Birthday haul

It's that time of year when I get a little bit older but to make it a bit easier to handle I get a fancy dinner and some wine!

This year I also got a boat load of sewing goodies!

Mmmmm, birthday goodies all for me!

Check all that out! A colleague at work got me the Great British Sewing Bee Book and it looks really good. I've read all the blog reviews over the last week but I still probably never would have bought it myself so it's a nice treat.

I am soooo excited about Fit for Real People! I have not even come close to sorting my fit out yet so I'm looking forward to getting to grips with this book and hopefully working out what my issues are and of course how to fix them. I'm desperate to do the body graph thing but not sure who I can get to spend hours drawing round me accurately, has anyone ever done this? It looks like a bit of a faff but I bet you'd spot loads of little things that you don't see when you look in the mirror.

The three patterns were from my boyfriend. I'm looking forward to making up the Kelly skirt and having a go at a Renfrew ready for Me Made May. I went out today to add to my birthday haul and picked up some red linen/cotton mix for the skirt and some plain jersey for the Renfrew. Wish me luck with my first attempt at a knit.

I had a lovely chilled out day and even managed to finish my Sorbetto top.  Apologies for the blurry picture, photies with it actually on to follow soon!

Me Made May '13!

I, Charlotte of Charlie Says Sew, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '13. I endeavour to wear one handmade garment two days a week for the duration of May 2013. And I will blog about it every week!

So. I've done it. I've signed up for Me Made May. I haven't gone crazy and promised to wear something every day because that would just be setting myself up for a massive fail! Wearing something twice a week should be ok but making it something different will be a bit trickier!

This is the kind of challenge I need to give me a kick up the backside and get making some quick wins. I jumped for the joy the other day when I finally found the Sorbetto pattern and realised it was free. I've seen loads of these since I started following blogs but I thought I'd missed the boat as I had never come across the pattern. I obviously wasn't looking very hard.

Anyhow, I immediately downloaded it and there is currently a half finished Sorbetto on my kitchen sewing table. I've also put off getting stuck into a Renfrew as I'm scared of the mighty Knit but Me Made May is the time for everyday wearable items like this. 

The other great thing about this challenge is that it will force me to post at least once a week and finally blog about the few things that I have made over the past 6 months, so watch this space for some actual posts about actual clothes!

Here's a peek os something I will definitely be busting out during MMM.

Done: Baby quilt!

I am currently a rather excited soon to be aunty. My sister is due to have her first baby in two weeks time and I can't wait to meet my little niece or nephew.

When she told me she was pregnant all those months ago I immediately started scouring the Internet looking for inspiration of things I could make. Knitting was banned so I turned my attention to other things and decided to make a little quilt. The sex of the baby is going to surprise which made it a little bit trickier to make something unisex but I eventually settled on Les Amis from The Village Haberdashery.

See, from far away it kind of looks ok.

I went for a simple pattern mixing up the peach and teal colour ways on a plain white background. For this and the backing I used organic flannel with a bamboo wadding sandwich from Raystitch.

I made binding out of the grey tree bark print and hand sewed it down along the back edge.

My biggest mistake was deciding to topstitch in both directions. I don't have a walking foot so the backing bunched up along the way which meant the quite ended up an inch or two shore than it should have done. Then the top of the quilt ended up with lots of gathers and pulls, it's not my best sewing but it just about looked passable from a distance.

Also, here's a sneak peek of the cakes I made for her baby shower today...

Look how cute those babies are! I used a tutorial from Sheeren's Cakes and Bakes for these lovelies.

Great British Sewing Bee!

I loved loved loved the Sewing Bee! And, I want, no NEED that haberdashery in my house!

Well done Tilly! There is no way I could have done half of those challenges especially with those scary judges watching over me. It was great to see such a variety of sewers and although I'm already an avid sewer it's definitely inspired me to sew even more and just keep trying to improve.

My aims from today's episode:

1. I must master the invisible zip. I've been putting it off for far too long.
2. I really should slow down when I'm sewing and spend more time on the detail and finish. I'm always racing myself and then disappointed when something's a bit wonky.
3. Find out what that balance issue is! I totally have that issue but I don't know how to fix it! Somebody tell me!

Scary but lovely.... ?