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Bugs



Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

PostPosted: Mon Jan 10, 05 7:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Hi Deedee, lovely to have you here and welcome to the site

Thanks for the suggestions, I've never heard of Tysons but I'll have a look, I'm also in Surrey. I'm determined that I'll only buy a machine if I'm confident I'll use it...and if I do buy one I'd be too embarassed not to .


Do you mean you get loads of people "just" wanting you to help turn up this, hem that, knock up the other? I may well be calling on your help soon as well!

Deedee



Joined: 10 Jan 2005
Posts: 250
Location: Surrey
PostPosted: Mon Jan 10, 05 8:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

LOL that'd be about right! I turned up at school with my boys,first day back to be greeted by a broken zip and a hem to take up.. problem is I'm too soft to say NO!!!!! Tysons have a few shops about one in Kingston and one in Southall..I tend to order most of my supplies off ebay now,fabric etc..I used to sell fabric on there til just before xmas had a few health probs with the kids so had to retire from it all but thats a looong story!Made many good friends there and hope to find the time to get back to it one day My plan is to use that to supplement our income when we take 'the plunge' I'm still just a dreamer for now but am learning all I can for when the moment arrives..

nettie



Joined: 02 Dec 2004
Posts: 5888
Location: Suffolk
PostPosted: Mon Jan 10, 05 8:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Bugs where in the SE are you? anywhere near Essex?

wellington womble



Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands
PostPosted: Mon Jan 10, 05 8:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Course you can do it if I can! I still have to get my trousers turned up professionally though. It's not that I can't sew them, I can't pin the damn things on my own - himself is totally useless - so you will have to tell someone that you sew!

Curtains and cushions and sew on (sorry!) would be easier to start with. I figured out my machine on my own (although it did come with a video) but was used to my mum's, so I wasn't a total beginner (although I never made anything complicated!)

Deedee



Joined: 10 Jan 2005
Posts: 250
Location: Surrey
PostPosted: Mon Jan 10, 05 9:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

a good cheap project (and useful) to get you started would be a pair of garden gloves.If you have old jeans just draw round your hand leaving about 1/2" all round for seams cut and sew.I tend to make mine single thickness but you can double them (depending on the strength of your machine) or line them with a lightweight cotton.I made some fancy ones for my neice at xmas with disney princess fabric lining turned it out over the cuff,looked quite sweet.

Mrs Fiddlesticks



Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 10460

PostPosted: Mon Jan 10, 05 9:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Deedee wrote:
a good cheap project (and useful) to get you started would be a pair of garden gloves.If you have old jeans just draw round your hand leaving about 1/2" all round for seams cut and sew.I tend to make mine single thickness but you can double them (depending on the strength of your machine) or line them with a lightweight cotton.I made some fancy ones for my neice at xmas with disney princess fabric lining turned it out over the cuff,looked quite sweet.


thats a good idea.

I know what you mean about school sewing classes, we made a tennis skirt! useful in todays world . But I did do extra lessons in 6th form when I had a free moment, so must have enjoyed it really. It is about practice, and having a go. I've sort of always sewn, made all Sindys clothes - remember her!. But then my mum and gran did too. Have you tried the local evening class scene - I have seen courses for sewing in them - but it will be held in a school sewing room which may bring back bad memories of course.

I'd like to know where to get fleece fabric from - does anyone use a mail order company? Its about time I got back in to sewing ( done more embroidery in recent years)

This has generated a lot of interest - I'm tempted to start a thread for sewing hints and tips as I think there is a lot of experience here that others will find useful.

Deedee



Joined: 10 Jan 2005
Posts: 250
Location: Surrey
PostPosted: Mon Jan 10, 05 9:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

definately go to ebay for the fleece if you have a paypal account ship it in from the states its cheaper I buy all my fabric from the U.S for peanuts in the shops here you're looking at around �10+ a yard on ebay its generally �5.99 in the states its $5 for 2 yards plus around $9 shipping..

wellington womble



Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands
PostPosted: Tue Jan 11, 05 11:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

I buy fabric from a local place (although not so local as it used to be) just because I need to really see and feel it - the feel is more important than the look for me.

Love the sound of the gardening gloves. Gardening gloves never fit me, so I'll be giving those a go - you could waterproof them afterwards too (with Nikwax stuff for cotton)

Gervase



Joined: 17 Nov 2004
Posts: 8655

PostPosted: Tue Jan 11, 05 12:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

If you've got kids, don't let the school know you sew, lest you find yourself doing every bloomin' costume for the Christmas play!
If you do get a machine (and why not - it's a terrific labour-saving device) do raid the local charity shops. As suggested earlier, stuff from there can be re-used, and even if it's absolutely hideous and you wouldn't be seen dead in it, you can still get some good practice - particularly when it comes to thread tension for different fabrics, about which some machines are very pernickety.

joanne



Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7100
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire
PostPosted: Tue Jan 11, 05 12:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

If anyone's in the North go and have a look at Abakhans fabric shops https://www.abakhanfabrics.co.uk/ -they sell material at really good prices, a very dangerous place if like me you are a bit of a material pack rat

I've also bought off eBay - got a fantastic deal on some Black and Purple Velvet - being of the gothic persuasion, I tend to buy in bulk around Halloween and then use the stuffas and when I need it

Joanne

Bugs



Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

PostPosted: Tue Jan 11, 05 4:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

nettie wrote:
Bugs where in the SE are you? anywhere near Essex?


Nope, well, not really, am in Surrey....as I said above - I fear you do not read and absorb every word I write with the committed and grave attention my words deserve, Nettie

Bugs



Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

PostPosted: Tue Jan 11, 05 4:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Deedee wrote:
a good cheap project (and useful) to get you started would be a pair of garden gloves.


This does sound a good project, Deedee. I'd like to do something that can be completed quickly just to make me think it's possible for me to carry on. Today I've got Start Sewing by someone whose name escapes me, and the Readers Digest Book of Sewing and Knitting, which I'm hoping is an ancestor of the one Jocorless recommends (both from the library, which is a rubbish library built for the wilfully illiterate - they don't put the paperback fiction in any kind of order, and more space is taken up by computers and music and videos than it is by books, and most of the other books are not on the shelves when they should be, and I hate it but there's nowhere else to go...went in to the library in my home town last weekend on my way to my parents and it's such a nice building and still quiet. You know. Like a library. Rant over )

Will let you know what I think of the books later. Assuming they have all the pages in them - when I borrowed mushroom books all the Liberty Cap pages had been torn out - not by staff, they were marked as damaged. Some people have no imagination. I'd be surprised if they managed to harvest any magic mushrooms intact, you'd think their knuckles dragging on the ground would knock 'em all over before they got to them.

Did I say rant over? I was lying. When I'm prime minister (or president) there'll be hard labour without parole for anyone who wilfully damages books ).

Deedee



Joined: 10 Jan 2005
Posts: 250
Location: Surrey
PostPosted: Tue Jan 11, 05 4:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Hi Bugs sounds a bit like our library and its brand new why more pc's than books?? I thought the whole point of a library was to get books in Someone suggested charity shops for fabric and stuff these can be great to build your sewing stash.My friends and neighbours also bring in curtains and stuff for me in case I can use them.If they're nice I usually incorporate them into a quilt or something if they are really dire they go in the scraps bin for cleaning my machines A scrap quilt would be a nice project also to start just cut blocks of around 4 inches square and add to it as and when you get more scraps.Theres a great quilting site in plain english I abolutely adore www.quilterscache.com its so easy to follow a word of warning though you may get hooked!

tahir



Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45671
Location: Essex
PostPosted: Tue Jan 11, 05 4:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Deedee wrote:
Hi Bugs sounds a bit like our library and its brand new why more pc's than books??


Dunno, but ours has always got more people sitting at PC's than borrowing books

Deedee



Joined: 10 Jan 2005
Posts: 250
Location: Surrey
PostPosted: Tue Jan 11, 05 4:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

true so has ours

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