when we moved into our house in September. They were bought as a temporary cover for the windows in the front bedroom. They didn't fit, plus they are hideous, so they've been sitting somewhere while I figured out what to do with them. They have been perfect for me to make a mock up of the dress on. Plus the two pieces are enough for me to do two mock ups. Why two, you ask? Because, although in many ways I haven't been as disastrously bad at sewing as I thought I would be, I have made some pretty big mistakes (button holes, mostly). I have learnt the correct techniques now, and hope to apply them to the second piece of curtain. You wont see pictures of the first curtain dress...It's too horrible! But if the next one looks alright, I'll put a few up.

The project has sort of come to a halt over the past few days. I had cut out the pieces, and started putting them together, but due to a few things I got no further. Firstly because the house was a complete mess, due to the fact I had 4 essays of 5,000 words to complete over the Christmas holidays. Once they were done I was pretty much good for nothing for about a little while as my brain re formed from the melted mess it had become. So last weekend I cleaned, I tidied, and I put my sewing and knitting into separate bags. I made a nice little place for everything on the dining room table. Well, I say nice little place...I actually took up most of the table with my stuff...

Second problem: the one time I sat down and spent a while sewing, the sewing machine worked, and then decided to sulk. I can't really complain. The thing was sitting in the loft for a good many years. My mother bought it when she was a college student many years ago, and gave it to me when I was in school. I didn't do much with it, as I wasn't interested in sewing then, plus we had no space to do anything at home. It must have been placed in the loft about 8 years ago. We initially thought it had been thrown away by my aunt, as we thought we lent it to her. Turns out we hadn't, it was just stashed away. When I found it, I checked it was working, I took a day to work out how to use it (its an obscure machine, and my mother, who keeps instructions for EVERYTHING, hadn't kept the machines instructions). So I started using it on my dress, then it seized up. After a while of umming and ahhing, and getting my boyfriend to have a turn umming and ahhing, I worked out it needed oil. So I fixed it, but the struggle meant I decided the sewing machine and I weren't going to be friends for a little while.

Anyway, I made up with the machine, I tidied everything, and was determined I would sew every day, for a short time, till the dress was done. Problem number three: it was the start of semester 2 seminar's for me, and, in true procrastination style, I hadn't started the work for them until the last minute. So I spent much of my week catching up with stuff and getting university work done. I did spend an hour on the dress on Tuesday. I intended to spend another hour on it last night, but just never got round to it. Yesterday just started wrongly: my laptop wouldn't start up due to updates making it go into a loop. It took an hour to sort it out, by which time I was late for work, I ended up late for a seminar because I went to the wrong room, and then I got cross while watching Parliament (I'm doing a human rights law degree, occasionally I have to pay attention to what's happening in London). So I did no more on the dress.

But today, today I promise I will do a little more! I'm half way through the instructions, but the first half seems to be the more intricate and difficult, so I know that the first attempt SHOULD be done by the end of February. First, however, I have to get out of my pj's (I realise its 2pm, but I never get out of pj's unless its absolutely necessary), photocopy some stuff and do some university work.