A post for the sake of it.

[miss_newham]

Bah! I am all anxious about things at the moment and thought the solution might be to stay at home more, but I woke up in a panic this morning after dreaming that my flat had been moved from its current location and dropped into another building, and that atommickbrane was on her way round to visit and I’d forgotten to tell her this! It was terrible! But on

Comments

[intermix]

John Lewis, Vogue and online Burda Style (some of these are free as well, just need to print them out and transfer them to newspaper. x

[pink_weasel]

John Lewis sell patterns. You can also buy them on ebay or here. I don't know how to tell which ones are easy because I only buy them during optimistic times, I never make anything from them. Vogue patterns do tend to be harder than all other patterns - (Not for them a front and a back - they like to include 50 tiny waist interfacings - possibly best to avoid Vogue for your first go)

Patterns often come in different sizes so check to see what size they give before you buy.

Anxiousness is pants and I sympathise.

[perfectlyvague]

In the big pattern books they have a star rating system for difficulty - they even have an easy section for beginners.
Rolls and Rems on seven sisters road in holloway does heavily discounted patterns.

[pollitesss]

Rolls and Rems on Seven Sisters is pretty ace for cheap fabric too!

[miss_newham]

Ah, I live 15 minutes' walk from a nice fabric shop so probably won't go further! How much are you supposed to buy for a skirt though? A metre? Are skirts a metre big? OH I DON'T KNOW.

[pollitesss]

Yes they still come in paper envelopes with drawing or photographs of women on them. If you go into shops like John Lewis (or there are one or two other fabric shops about the place) they have big catalogues of patterns. The catalogues/ the envelopes will usually tell you if it's very easy/ easy/ average/ diffciult. Any very easy/ "easy sew"/ "sew in 2 hours pattern" is likely to be pretty straight forward. Skirts in general are pretty easy unless there are a lot of fiddly panels/ cutting on the bias. Something like this should come up pretty much as on the photograph and if you click through on the front/back view, you can usually get an idea of how many seams there are

[puzzled_anwen]

Burda patterns apparently tend to be more "true to size", also it might be worth checking this site http://sewing.patternreview.com/ as there are some really helpful reviews that point out things like dodgy sizing etc.

[pink_weasel]

The other thing is that one can cut it out, use safety pins or big loopy handsweing to sew up the basic side seams and then try it on. If it's much too big, then take it in and try it on again.

Jo did Mrs Norris make you stand in the bin?

[miss_newham]

No, Bethan made me stand in the bin. I forget why, but it seemed fairly standard for the time.

[atommickbrane]

I'm still walking around... I still can't find it...

er yes, anyway, I can't buy fabric, it is nigh on impossible to decide if anything looks good when it's on a bolt, I just get confused and run away. Can you take me with you when you go to the fabric shop and then we won't let each other leave until we have bought at least one metre of SOMETHING?

[puzzled_anwen]

Can I come??

[puzzled_anwen]

Oops, what I meant to say was this book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sew-What-Skirts-Francesca-DenHartog/dp/1580176259/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267107327&sr=8-1 is well good, it tells you how to make your own skirt patterns (really easy, actually) and also has lots of ideas for embellishing them and so on which I am too boring to bother with (frankly if you see me wearing a garment that isn't all one colour or at most stripey you should probably record the date for posterity) but which look ace fun. I think it also had good basic sewing stuff. Also this book http://www.amazon.co.uk/S-E-W-Everything-Workshop-Diana-Rupp/dp/0761139737/ref=pd_cp_b_1 which has actual printed patterns included and tells you how to thread a sewing machine (v handy if you have a second

[miss_newham]

OK! It's on Lavender Hill - perhaps on a Saturday morning some time?

[tonight_we_fly]

I’ve loved you since I was 16!!!

That sounds to me like an entirely reasonable thing to say.

[miss_newham]

It is the kind of thing that people tend to take the wrong way. I should probably not mention the time I stalked him to Cornwall, either.