City and Guilds Fashion Level 1 – Week 6

What a busy week it has been, what with sewing projects and course preparation!  Inspired by the long-awaited arrival of my Cath Kidston ‘Sew!’ book, I made myself a new peg bag.  I didn’t actually use the pattern layout provided in the book, but did my own more or less identical version.  Another Cath Kidston inspired project this week was that I made my own version of the canvas badge bag, which sells for £85.  My version was free, as I already had all of the brooches and the bag, it was just a case of pinning them on!

My personalised version of the Canvas Badge Bag

I got started on making some Christmas presents too this week.  My sister-in-law is a teacher and I thought it’d be nice to make her some bunting for her classroom with her name on.  Her favourite colour is lilac, so I made each triangle with some lilac poplin remnant I picked up in my local fabric store.  For the letters, I used some left-over samples from my Fabric Sample Pack which I ordered from Sewbox.  I still have quite a lot of these samples left, so I plan to make more bunting for other people!

Classroom Bunting

This week I also had a big clear out of my wardrobe, inspired by Ali at her blog: the wardrobe, reimagined.  I ended up with a pile of 29 garments to give to charity, and 4 garments which I will refashion.  I must admit, I am still holding onto some clothes which are too small for me, just in case I lose some weight, but they are garments that I love, and I have put them out of the way for now, so my wardrobe feels a lot less cluttered.

I also joined Twitter.  It’s good to be able to follow the people whose blogs I read and I already feel so much more a part of the sewing world!

Anyway, onto business matters.  I spent my entire day off this week working on things for my art folder.  I did some potato printing, which was lots of fun!  I used cookie cutters to get the shapes on the potatoes, and then used acrylic paints to print onto a variety of surfaces and textures.  I also had a play with painting through plastic doilies, and I love the effect.

Heart-shaped potato print on Jute

Gingerbread men potato print on cotton canvas

Painting through plastic doilies

I also practised my fashion figure drawings, and, I would like to introduce you to my model, Liz:

This is my model. She is called Liz.

Also this week, I made an important addition to my fabric samples folder:

Fleece, direct from the supplier!

I also wanted to get my nautical star template sorted so I could concentrate on potential designs.  I worked out that I could draw a nautical star of any size if I had a five line template with each line being 72 degrees away from the next (because 360 degrees divided by 5 equals 72).  The trouble is, without a protractor, how would I know what a 72 degree angle is?  It’s a long time since my maths GCSEs, and my memory is poor, but my husband could still remember trigonometry, and more importantly, how to use it.  “SOHCAHTOA!” was all I could blurt out, a little too triumphantly as I couldn’t remember what you’re meant to do with it!  But check this:

Trigonometry!

And there you have it.  Thanks Mr Tweedie!

In our lesson this week, we made a start on our sewing samples folder.  I used an overlocker for the first time!  Luckily I did not have to thread it.  We need to produce samples of all sorts of different seams for our folder, so I’ll be messing about with that over the next few weeks, as well as finalising my design.

I still haven’t found any red and navy striped fabric, but am going to have a play with using ribbon instead.  Another option is to make my own by sewing strips of each together.  Or, maybe not use it at all…

Next week: half term!