Sewing for the Holidays
I don’t know about you, but it seems like a lot of people are beginning to book their holidays. One of the (many) things I love about the prospect of a summer holiday is the fact it gives me an excuse to do lots of sewing!
A new dress or two for me? Yes please. A shirt for him? Well…maybe.
Luckily Caroline knows how much I look forward to running up summer dresses, so she has got in lots of new viscose lawn dress fabrics, in all these wonderful patterns and colours.
If you are new to sewing, or perhaps have just never tried your luck with viscose, Burda Sytyle has a great little guide to the fabric – which you can read here.
Although this tutorial for a maxi dress doesn’t specify what material to use, we believe that a viscose lawn would work wonderfully – the drape and soft hand of the fabric would make the dress have a lovely flattering fall.
If a dress is not your thing, perhaps a shirt would appeal more? We have some new cotton shirting fabrics that are all ex-designer. We have them in two patterns, and two plain colours with colours ranging from pinks to the more traditionally masculine.
All of them will make up beautifully.
Easter Crafts and Projects
Can you believe that Easter is nearly upon us? Although we love the chance to spend more time with our family, Easter can be a challenging trying to keep the younger ones occupied.
This year we have tried to get a head start on things, by stocking up on lots of fun poly/cotton fabrics. At £3.25 per metre, they are inexpensive and perfect for crafting; we can already see some little robot bags and cute little bunnies being made up.
If you are thinking about getting crafty over Easter, we have added to our Sewing for Spring Pinterest board. From tote bags to crafts, there are some easy makes and some makes for those who feel like getting a bit more adventurous with their little helpers.
Keeping the little ones in mind, we also have some funky new jersey fabrics. When these fabrics landed in Croft Mill we all swarmed round to have a proper look at them. Quite a few of the team members started to get a bit nostalgic, remembering when their mother’s would make them pyjama bottoms out of similar cotton jerseys. Did your mother ever make you some? One of our team member already wants some of the dinosaur print for her little boy, but we like the sheep.
Just think, if you make some pyjamas out of this they have no reason not to go to bed and count sheep!
We also think that these cotton jerseys would be great for a stylish bib. That doesn’t sound very convincing does it, a stylish bib? You surely know the ones I mean though, they are bibs for babies but are cut and fastened in such a way that they more like a fashion scarf as seen in France.
The jerseys would not need hemming if you were creating a bib, which is just as well if you are short for time. They could even be a great alternative for younger children than the typical Easter bonnet.
Spring into the 70’s!
They say fashion comes in cycles and it certainly appears to now. The 70’s style is back on trend again being featured in both high fashion catwalks and high-street pieces alike. While you could buy into this trend, it is also a great style to sew… and not to mention that sewing it is more fun! If you are thinking about trying this trend (or even re-visiting it) in your next project a key fabric to use is denim.
Use denim to create A-line skirt or a simple dress, whilst denim is quite a hardwearing fabric, you can get softer denims to make shirts or even children’s wear. When you make a shirt, stay true to 70’s style by adding on a patch pocket. If you have never attempted a patch pocket before, Burda have a great little guide, which you can view here.
Another fabric to look out for is suede, use it to make jackets, skirts or fringing that you can add to existing garments to give them a 70’s feel. Another way to incorporate the 70’s style into your wardrobe is to create a summer dress out of seersucker fabric. Lightweight and thin, it is perfect for summer months – although it does tend to be either striped or with checks so you will have to think about pattern matching. One of the Croft Mill team actually still has a dress she made from seersucker, using this 70’s Simplicity pattern.
Military Chic
Year after year, military/uniform chic comes into fashion for the Spring and Summer season. Here at Croft Mill we love this style, as it is so versatile to wear and if you make something in this style, out of good quality fabric, you will be able to dig it out of the wardrobe and wear it every year. One of the key points of this trend is to stick to neutral and kahki colour schemes, like those on our dedicated Military Chic section – which you can view in it’s entirety here.
A simple way to incorporate this look into your everyday style is to create a shirt. It can be worn with almost anything, make it loose and you can tuck it in to a pencil skirt for a tailored look, or wear it loose with jeans for a casual outfit, perfect for running errands. We think this Vogue V7700 pattern would be great for this look, but if you’re not convinced a good pair of trousers or chinos in this colour scheme will also look amazing.
Another way to try out this style, is with a simple dress. The catwalks were awash with military type dresses – use a densely woven cotton if you are aiming to make a dress that is structured – the cotton will keep you cool, yet it will still hold its shape. If you are feeling more adventurous, try using a softer cloth – for example you could try some of our cupro cloths – for a less structured dress, and use a matching or black/beige/khaki belt to pull it in at the waist. Linen and jerseys also work well for this trend.
If you are feeling daring, you could go the whole hog and create a jumpsuit as seen on the catwalk (feel free to knit a scarf to go with it):
Project of the Month Give-away:
There has been a bit of a change to Project of the Month, since Easter is only round the corner we thought that we would extend March’s Project of the Month give-away until the 24th April. The theme is ‘Spring and Easter’ so you could be making a new dress for spring, or maybe something fun for Easter.
The finished project does not have to be perfect; we are looking more for creative ideas, clever use of fabrics and or craft fabrics and good use of techniques.
- The winners will be chosen by the team at Croft Mill.
- Entries are welcome up until midnight on 23rd April 2015. The winner will be announced the week beginning the 4thMay.
- 1st prize- £20 worth of Croft Mill vouchers
- 2ndprize £10 Croft Mill vouchers.
All the submissions will be available to view in our Facebook album and Pinterest board.
- Please share your makes onFacebook.com/CroftMillFabric or tweet @CroftMillFabric, or email socialmedia@croftmill.co.uk with ‘Project of the Month’ in the subject line.
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