isabelle is...

I cannot speak highly enough of this pattern. The fact that I had never made trousers before and they were successful the first time, should say enough. (For all the NZers reading this, sorry for the betrayal but I have now lived in the UK for 2 years and have almost successfully been trained into saying trousers instead of pants!) What a wonderful pair of pants... er, trousers. The Sew House Seven Free Range Slacks is an incredibly versatile pattern that can have many different looks in different fabrics. However, I fell in love with the relaxed linen versions that I had been seeing on Instagram. Though I wasn’t totally sold on the look of the elastic waistband, I loved all the other details and knew that at least the elastic waistband should mean they will definitely fit. I bought some beautiful pink Enzyme Washed Eco Linen from Fabric Godmother during the Black Friday sales. I knew I didn’t have time to sew them before I was due to catch a flight back to New Zealand, so I...

My first 100% successful garment! If this blog is going to be a true representation of my sewing journey then I need to skip back in time a little before I go further forward. I’m going to share the very first garments I made! Before I began down the path of making my first garment I had taken ‘Intro to Machine Sewing’ part 1 & 2 at Ray Stitch . In this course I made a tote bag and a half scale skirt muslin and picked up many of the basic skills. This course gave me the confidence to go out and buy a sewing machine, a necessary first step! Being able to make my own clothes was really my goal so I booked in for the ‘Intro to Dressmaking’ course (also at Ray Stitch). Unfortunately the next course with times that suited me wasn’t for a couple of months. I wasn’t going to let my new sewing machine gather dust, so I set out to find a pattern to follow on my own. I decided pyjamas were the perfect choice because I knew I would wear them even if they were less than perfect. With t...

Two dresses in one! When I found this glorious sparkly jacquard knit fabric at the New Craft House open day I didn’t know what I wanted to do with it, but I thought some kind of shift dress would work well. Then I remembered I had the Deer and Doe Arum dress pattern from when I got over-excited during a sale and bought 3 Deer and Doe ones all at once. (Stay tuned for the other two!)