"Proper" sewists.....

image from Freepik.com

.....may I humbly suggest you look away now 😉

In a previous post, I threatened suggested I might humour the latest whirrings of my little butterfly brain and have a go at sewing myself some clothes.  But Sharon, I hear you ask, in your very-nearly-65 years on this planet have you actually ever sewed a garment???  Not so as you'd notice, nope 😏  Do I then hear you sigh and ask: but presumably you're going to plough on and have a go anyway???  Yup, I most certainly am 😏  No doubt your final question (before closing your eyes and wondering if I've finally taken leave of what little sense I had left) will be: are you going to take sewing classes and do things "properly"???  To which my answer is "have you learned nothing about me at all whilst reading this blog???"  Of course I'm not, my lovelies, I shall just blunder forth making it up as I go along and hope for the best 😏

Having said all that, though, I have found myself going down the proverbial rabbit hole of sewing videos on YouTube and have found some that I think are fab ~ I will share them with you in a future post 😊  I have also come across lots of ideas on Pinterest (many of which I've pinned to my boards, as you will see if you click on the link on the right-hand side of this page 😉), along with various tutorials from blogs that I have stumbled upon in my travels.  So I suppose in all fairness I'm not going into this new adventure totally clueless theory-wise, but it's certainly not something that I've had actual hands-on experience with!

There are a couple of reasons why I'd like to try making myself some clothes.  The first is that I really like the idea of making something from scratch, in a style and fabric that I like, instead of "making do" with what fits me and doesn't cost a small fortune 😉 

I'm finding that I am increasingly drawn to more colourful, perhaps slightly "eccentric" styles.  Mind you, to be fair, I've always had a hankering for the styles that I've saved on my Pinterest boards but haven't had the courage to actually dress in that way.  When I was young I think it was the thought of just fitting in with what everyone else was wearing rather than being confident enough to dress in my own style.  Then as I got older and put on more and more excess weight, it was a case of hoping that no one would notice me if I tried to blend into the background.  Of course that is a ridiculous way of thinking because no amount of dark clothing is going to hide the fact that I am a very big woman ~ albeit one who is currently over two stone lighter than she was 😊  I finally reached the point where I just thought "sod it" ~ hence my upcoming sewing adventures 😁

As I mentioned above, I am still on my weight-loss journey.  I have got clothes in smaller sizes but will definitely need some more in each size as I go down the scale.  I'm thinking that elastic waists on skirts and trousers, and billowy, breezy styles in tops and dresses will be very useful to bridge at least a couple of sizes ~ perhaps even more.  I also like the idea of upcycling clothes so hopefully I won't be having to send too many things off to the charity shop!

I mentioned in that earlier post that I'm going to start by making myself a skirt as I hadn't found anything that appealed to me.  Well, since then I have come across two that I really liked.  I couldn't make up my mind which one to buy though ~ so I've bought them both 😄  One has an elastic waist and the other is a wrapover-style, so I'm hoping that they will see me through some smaller sizes as I shed more weight.  I had also found a skirt from JD Williams (where I get most of my clothes from) that has a shirred waistline.  It's a size smaller than I was wearing and fits really nicely.  I think it will be fine for the next couple of sizes down.  

When I was sorting through my smaller sizes recently, I found a skirt tucked away that I had completely forgotten about.  To be honest I don't know why it was in the next size down pile as it easily fits me now.  In fact I'm going to have to alter it as it's a bit too long now that I'm not quite so "bloated".  It's in a border print fabric, so I'm going to hack it from the top.  It's got an elastic and cord waistband at the moment, so I'm going to cut that off and make a new waistband just with elastic.

This means that instead of just having one skirt, I now have five 😏  Despite this I think I will still start off this sewing lark with a skirt ~ or perhaps to be slightly more accurate, a petticoat to wear beneath my new skirts.  That way I will be more comfortable wearing said skirts once the weather starts to get cooler again in the autumn ~ layers are definitely the way to go, methinks! 

We've got such a lot to do out in the garden this summer that I may not have the energy to start my sewing adventures for a few months, but never fear as soon as I do you will be hearing all about it, my lovelies, so brace yourselves 😉