Sewing Plans and Exciting News

Last week was the school half term break and I spent the whole week with hubby and son in lovely Saundersfoot in Pembrokeshire in the south of Wales UK. I really, really needed a holiday and I could hardly believe that the sunshine gods were on our side too, because we had lovely weather!  Many ice creams were devoured and much sand was walked upon and the sea was paddled in. We even had a fabulous 2-hour ride on a fast rib boat that went all around the local bays, coves and all around Caldy Island. We saw lots of seals!

The total change of scene did me good and I don’t know about you but when I take a break I can think more clearly and I find it easy to make all sorts of plans….but what about those sewing plans and exciting news?…

Sewing Plans

Over the last few days, I’ve been planning my next few sewing makes and making lists of possible blog posts too (got to keep you all happy eh 🙂 ) I even drew out a pretty blog planner to put up on my cork pin board in my sewing room.

So first off, I want to tell you about a lovely 2-day sewing retreat/extravaganza that I’m attending at Loughborough University on 15th and 16th of June. It’s called The Stitch Room Sewcial and has been organised by Lucy Regan of Sew Essential and by Anne ( @new_vintage_sewing on IG) who works at Loughborough University. We’ll get to see the fabulous graduate displays, tour the workshops and have a go on some of the machines. There will be a day and a half of sewing too, so of course, I’ll need to take a project or two with me.

To take with me to Stitch Room Sewcial, I have some lovely fine wool challis that I already pre-washed which might become a skirt. Then if I manage to finish that off I’ll take some burgundy crepe with me from my stash which is for some jogger-style trousers with hem zips. You can see the style of joggers that I mean if you look at the olive ones I made before, shown in this post here. I may even do a section of pintucks down the side of them (inspired of course by my last post).

Before I make those items though, my next project is actually a summer robe/kimono. I felt a need for one ever since we’ve been having lovely balmy summer evenings here in the UK and I realised that my other two robes are a bit too thick and heavy to wear. The pattern I’m using as a starting point is Butterick 6258 which I picked up from the swap table at Sew Brum. I’d started off my fabric search for the robe by browsing stores online (I just felt like I was wasting time though, as I couldn’t quite see what I wanted) and then as I took a break to put away some washing I came across a couple of large soft viscose scarves in a drawer. I’ll save all the details for my blog post when I share the project with you, but suffice to say I love the idea of re-purposing the scarves for my robe.

 Next on my list after that is a knit ivory tie-front top based on this image found on Pinterest which is from a trendy (unknown to me)fashion website :

The ivory fabric is a knit of unknown content that I picked up from Birmingham rag market a few weeks ago. It’s all pre-washed and ready to go. I think the style of the top will go great with flared skirts, wide leg trousers or culottes. Which brings me nicely to the ‘news’ bit of this post, that I’m finally able to share with you….

Exciting News!

Sometime back in early May, I was approached by Meg Healy of Burda Style and asked if I would like to be one of a small team of BurdaStyle Influencers. I was so thrilled to be asked and of course, my answer was yes!

For a whole year, I’ll be provided with a pattern a month which I’ll be making and sharing with you. I also have the opportunity to take a Burda Academy course and share my progress with you in a post every couple of months. Meg actually shared a post on the BurdaStyle blog where she introduced the whole Influencer team. Do take a look and check out the Instagram accounts and blogs of the other lovely bloggers that I’m sharing the year with. (ps the brand new Burda website doesn’t seem to have any of the Influencer posts anymore 🙁 )

As you know, if you’re a regular reader of my blog, I’ve enjoyed making Burda patterns before so I love having this opportunity. (I expect there may well be a smattering of other Burda makes besides the ones I’ll do for the year-long program too)

My first Burda make for the month of June will be some lightweight denim culottes which will replace the ill-fitting ones I mentioned in my MeMadeMay post. They are all cut out and ready to go. I’m excited about them!

So, I think I’ll close for now…lots of sewing to do! But I hope that I’ve got your interest peaked and that you’ll check back to read about the projects I’ve mentioned when I blog about them.

Catch you soon, and if you’re in the Northern hemisphere and are having the same lovely Summer weather as we are having in the UK…enjoy!

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