Uncategorized | clarinda kaleidoscope

Today is the start of the Arundel Festival, an extravaganza of music, art, drama and some general silliness. I thought I would try and wear some of my recent makes to the festival for some location shots and then blog about them (my sewing is going well but the blogging less so – there are so many things I don’t know how to do!).

Colette Patterns Sorbetto was one of my first makes and I love the pattern – it is so straight forward for a beginner like myself but still has an air of sophisticated chic about it (or am I just kidding myself?).

This is actually my second Sorbetto; I cut a 10 on the bust, graduated to a 12 on the hips and added a little bit to the overall length. The fabric is a lovely Liberty lawn which I bought from Clothkits in their sale of discontinued designs.

Is this what people call ‘swayback’?

I adore this print – it is so pretty and versatile. The creams/oranges work well with a neutral palette but then the various shades of blue go so well with denim as you can see here. This is the monthly Farmers Market in the town square and today helped to kick off the festivities.

Having only bought my sewing machine at Easter I needed some help with learning to sew and was really chuffed to find that, literally, round the corner from me, was Sew Pretty, a sewing studio run by Katya Essery. Katya is a great teacher who immediately made me appreciate what fun social sewing is. I’ll let you into a secret – Katya always cracks open a bottle of wine for her evening workshops.

I signed up for a shirt making workshop, along with a couple of my colleagues who had participated in the Sewing Bee at work (a future post) and along with two other sewists we embarked upon our projects under Katya’s careful guidance. I chose Makower Bees fabric which I bought online from Guthrie and Ghani which I would highly recommend. Lauren despatched the material swiftly and wrapped it up so beautifully I felt I was upwrapping a birthday present.

The collar was tricky – my first one ever and I’m not sure I could remember how to do it again. I had to finish off my shirt at home – too much chatting, laughing and quaffing wine during the workshop. I used the one step button-hole feature for the first time. Really annoyingly it is not a one-step. It does the base and one side and then stops so you have to take it out and do the other half – which was a bit hit and miss. Very annoying. I also didn’t like the sleeves which were just hemmed and therefore rather plain. I fiddled about it and managed to fold in a cuff which looks ok but has meant that the three quarter sleeve now rests right on my elbow and is a little big irritating. I’m going to have another go with some lovely Liberty lawn.

So, shirt: tick.