Making underwear with Emma

 

 So yesterday was my day of underwear making with Emma Kidd from Emiliana Underwear. Jam and I had a nice lie in during the morning and then I hopped on a train to visit the Old School Club in Clapham Junction. Due to some silliness with the trains I arrived just in time, but what a course awaited me! Emma introduced herself to the class (6 of us in all) giving a brief overview of her experience (she has oodels and hearing her talk about foreign working conditions and her own ethics was really interesting) and showing us some of the fantastic knickers that have been made from her designs. 

 Next it was the classes turn to introduce themselves saying our name, why we were on the course and what the last thing we made was. There was a really nice mix of people in the class some who had never used a sewing machine before and some more experienced ladies as well. Emma came round to look at our fabric choices, I'd taken a few bits of stretch jersey from my stash plus a lacy black piece of fabric that I'd picked up from Mason's the day before. Emma asked if I had any preference on which I'd like to use as they were all suitable, I'd shown my selection to Jam on Monday and he had shown a preference for the black lacy one (surprising huh?) so I went with that one. There were three designs of knickers to choose from, a standard knicker shape, a hipster brief or a short. Emma mentioned that the short was slightly more work than the other two but having her experise on hand I decided to give it a go.

 Next it was the classes turn to introduce themselves saying our name, why we were on the course and what the last thing we made was. There was a really nice mix of people in the class some who had never used a sewing machine before and some more experienced ladies as well. Emma came round to look at our fabric choices, I'd taken a few bits of stretch jersey from my stash plus a lacy black piece of fabric that I'd picked up from Mason's the day before. Emma asked if I had any preference on which I'd like to use as they were all suitable, I'd shown my selection to Jam on Monday and he had shown a preference for the black lacy one (surprising huh?) so I went with that one. There were three designs of knickers to choose from, a standard knicker shape, a hipster brief or a short. Emma mentioned that the short was slightly more work than the other two but having her experise on hand I decided to give it a go. After choosing some contrasting elastic (I narrowed it down to fusha and teal but went for the teal as its Jam's favourite colour) we cut out our fabric and after a quick practice on the machines to check that they were stitching okay (and they were the right stitches) we started work on our own material. I had a quick centre seam to do before catching up with the rest of the class who had all started the tricky business of sewing the elastic to their fabric (straigh lines weren't too bad but around the legholes the sewing machine decided that my material was a bit too tasty to resist and ate it! (Resulting in me getting a bit aggrrhhh).

 Fortunately Emma was there to help me (and sewed a few of the problem sections for me, thank you Emma) and Inma from the old school club appeared with more tea and cake. Many hours later and my deskmates had finished theirs ad I had these crackers (loving held up by Emma - yes she is that wonderful, I have now independently verified this!). I had a really great time on the course, I'm definitely going to order some of the kits (and you can too from here) to give the other patterns a try (and maybe try the short in a more sewing friendly different material? Just to see if its any easier (although I'm thrilled with the result and hopefully on my own machine I'll find it slightly easier than with a machine I didn't know).  Emma was the most fantastic teacher, in the world ever (I was its fair to say a bit starstruck in her presence, what she is doing & the ethics and sentiment behind it are so awesome) I'm hoping I will be able to do another course with her at some point but until then I have my beautiful knickers to remind of a very special valentines day!

Homemade valentines

(Homemade red velvet cupcakes, the sprinkles say ME LOVE YOU with hearts at the end of the lines).You may remeber that last year I made these cute heart shaped tea bags for Jam. Just like the presents I made for our 1 year anniversary last week I was certain that for valentines this year I wanted to avoid the tat and make Jam his valentines gifts. His major present took a bit of work to pull together but I think it will be worth it. I bought a 600 photo classic black photo album from paperchase that you can slip photos in (rather than the ones you have to glue the photo to the pages in, which I'm not too keen on). We had loads of photos of us together doing stuff from our Awesome things to do list (stuff suggested by each of us that we would like to do with the other person, the stuff on it ranges from going ice skating together, to taking a hot air balloon ride to visiting the science museum and cooking monster cupcakes, to name but a few). I saved a selection to my memory stick and got them all printed out and then placed them in chronological order in the album (with plenty of space left to add new photo adventures).

 I added a further homemade touch by cutting letters out of handmade paper and sticking them on the front with my faithful copydex (there is a clear plactic layer that goes over the outside of the album which should help protect this quite delicate paper). Now its clear who the album belongs to and also what the contents are inside!

 The other two things that I made to go with it was a massage balm using the recipe here. Because Jam sits at a computer all day (and slouches) he gets pains in his back so I wanted to make something that I could use that I knew contained only 'nice' ingredients and hadn't been harmfully tested.

My final suprise of the trio were some homemade red velvet cupcakes which although not the really really red colour that I had envisaged didn't last that long at all (I had to almost push Jam out the house in order to get them made in the first place).

For my present I got  a bottle of my favourite malt whisky Talisker (it's brewed on the Isle of Skye which is lovely), some of my favourite perfume and an automatic door opener for the chickens (so I get my lie ins back!) I also got bought a fantastic underwear making course with the quite simply brilliant Emiliana Underwear. If you haven't visited their site you really should, they sell kits to make your own pants and reuse clothing material to do so making it ethical & green. The actual course is today and I'm sooo excited to be taking part (full write up in due course, must remeber to charge & take the camera). Happy Valentines everyone & remeber to treat yourselves as well as your loved ones this holiday!

A stitch in time

So (or should that be sew? :-) all I seem to be doing lately is sewing for various different people (all of whom are lovely so that's okay). The first project was a delayed valentines present for the boy. He is a bit of a tea fiend so what better than to give him some hand made heart shaped teabags? Why not have a go yourslf all you need is some loose tea, a bit of muslin, needle & thread and quite a bit of time/patience. Cut out lots of hearts from the muslin (cause it is so thin you can do a couple or more at a time), it's worth making a template for this bit as that gets them a bit more uniform & also then you can make sure you have enough room to put the tea in. Put two together and stitch round them till you get to the top part of the heart, fill with tea & then stitch up the gap. After that you can add an extra bit of thread to the top so the tea bag can be fished out. I made the box for mine too, but I'm sure you could put these in all sorts of containers and give them as presents. I don't think he has used them yet so I'm still not sure if my workmanship will stand up but the finished things were really pretty (and I think he liked them so that's good :-).

Second project is for my friend David (we met as undergraduates at Lancaster and then when I came for this job guess who was already working here?), he and his wife have just had a little girl (Amelia, photo below, we think she is gonna be a bit of a heartbreaker). so I decided to crochet her a blanket, nothing too fancy just double crochet all the way homemade and big enough to keep her warm/wrapped up from those summer chills. When I started we weren't sure whether she was going to be a boy or girl so I wanted to do purple, but there were no nice colours in that so I went blue instead but I'm sure she'll be able to carry it off.

Final project is my latest commission. After the sucess of Lisa's wedding dress I've been approached to do several more bits for weddings. This latest one is my first foray into menswear making the hankies and cravats for a friends wedding (so the men match the bridesmaids, aww matchy matchy). We (in this instance me and physicist/should have been a dressmaker, Malcolm) managed to figure out a pattern so now it's just the hard work of sewing the things. The material is lovely (green but in some lights yellow, some lights purple) but it does seem to be having a tendancy to shed everywhere. Also as usual Mabel is trying her best to convince me that she should be the one doing the making (she has always been facinated by my knitting/crocheting (she likes the wool and has the tendancy to try and pick it up in her mouth and run away with it, not so helpful when you are doing it, especially if you haven't noticed, she also used to have her own stash/nest under my bed. I had to raid it and take most balls back however as she has quite expensive tastes). She also thinks the sewing machine is magic, and just sits and watches (which is quite nice if it's 2am the garment has to be finished by 8am and your housemate has gone to bed with earplus in (yes it's happened before)). Hopefully we won't be in for a repeat experience on this one, I've been trying to stick to a schedule and have been allowing myself some breaks so I don't get tired and have to redo stuff. The other definite advantage is on this partiular commision although there is still no money (one day) we are swapping crafts, so I get a cross stich done for me in exchange for my labours (I have patience yes but not the amount needed for that :-)

Valentine and Jon Boden

Today at work I got the most wonderful suprise, I was called down to the post room about 9.30 and there waiting for me was this beautiful red rose, a little box of pretty chocolates and a card too from this secret admirer. When I came down and Dean handed me the box I honestly thought he had emailed the wrong Vikki (it happens all the time) but after 3 mins of debate and Dean making me read the address label it turned out he had indeed got it right and I had to apologise. To my not so secret admirer than you it was beautiful but you shouldn't have (I will get revengae at some pont :-).

Valentines evening I had made plans for a couple of months ago, Jon Boden and his remnant kings were playing a gig in Keble (one of the Oxford colleges) as Jon's father is bursar there. My hot date for the evening Janey unfortunately fell ill at the last moment so I went on my own (*sob*) I'm really glad I did however as it was a really brilliant gig. Jon has been doing a project called a folk song a day for some time now, it's exactly what it says on the tin, Jon will be posting a folk song a day for the whole of 1 year. The audience from last night's gig were invited to join him in a sing along at the end of the show (we even got a practice run during the show, you can't say farer than that). You can hear the result here http://www.afolksongaday.com/2011/02/14/cupids-garden/ plus there is a fabulous video of Jon performing my favourite of his songs (it's a cover of an old croony one, seemed apt for Valentine's) here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ-kdOQZPLU

Finally as well as Mr Boden there were two other major stars of the show for me, two edison phonographs, the pre cursor to the record player these play music captured on wax cylinders. Jon's current album (the one this album is promoting) is called songs from the floodplain. It's an album based on the idea that in the not too distant future humanity will be in crisis because the electricity/oil will run out. On the album this leads to people rediscovering and putting value back into folk traditions as well as digging out fabulous old technology. Throughtout the set last night the two phonographs played background music and sound shots (Jon has even named them Edith and Eric, awww). Out of pure curiosity I had a quick look if you could still get hold of them, you can but they are pretty rare. I think I might have lost my heart to this one however this is a edison red gem circa 1905. I think it would look lovely in my house sadly I don't seem to a spare £700 but I think we can all look at it and see how pretty it is!