French Seams - I Think I'm in Love

I've been participating in Sewaholic's Crescent Sewalong, and am pleased to say I am completely up to date with it. I think the pace is just right for me. As part of the sewalong, we did French seams for the pocket bags. This method is ideal for someone like me who doesn't have an overlocker as it gives a beautiful neat edge.

Bottom of pocket with French Seam

Inside of skirt front, with pocket

I'd never made french seams before, as I thought they must be complicated so hadn't even looked into what they were. Well, I was wrong, they are very easy and I made them without even thinking about them. I think that's the easiest way with sewing sometimes, not to be intimidated, or put off by people who say things are difficult, but just have a go. If you've never made French seams before I'd recommend giving it a try. There are plenty of tutorials available online, though I recommend looking at how Tasia describes them as part of the Crescent tutorial, as this is a much simpler explanation than some.

Steady progress is also being made with my cable cardigan. I have finished the back and am 2/3rds up the left front, just at the armhole decrease.

Like those of you who have also signed up for Me Made June, I've been thinking about what I'll be wearing for the month. I decided that I needed some straightforward patterns for tops I could make in different colours. However as I, like many sewers, tend to make a lot of things in patterned fabrics, I wanted sewing patterns that would look nice in plain fabrics so that I could wear them with me-made and shop-bought patterned skirts. Looking for tops with interesting details, I selected;

 

Simplicity 2593 by Cynthia Rowley (I won't be making a matching headband btw...)

 

  Simplicity 2599 - a favourite with many sewing bloggers

 

I'm going to tackle Simplicity 2593 first, using a fabric from my stash, a light man-made fabric in gold/mustard with a blue lustre thread in it. That sounds a bit horrible, but it's quite nice, and unusual;

I don't have a huge amount of it, so it's a bit of a squeeze to cut out, particularly as bias strips are required. I'm going to try and use the continuous bias tutorial from Colette Patterns I posted before, to try and get the required amount. I'll be interested to see how it turns out, as the sizing seems to run pretty loose. I usually go for a 36" bust, but the finished measurement for that is 42", which seems enormous. I'm going to go down a size and see how that fits.

Both patterns were purchased from Sew Essential. I hadn't used the site before, but they had a 40% off sale on Simplicity patterns last week (still currently running for Vogue and McCalls patterns) so both patterns plus P&P was only £10.10, which I thought was a bargain. At such a good discount it's worth checking out.

K x