Making a pair of fleece winter gloves is not just a matter of tracing your hand on a piece of paper or drawing straight onto the fabric. Believe me, I have actually tried this before and it makes for very uncomfortable gloves… To save you this exercise in trial and … Continue reading
Sateen confuses more sewists than almost any other cotton. It looks a little like satin, it is spelled almost like satin, and plenty of shop labels use the two words as though they were interchangeable. They are not. So what is sateen? It is a fabric woven so the weft … Continue reading
Every tool in this series gets the same question. Does spending more actually make you sew better, sew faster, or just enjoy it more? Some tools have earned their price with me. Others turned out to be the same lump of metal in a nicer package. This week it is … Continue reading
Traditional Scandinavian clothing is one of the few folk dress traditions in Europe that never quite turned into fancy dress. Walk through Oslo on the seventeenth of May and you will see thousands of people in bunad, the Norwegian regional festival costume, worn to a national holiday the way an … Continue reading
If you haven’t been following So Sew Easy for a long while, then you might have missed this project from some time back. So I thought you’d like to see this project brought back. I’ve been busily sewing away these teeny tiny zipper pouches for stocking stuffers and for handy … Continue reading
Ask a room full of sewists which fabric frightens them and jersey wins every time. It slithers off the cutting table, curls along every raw edge, and ignores every rule you learned on quilting cotton. But one fact changes everything: jersey is not woven. It is knitted. Once that lands, … Continue reading
Every few months in this series I take one tool off my sewing table and ask the same blunt question: does spending more actually make you sew better, sew faster, or does it just make the hours at the machine more pleasant? Today it is the turn of tailors chalk, … Continue reading
Traditional Irish clothing is a subject where the story we all repeat and the story the museums tell are not the same thing. I went looking for the documented version and found a practical history of linen and wool, two centuries of law about what people could not wear, and … Continue reading
This is a free pencil skirt pattern, but not a printable one. You draft it yourself from four of your own measurements, which is exactly why it fits when a bought pattern does not. It takes an afternoon, it needs no special skill, and what you end up with is … Continue reading
The first time I sewed with chenille fabric I got it wrong. I laid the pieces out whichever way they fitted, and finished two cushion covers that looked like different colours depending which one you sat nearest. The fabric was not faulty. I had misunderstood what I bought. Chenille is … Continue reading
Every few months in this series I set the cheap version of a tool beside the expensive one and ask the same blunt question. Does spending more actually make you sew better, faster, or just have more fun? Today it is the fabric shaver, the little gadget that buzzes the … Continue reading
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