Drafting a dress pattern

 Wow, what a great morning we had. Saima, one of our members, took us through the process of drafting a dress pattern for our personal measurements. It was quite an involved process but Saima took us through it step by step and explained and demonstrated brilliantly.

We had a formula to use once we had taken our personal measurements - in inches rather than cm - the numbers are smaller 😂. Saima then showed us how to transfer our numbers onto dressmakers tissue to make a pattern. The whole process was really interesting and we took loads of notes; fingers crossed we can work out what we meant! Thanks to Saima for a really useful workshop.

We also had our first Travelling pages swap and welcomed new members. Serena brought in the book of the blackwork coif project for the V&A too.

Freebies, Stitch Alongs and Craft Alongs

There are some interesting things to be found on the internet for stitchers! I may have already mentioned this on our old blog but during lockdown some of us have been doing Cathy Reavy's stitch wheel, following the weekly videos on YouTube; I need to catch up, I'm a couple of weeks behind. Then there's the fabulous Anne Brooke with her various challenges, currently the 52 tags series. These are all free and I for one have enjoyed them very much and look forward to the coming weeks with Anne. 

There's lots more photos on our Instagram of the tags we have been doing and there will be some of the wheel when we finish the final few stitches. Links above.

There are also some great freebies to be had out there too, where makers have generously shared patterns. There's something for everyone. Personally, I'm not a great one for cross stitch but I have to say I'm rather taken with these two little projects which can be found here along with lots of other craft projects on the 'gathered.' website.

Last but not least in this mini roundup is Frill and Flounce; the link is to the FaceBook page but I'm sure you can Google it. They have some free Zoom workshops in their events information. I have done a couple of the bookbinding courses which have been great. Have a rummage round and see what you can find!