Plush Addict Giveaway Winners

Thankyou for all the entries for the Plush Addict Giveaway, and I hope you enjoyed your look around Plush Addict- I have found some amazing stuff including wool coating fabrics and slipper grip both of which I am rather randomly in need of!  I checked the comments, deleted any outside of UK and Europe and made sure there was a maximum of up to three entries per person. 

The Flurry winner is comment 40, Mae Long.

The £25 voucher to spend at Plush Addict was won on Instagram by Veronica Ferguson.

I have sent emails out, congratulations Veronica and Mae!

Boat neck top: Winter wardrobe basics

You'd be forgiven for thinking that anyone who makes many of their own clothes spends their life in a series of dresses and beautiful shoes.  The reality is that my day job involves a work t shirt, hoodie and Nike air dry track pants and when I come home from work, especially in colder weather, I change into jersey tops and skirts or yoga pants.  I have a few Uniqlo tops with a boat neck shape that work well for me and I wanted to replicate the same neck line.  I think I've cracked it.

This is the much used and loved Meg McElwee scoop neck long sleeve T from her Cratsy Sewing with Knits Class  I've mentioned this class many times here.  It is frequently on offer in the Craftsy sales and promo emails and I love the fit.  The simple shape makes it a great base for other knit styles and I have the confidence now to play with it a little.   I redrew the pattern and redrew the neck on the front and back with a  ¼" seam allowance to turn for the neck edge.

 The fabric is a wonderfully easy- to-use interlock from The Village Haberdashery.  There are lots of colour options and if you are new to sewing with knits, this is a great fabric to start with as it lies flat when you are cutting out (unlike single jersey which curls up) and is straightforward to pin an sew.  You can read about different kinds of knit fabrics on Rachel's blog.

The back shoulders have knit stay tape pressed on to stop any stretching before the shoulder seams are overlocked.  I use my overlocker for all the seams and my usual sewing machine with a twin needle for all the hems.  I took a lot of care sewing the neck as I didn't want it to stretch out of shape.  The fabric is quite thick so I lowered my foot pressure to 1 (the highest is 7) when sewing the hem with the twin needle and used a long stitch.  I have some tips on hemming knits here.

I softened the lower hem with a little inward curve at the side seams.   The only way to match the stripes is to pin every stripe.  I use Prym ballpoint pins.

Hurrah for a winter basics!  Inevitably, more are planned.

Plush Addict: New Sponsor, Massive Giveaway and more!

I am happy to announce a new sponsor, Plush Addict.  I limit my sponsors to three and I like a mix of quilting and dressmaking and Plush Addict definitely ticks both those boxes with an enormous selection of both.  And there's more with waterproof, absorbent and many other different fabrics for many purposes (remember the bamboo towelling I used for Kiss Me Quick?) plus patterns,  haberdashery and more.  It's always good to start a sponsorship with an in depth visit to the business and the people behind it and a giveaway helps too- in this case a hefty bundle of Flurry by Dear Stella worth over £50 as well as a voucher to be won over on my Instagram.  I am handing over to Kellie for the introductions, I'll see you at the end for the giveaway!

"I always describe the start of Plush Addict as a “happy accident”. To cut a long story short I found myself unemployed and pregnant and with too much time on my hands I dusted off the sewing machine to make pretty cloth nappies for our baby-to-be. It was hard to get modern cloth nappy making supplies in the UK from one place so I decided to plug that gap and the idea took off from day one. These days we sell oodles of different types of fabrics, haberdashery and patterns online based out of a warehouse in sunny Kent."

"Although we started off with some very niche fabrics, today we have a huge variety of quilting and fashion fabrics and haberdashery. We stock over 2,500 quilt weight cottons including the entire Kona Cotton range (that’s 303 colours!) and we have one of the best flannel selections in the country. We also carry a huge range of Shannon’s Cuddle range plush fabrics (you might know it as “minky”) and have recently added some extra wide 90” which makes the most buttery soft quilt backing you ever did feel.  For dressmakers we have a fantastic range of needlecord, denim, interlock, jersey, ponte roma, chambray, wool, double gauze, cotton lawn and lots more besides (I’m hoping to keep expanding the dressmaking range so if you have any requests then please let me know.)"

"I used to manage a customer service team for a software company so offering the best customer service I can has always been part of my make up and is really important to me. We offer a generous loyalty scheme called “Plush Points”, same day dispatch and free UK postage for orders over £40. I know from experience how difficult it can be to buy fabric online so we’ve made requesting a colour match really easy – just leave us a note in a special box at check out and we also offer a no quibble free UK returns service.  The readers of Sew magazine have recently nominated us in three categories in the 2014 British Sewing Awards and I couldn’t be more thrilled. We’re up for Best Online Retailer, Best for Customer Service and Best Sewing Blog (although I’m sure there are more far deserving winners of the blog category than myself, ahem!)"

We have a brilliant team of local ladies that help get our customer orders out of the door quickly and I have managed to rope lot of my family in too! My mum is our chief remnant officer (we don’t mess with her remnant corner, it’s sacred) and she double checks orders before they leave us to help pick up any mistakes. My sister in law looks after most of our customer queries and she also does a grand job of our accounts.   My husband Jon has a technical background so he manages the website side of things.  I am third in from the left in the staff pic below!"

"We’re hoping to take office space above our warehouse (fingers crossed for January) so we can offer workshops and classes. People keep asking us to open up a shop, which we’re flirting with at the moment. We are an online only business 99% of the time but you can make an appointment to come and have a wander in the warehouse and we hold regular open days which now have quite a following. We always lay on tea and cake for the weekend events and there’s a calendar published on our website. Our next open day is on  December 6th and I’m absolutely delighted that Katy Jones from I'm A Ginger Monkey and Editor of Quilt Now magazine will be joining us with her new Priory Square fabric line for Art Gallery Fabrics. We'll be adding mulled wine to the usual tea/cake refreshments to help welcome in the festive spirit so come and meet Katy and start the Christmas festivities!"

(Here's a peek at the GIVEAWAY prize!) 

"I’m absolutely delighted and flattered to be sponsoring Kerry’s blog, I’ve been an avid reader for a while now. As a celebration and thank you we’re offering a great giveaway here and on Kerry's Instagram @verykerryberry along with a 15% discount from 1st-8th November inclusive with the code VKB15 for Kerry’s readers on everything across the site. Do  drop me a line if you have any suggestions of things you’d like to see us stock, or have any questions."

Kellie has a bumper givweaway prize on offer for you: a massive Flurry 18 Fat Quarter Bundle!   To enter the Flurry giveaway, visit Plush Addict, look around the website and comment below which item or items you would buy right now.  What do you need? Christmas supplies, dressmaking pattern and fabric, kit to give for a Christmas gift? Leave a comment and tell me!  You have from  1st-8th November inclusive.  Open to UK and Europe only (discount code is open worldwide). 
  

Extra entries:  Have an extra entry if you follow Plush addict via their newsletter,  Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest or Kellie's blog.  
Have an extra entry if you follow me via Twitter, Instagram or here.

You have up to three chances to win this enormous stack of Flurry worth over £50! 
I must be able to contact you so I need to be able to find your email via your comment.  Winner will be notified by email and also announced here Nov 9th.  Good luck!

And there's more, Go to my IG account @verykerryberry for a further giveaway to win a £25 voucher to spend at Plush Addict.  

Liesl+Co Cinema Dress: with Queen Sue's Laura Ashley fabric

As soon as I saw the Cinema Dress come up as a new pattern release in Liesl Gibson's Instagram feed, I knew I was going to make it.  I love long dresses and here was a pattern with a long hem, a gentle princess line seam over the chest (easy to adjust for a small bust) an a line skirt, and a yoke- I love a yoke!  It is at the higher price end for a PDF pattern but it is extremely well designed and well written, and having made a lot of PDF independent designer patterns, I could really see the difference especially in the instructions.

Every detail is covered including all the seam finishing for each and every seam.  When pockets are fitted into a seam, I always have to think carefully how they will be finished- what will be enclosed and at which stage; some bits need finishing before they are sewn, some after- but no worries with this pattern as Liesl tells you what to do and when to do it.    

I did reduce the curved seam over the bust by a small amount.   I didn't make a tester dress, I was confident this was going to work and that there would be enough room in the seams to tweak the sizing.  I had seen Daniela's version at Ivy Arch and checked her sizing and it confirmed my hunch that I would be a size 2 on the upper body and size 4 at the waist and hips.  Like her, I omitted the notch.  I don't like to wear low cut styles- not a great look for me.  The alteration is a cinch to do- you just keep sewing along the curved seam rather than creating the notch.  I didn't make any further alterations.  I made the longer version, view B.

The contrast material is a gorgeous piece of mid 1970s  Laura Ashley cotton with a print reminiscent of the wonderful Bath costume museum exhibition from last summer.    I won it rather fortuitously at the very first Sewing Directory Exeter meet up and donated by Queen Sue- she knows who she is.   I've been saving it for something special and this is exactly the right dress for it.

The blue fabric is Robert Kaufman Interweave Chambray in Royal.  It is heavier than many of the floaty RK indigo chambrays around at the moment but still soft and a great weight for cooler weather; easy to work with too.

I even conquered the crappy buttonhole setting on my Janome by using a rounded end buttonhole and foot pressure reduced to 1 so the fabric didn't get stuck and mess the sensor up- for anyone with a Janome with an automatic buttonhole, I hope that makes sense.

I have slight reservations about the welt pocket placement- you know what I'm saying, but they are neat and useful so I'll take my thoughts out of the gutter.  There's a strong 1970s vibe with this dress, especially with the fabric choices, and maybe a touch of the Prairie too, and you know that all adds up to an aesthetic that I feel very comfortable with.

You can find a Sew- along for the dress here.  Liesl's pattern has its origin in the girl's version of this style, 'Hide and Seek Dress'.   Thankyou to my daughter as ever for using her GCSE iArt/photography skills with the pics, taken a few weeks back xxx

October at Eternal Maker: hints of Christmas

Time for my October visit to Eternal Maker and I am feeling a little hint of Christmas as I peruse!  My daughter is keen on cross stitch so I have been looking at the embroidery section with some interest and my art was drawn in, not for the first time, to the Gera Japanese cross stitch patterns.  I mention these now in case you want to complete one for Christmas.  This one is Santa's House, it measures approximately 6" x 8".

This one is Santa has Come 2 and comes up slightly bigger  6 1/2" x 8 ½".

Both these patterns use DMC embroidery floss and Eternal Maker have a conversion chart to convert DMC threads to Cosmo threads (Lecien's stranded embroidery floss) which is a beautiful floss to use and my personal favourite when it comes to embroidery.  Is that enough Christmas or do you want more?  Just a little?  I'll mention a Scandi print in a couple of colours, Folk Art Holiday by Gina Martin for Moda, available in Scandi Christmas grey on red and the reverse colours, Scandi red on grey (love this one!).  The scandianavian Christmas aesthetic always gets me every year, along with Nigella's Christmas- the pictures and the recipes.

Let's return to more neutral colours and prints.  I have seen this a few times on my online visits and it always catches my eye, Yellow and White Scallops on natural, a Japanese linen blend.

I imagine this to be a heavier weight- think bags, purses, cushions.  If you want something a little more geometric, this is similar, yellow and grey squares on natural, again a linen blend.

And for a touch of cute with a neutral colour way, Lions by Cocoland

You can see this print in extreme close up too!

The seasonal colours of this beautiful Autumn Lily Red Blackbird fabrics bundle were begging to be included, the russet warm reds have a great Autumn feel.  The print in the centre is my favourite and you can find the individual prints here.

Sweetwater produce great text prints, and Elementary is no exception. 

The top print is my favrouite here although there eis a lot to like in all of them.  Many of these would work very well as quilt bindings and borders.  You can see these and other prints from this range here, and check out the turquoise prints (the colour is called 'Splash').  This is Measure Up:

And this beauty is called Calendar:

And to end, a technicolour, Kawaii cute girly bundle picked by Eternal Maker Staff, Unicorns and Rainbows:

Enjoy!

318 Patchwork Please Winner!

Congrats to Ali, comment 133 was chosen as the winner!  I've sent you an email Ali...

Thankyou to all those who took part.  There are lots more chances to win on the blog hop and the publishers are happy to send books anywhere so all are welcome!

October at Village Haberdashery: It's all about the checks...

Time for my October visit to Village Haberdashery.  Annie is just on her way to Quilt Market trade show in Houston to plan for next year's fabric (you can see a preview peek of what she has in mind here) so I'll concentrate on what's going on now starting with check/plaid shirtings from Robert Kaufman. 

I haven't actually felt seen these in person, but I am imagining a soft, light weight Viyella style cotton like you see for men's country style shirts.  We have a local shop called, Farmer's Friend which is obviously aimed at the more rural community and there are check shirts a-plenty in the shop of this kind of fabric.  If you thoughts are turning to Christmas makes, plaid PJ pants would make a great male gift,although they do use a lot of fabric!   Boxer shorts are a more economic alternative.   If you fancy a male check shirt , Colette's classic  Waldon Negroni pattern and you can find a very detailed  men's shirt sew-along using Negroni with Peter Lapin's excellent Male Pattern Baldness blog.

Rather wear those checks yourself- I don't blame you! Annie has just received delivery of Grainline patterns including the classic Archer shirt pattern- very detailed sew along at Grainline.

And the Dahlia  dress pattern, released this week by Colette in return to what they do best, dresses with vintage styling and modern wearability, is a perfect candidate for a soft plaid shirting.  I am sure Annie will have this in the shop soon and if you are an ardent cutter/sticker type, the PDF download version can be bought here.  Otherwise, scarves, cushions, children's clothes- plaid/check shirting is a beautiful useable fabric.

Annie is something of an early adopter as she showed with her exclusive coup of been the first shop in the world to receive delivery of Caroline Friedlander's Doe collection

On of her new ideas really caught my eye, Baby Quilt club:

Sign ups are here and there is a multitude of options to tailor this club to your baby quilt needs.  Annie has put together some sample bundles to give you an idea of what to expect:

- you can choose monthly, every two months, boy or girl or a mix of selections, option to include co-ordinating Kona solids.  Great idea Annie!

A random insert here, I saw this during one of my frequent browses in the Chambray section (I've mentioned my love for Chambray so many times) and I chanced upon this beauty, Chambray jacquards in Indigo, which I have not seen anywhere else either as fabric or sewn up into a garment or quilt:

Jacquard means that the lighter colour weft threads float over the darker warp to produce the pattern.  A beautiful effect, delicate and a bit of a nightmare whilst cutting and handling- like the Chambray dot that I used for an Alder dress, but once it is sewn up and the seams are secure you are onto safe territory.  This jacquard chambray's just a little heavier than the dot and I will say, I hear it calling me!  Just not sure if it will survive contact with a cat!  Whilst I am netioning the Alder dress, that particular Grainline pattern is also currently in stock.  I reviewed it here and made a second version here.  The Grainline sew-along is here.

For Autumn/winter wear, I would make this as a dress to wear over a thin jersey top and stick a cardi over too!   Remember to keep your sizing on the more generous side if you are going to wear something underneath. I would do this by using the pattern I've already used but a less generous seam allowance on the side seams just for extra wiggle room.  Maybe in corduroy?

This is Sevenberry navy plaid, super soft and lovely for shirts, shirt dresses etc. 

This is Sevenberry blue and green check, a smaller scale pattern.

I've given myself ideas in this post, I feel like I can't get away from checks and shirts!  It's all about the bass  checks…  Enjoy x