My creative cup, it runneth over

I've been on something of a crafting frenzy lately. May has been pretty quiet as far as sewing new things for the shop goes. Which could backfire spectacular as my dress and skirt stock are starting to run a little low. But I promised myself that as soon as my fruity skirts were finished, I'd focus on making a few things for myself before starting on anything new for the shop. Me Made May which I referred to in my last post came at the perfect time and while I don't have many handmade items in my own wardrobe (I'm always on the bottom of the priority list), I took the pledge this year anyway. I figured it would hold me accountable and keep me motivated. Also posting photos on Instagram acts as a record and I'm hoping that next year I'll have even more handmade clothes and will feel a sense of achievement when I look back and see the progress I hope to will have made.

So far this month I've been wearing my leopard print kimono, green Edie dress and my black and gold heart skirt. Although I forgot to take a photo of that last one so I'll have to try again next week. I've also made myself a lovely summer dress which I haven't worn yet because as soon as it was ready, the weather remembered that this was Britain and brought back the rain. So now I'm back in jumpers and the occasional blanket because I'll be buggered if I'm putting the heating on in May.
Next on my list of makes is a pair of pyjama bottoms and I found some fabric which I have fallen hard for. It's wonderfully kitsch, bright, fun and softer than I could have imagined. PERFECT! I can't wait to see the end result.

And once you start getting creative in one area of your life, it appears to spread in to others without you even realising it. It's like a tap that you can't switch off.

While playing with Alessi and her Hama beads (will her love for these ever die?!) I made a very bright garland for the conservatory window. This in turn prompted her to want to take all her bead creations out of the box and hang them on her bedroom wall.

Then there's the garden and we've been planting all sorts of plants in to all sorts of things. Sunflowers in my old wellies, Geraniums in Alessi's old wellies, a purple plant in one of Dan's old trophies, you get the idea.

I bought a jasmine plant from the local garden centre, stuck it in a hanging basket and hung it above My Spot. 

Speaking of hanging baskets I replaced the rotted and broken willow ones and filled them with the old strawberry plants. Some had died off over winter (that will teach me to leave them out) so I topped them up with new plants.

Now we're nearly set for the summer. All I need now is to work out exactly which herbs and salad leaves I want to grow in the raised bed and we're done. Maybe.

Oh and something else too! Anyone who knows me knows that I HATE cooking. Really, I loathe it. I'm no good at it and Dan will attest to this (I once gave him food poisoning with salad leaves).
Anyhoo our food shopping bill has been creeping up lately and we've been struggling to keep it to the £70 a week budget.  I'd heard of Jack Monroe's first cookbook and recalled that they had only ever been raving reviews. I took another look and before I knew it, I'd purchased a copy.

I don't regret it. It's amazing. Jack's kind of cooking is right up my street. I don't go in for pretentious ingredients and lots of faffing. Cooking still isn't my thing, but I want to be able to make decent, healthy meals for Dan and Alessi, without too much faff and without spending a stupid amount of money. With the help of this book I'm starting to check all of those boxes and I personally think that's pretty bloody impressive. Our last shop came just under our £70 budget and the week before that we didn't even come close to it! And yet we all ate well and enjoyed our treats.
We're in that stage of trying some of the recipes out to see what works and what doesn't for us, tweaking them where necessary. But no other cookbook I've come across has managed to inspire me to even try. So as you can tell, I'm a huge fan.

And as if that weren't enough, we've also been getting creative with the house too. We're focusing our energy on our living room at the moment. It hasn't been painted since we moved in ten years ago. Damp walls and a growing toddler all took it's toll. Earlier this year me and Alessi pulled down the wallpaper. The damp had been so bad that it just peeled away. So there were marks where the paint underneath had come away with the wallpaper. On another wall there were crayon scribbles for a certain someone. And on another wall there are still the greasy hand prints also made by a certain someone with her cheese covered mitts. On the one hand, I feel like these are memories that we'll be painting over and it makes me sad. On the other, I hate the fag-stained colour we currently have and that makes me sadder so I also welcome fresh, crisp white!

So, where was I going with this? Oh yes. Dan booked a day off with the intention of painting the whole room. He did one wall and then decided to rip up the living room carpet instead. I was at work. It could have gone so, so wrong. But luckily we love the exposed floorboards underneath. And they're actually in pretty good nick. All we need to do now is decide if we want to go down the sanding or painting route. Either way, the end result will look SO much better than our old, stained, BEIGE carpet. Beige. What on earth were we thinking??

There is so much more I could write about, but Dan will be back with Alessi any minute and this post is plenty long enough already. Well done if you've made it this far!

The Dress Tree A/W 2014

Here it is! My small Autumn/Winter collection is finished and finally listed here in the shop.

And it includes the new Edie dress! I've made one for myself, (for quality control purposes you understand *wink*) and I'll be posting pictures of this very soon. 

Today I will be having a quiet one and spoiling myself a little. There will be cake, coffee and not doing much in the garden with Alessi. Utter bliss.

Or at least it will be once I've tackled the giant stack of dirty plates in the kitchen. Happy Autumn everyone!

THE DRESS TREE SHOP

Mabel

So if you follow me on Twitter it won't have escaped your attention that my trusty old sewing machine died earlier this month. It happened at the worst time as I'd literally just taken on some custom jobs.
At least, that was what I thought when it happened. I knew buying a new sewing machine was going to be pricey and if I'm honest, that was what had put me off jumping in and investing in a new one.

In the end the decision was made for me. The tension dial broke and as it would have cost more than the sewing machine's worth to get fixed, I had no choice but to buy a new one.
At first I was upset, but then I let those words sink in a little.

Buy. A. New. Sewing. Machine.

My dream sewing machine.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is my new, dream sewing machine. Isn't she BEAUTIFUL?!
Oh and her name's Mabel.

She's so quiet and whizzy. I still can't get my head around how quick it is to run a piece together now compared to before. And oh my days, she even has an automatic needle threader!

AN AUTOMATIC NEEDLE THREADER!!

I can't even begin to put into words how cool I think this is. I've tried. On numerous occasions. I've bored my husband, friends, work colleagues and yes, even someone I've never met over on Twitter. I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm not. SHE'S AMAZING!

So there you have it. I'm going to wrap this post up now as I can see that I'm starting to push my luck regarding the acceptable use of exclamation marks and capital letters. 

All I'll say is that I bloody love this machine. I've noticed that it's making me try even harder to find sewing time in each day now. And that can only be a good thing.

P.S. For those who are a little confused by the heart in the corner of my photo. "I luv Mabel 4eva IDST" is a reference to my old school days. When we used to cover our school books with wrapping paper and write I luv blah blah 4eva all over them. The I.D.S.T. stands for If Destroyed Still True. 

And you know what? I do still luv Chesney Hawkes. So there.

The work, it never gets done

I am seriously struggling to get much done these days and it's starting to make me feel pretty antsy.

I never thought for an instant that working at home and looking after a child at the same time would be easy. In fact I knew it would mean learning to be flexible, patient and sometimes accepting that there will be days when nothing gets achieved. But I didn't think that there would be times where weeks and weeks would pass without anything being achieved at all.

Ever since Pip became mobile I've found it really difficult to do anything, but I'm only really feeling the effects now.
Much of November was a write off due to colds, then it was Christmas so I gave myself a wee holiday and we've spent the majority of this month with colds again. So in all that time that she's been mobile I kept thinking that once the illnesses and Christmas were over, I could just jump straight back into it.
How wrong was I?!

A mobile baby means this: grabby little hands pulling down my pedal leads, curious fingers poking at the printer, emptying out the bin, trying to climb the mannequin and none of these things lend themselves to productive sewing time.
I've put the travel cot which doubles as a play pen (or 'baby bin' as it's known in our house), in the corner, but you only get a few minutes of peace before she starts shouting to be let out again.

That's my problem, so here's my question. How to I get stuff done?
I've come up with the following ideas and like none of them.

1) Bring in the spare TV, stick her in the baby bin, put on the TV and hope it keeps her distracted for half an hour.
I'm liking this idea about as much as I like the thought of getting another cold.

2) Move all my stuff back downstairs and sew while she sleeps.
This isn't practical for two reasons, she only sleeps for half an hour a day and she'd spend the rest of the day doing all the stuff I listed above, i.e. it's pointless.

3) Wait until Dan comes home, throw Pip at him and get busy until it's time to start getting her ready for bed. This however, would only give me about half an hour and wouldn't give Dan any time to catch his breath after his day at work so not ideal either.

Whatever the answer is, I've got to find it soon. I have so much work to do by March and time is fast running out.
Story of my life!

The Small Things - Launch!

The Small Things Shop

Finally, they're ready!

I have finished the dresses that I have started referring to as my 'introduction collection' and have set them free in to my Etsy shop. Eeeeep!

I'm so excited as this is what I've been working towards for the past two months solid. I'm also nervous as heck because I'm not sure how well they will be received. They could sell well and get great feedback, or (and let's be brutally honest here), they could tank.

Oddly though the excitement and nervousness are completely intertwined. I'm excited not just because it could be a success, but also because it could completely bomb. Likewise I'm nervous not just because they could bomb, but because they could be a success. Seriously you don't want to know what it's like in my head!

Whichever way the dice lands, I'm proud of what I've achieved and I can hand on heart say that there isn't one dress there that I wouldn't happily wear myself. In fact if this doesn't go well, that's exactly what I'm planning to do!

I have only made these eight dresses for now. I have plans for more, but only if there's a market for them. So this is a test if you like, me dipping my toe into the water.

If you would like a closer look, pop over my Etsy shop by clicking on the link below. Why not tell me what you think?

The Small Things Shop

The Plan

I can't remember if I've already mentioned this on here before, but at the moment I'm working on a small collection of dresses to sell in my Etsy shop.

It's slow going though. Initially I had wanted to have them all finished and ready to go for the start of August. No such luck. I envisioned myself being able to do a lot more around Pip than I've actually managed to. The reality however is that I can only really get things done while she's asleep. Which is a shame because she only cat naps during the day so it feels as though she's waking again just when I'm getting warmed up.

So I've been doing a bit here, a bit there. Sewing during naps, while Dan puts her to bed in the evenings and when I can find a spare moment during the weekends. Progress maybe slow, but it's steady and I'm on track to have them up and ready to go next month. There's no launch date at the moment though, that will depend entirely on Pip as naturally, her needs must come first.

I'm excited and nervous. If this goes well there's no reason why I can't make a modest, but viable living from dressmaking and that's been my dream for the last seven years.

It won't be easy though and as with the dresses themselves, it will probably be slow going. Strap yourselves in!

The week I got some things done.

This week I finally had a burst of productivity and got some things done. 

I moved back into the sewing room after deciding my 'nook' in the bedroom was too small. I washed and ironed the fabric that finally arrived, made two test dresses and then decided that as my sewing machine wasn't up to scratch, I'd go and buy myself an overlocker, Y'know. As you do. 

This was the one I plumped for in the end. 

Isn't she a beaut? I'm getting quite excited about this project now as I've got to admit, I've been climbing the walls a little lately. Please don't get me wrong, I know how lucky I am and I love that I get to watch Pip grow a bit more each day, but for my own sanity I do need something else to focus on other dirty nappies and Mr Tumble.

That said, I will always put my sewing machine down for Gigglebiz. It makes the nappy changing more fun.

4 Simple Goals

-1-

Take body measurements

I'm a totally different shape and size than I was before I became pregnant. So it's time to get the old measuring tape out and see where I'm at size-wise. Not particularly looking forward to this one.

-2-

Cut out dress patterns in different sizes

I've bought a pattern, but I want to be able to make dresses in all sizes from it. So I'm going to  trace out a separate pattern in each size. A boring goal, but it will make life so much easier in the long run.

-3-

Make test dress 

This is just going to be a bog standard t-shirt dress with an elasticated waist for me to wear around the house. It's also a chance for me to practice sewing with this fabric and get a feel for it.

-4-

Cut out pattern pieces for second dress

This is the dress I want to make eventually, but without the sash and perhaps a little shorter. This pattern uses darts to shape the bodice which I may or may not leave out. Once I've made the t-shirt dress above, I'll then move on to this one, starting with cutting out the fabric pieces. Baby steps folks!

My first Simple Goals post since Pip was born. Needless to say I'm not going to try and set myself monthly goals any more. I'll get these done as and when I can, but as I'm finding it all to easy to fritter away my days without achieving anything dressmaking related, I'm hoping these posts will act as an incentive to get things moving again. And here's how I got on back in March..

Previous Goals

1. Make curtains for our room
I hated making these curtains. The blackout fabric is so thick they don't hang properly, but they work really well at keeping the light out so I guess they're a winner.

2. Make curtains for Pip's room
I didn't hate making these as much, but that's because I (happily) ran out of blackout material so didn't bother with it. As a result I was able to crank them out in about an hour, by which point as I was all curtained out. I never want to make curtains again.

3. Finish course
Words cannot explain how proud I am that I accomplished this. And the date on the certificate is the date Pip was born which makes it proper spesh. I'm giving myself major brownie points for this one.

4. Get garden ready for spring

Well. There always has to be one that I don't achieve!