My Sewing Journey

Hi! I'm fairly new to the whole blogging thing but I thought it could be fun and here I am.

This year I have started sewing, after developing a passion for it during last year's lockdown. I am still a beginner but I hope to expand on my skills and therefore I have opened an Etsy shop (I'll leave the link below). Here I sell the products that I have made and it would make my day if something was to catch your eye.

I'll try my best to update daily, from Monday to Friday (with possible bonus content at the weekend), on everything I have done in terms of my sewing and I'll always make sure to update my blog when I have new items for sale.

A little bit of history about myself would reveal that my Great-Grandmother on my Grandad's side was a seamstress (although I know that the terms seamstress and tailor can be deemed as outdated today, I don't mind what people use) and my Great-Grandmother on my Nana's side, also was a seamstress for a while and would make my Nana and her siblings, clothes to wear. In fact, if they appear in any of my pictures, the tin of pins and all of the pins I use, belonged to her and she had them from the 1960s, so they're a similar age to the sewing machine that I use.

My sewing machine in question is a 1958 Singer and once you've got the hang of it, it runs like a dream. I'm not the best when it comes to technology and therefore modern sewing machines to me are a nightmare. Whereas here, there are two dial for the tension and one lever for the stitch length and that's about as complicated as it gets. I haven't currently thought of a fitting name for it yet however, but I've definitely decided it's female (as weird as that might sound).

For today, however, I am experimenting with making a new product. This being a fabric, reusable advent calendar as in my opinion, you can't prepare for Christmas too early! So far, I have my plans drawn up and all I need to do now is prepare my pattern pieces and start on my 'favourite' (note the sarcasm) part of the sewing process which is cutting out the individual pieces very carefully to ensure they remain the correct size.

As I type this up now, I have almost finished the calendar and I will put pictures of my progress underneath this paragraph. All that is left to do on it now is to add eyelets and grommets, when I have ordered and received them, to the top two corners and attach a handle for it to hang on a wall.

As I am now waiting for the remaining parts to arrive, I will share my method below (ft = foot / in = inch).

Step 1: Measure out two large panels of your material (I chose cotton flannel but you can use normal cotton) to 1ft and 2in wide by 1ft high each. Along with three strips measuring 1ft wide by 2in high and one small strip measuring 6in wide by 2in. For extra padding, cut a piece of wadding (iron on or sew in) to the same size as a big panel and attach it to one of the panels.

Step 2: Hem the edges of the pockets to 0.5cm and pin to the panel without the wadding as shown above.

Step 3: Sew the bottom of the pockets onto the fabric panel and press the seams using a hot iron.

Step 4: Flip the pockets the correct way around and press the seams again and pin in place.

Step 5: Measure and sew the sides and create the 24 individual pockets.

Step 6: Join the front and back panels with the right sides together and sew with a 0.5cm seam allowance, leaving a few inches at the bottom to turn the right way out.

Step 7: Snip the corners off, making sure not to cut the thread (this helps to make a pointed corner) and turn the right way out.

Step 8: Complete using an invisible stitch and a final press with an iron.

This bring it up to the stage I am currently at and if you've reached this far down, then thank you for reading and have a good day.

My Etsy Shop.

https://hedgehogsewing.etsy.com