Sewing Gage

New year, new shirt. Here's a time lapse video of me pattern cutting for a shirt.

I hope to produce these videos about once a week, starting with the basics and then looking at more advanced techniques. Stay tuned (and subscribe).

I decided to practice my tailoring skills again and make a new shirt. I got the material from Paris when I was there a few months ago. I was pretty impressed with the result, I still need to improve my collars, but practice makes perfect! I haven't added any buttons or buttonholes yet. It was the Friday before Christmas and the last thing I wanted to do was head to the shops just to buy buttons. I'll add these later.

Wanting to further practice my tailoring techniques I decided to make another shirt, this time for the boyfriend. Whilst we were in Paris, we visited an absolute textile heaven. Just to the east of the Sacre-Coeur in Montmartre is a huge range of shops and stores selling all kinds of fabric. I could have spent all day there, and all my money! Some of the shops have three metres of pre-cut fabric for fifteen euro. I picked up two such fabrics, one of them was this red, white and blue strip fabric. Very French! (well the boyfriend is french!) I decided to do a casual long sleeve shirt, so I chose McCall's pattern 2149. Again, I struggled with the collar and the cuffs, but at least I put the buttonholes on the right side this time. The collar button position is not in line with the other buttons, which was a mistake, but I kind of like this. Think i'm going to make this my trade mark collar.

It's about time I made some more boy clothes and practice those tailoring skills! When I was visiting family in Plymouth, I had a day trip to Totnes, where I came across a fantastic fabric shop, Stone Fabrics . They have so many gorgeous fabrics, I could have spent hours going through the swatches. I decided a navy blue geometric floral print which was £8.50 a metre; I chose  The biggest difficulty I had was with the collar, it took me a couple of attempts, but I finally got there; The final result wasn't too bad. I think the sleeves were too long, oh and I put the buttonholes on the wrong size, but apart from that, not bad for my first attempt at a long sleeve shirt!

When I made the waistcoat, James suggested that I should try making a shirt. As I always like a challenge I thought why not. He measured me up and created a pattern, and then guided me through step by step. The material I bought from crafty-tex-style on ebay. Not bad for my first attempt;

After the corset, I was ready for another challenge. I decided to do something a little more masc - a waistcoat. This was a real challenge, I've never attempted any sort of tailoring before let alone the welt pockets! I decided to use Vogue pattern 7488. The fabric I used was a woolen Herringbone from minerva crafts . I managed to get this far, and then I got stuck on the lapel. The instructions in the pattern made absolutely no sense. I couldn't decipher it. I needed help. Luckily, I have a friend, James , who works at Budd Tailors . So, I called on him for help. He guided me through the pattern and I finally finished it, and was pretty impressed with the result.