Thoughts on Shopping

I went shopping.

Yep, me that girl who's sews her clothes, she went shopping!

Now back in the day I was quite the fan of shopping and I was pretty good at it, however after so many years of saving money for weddings and babies and then making a lot of my own clothes my thoughts on shopping have changed a lot!

For starters let me say I had a great time, I had a voucher for my birthday so I didn't have to stump up the cash and I went by myself which was BLISS! There is nothing quite like having an afternoon to please yourself without having a small child or husband whinging about how long your taking! 

And I enjoyed this a lot more than my last shopping trip trying to find swimwear! 

So here's a list of the good and bad points of shopping compared to sewing!

THE GOOD!

- There's no wait time, you think of something you want and its in your hand instantly. You don't have to find fabric, find a pattern and cut it out!

- You can try to see if its looks good. There is nothing worse than spending hours sewing something only to find you look like a big bog of poop in it! With shopping you pop to the changing room and decide without parting with any time or money!

- I can buy shoes! I LOVE SHOES! The bottom of my wardrobe is filled with shoes! In fact on my shopping trip I brought two pairs of shoes a pair of black flats and a pair of Minnie mouse trainers , now I could learn to make shoes but the amount of walking I do means they would all be wrecked and I think that would break my heart a lil bit!

- I can buy other things I have no interest in making like basic tshirts, slips and pants!

- Band tshirts! I can't make band tshirts so its nice to pick one up every now and again! 

THE BAD!

- Why so many crop tops? I must have found about 10 tops that I LOVED but they were basically bras! I mean cmon! Would it be so hard to create tops in two lengths? one for people who want to flash their tummy's and one for people who don't?

- One sleeve , the same goes for the one sleeve trend! I dunno if its just me but I love my arms equally and want them to both be the same amount of warmness, I mean what do you do if your exposed arm gets cold? Do they sell half a cardi? I need answers people!!!!

- Changing rooms! I MEAN CHANGING ROOMS! EURGH! Its the worst thing about shopping. Having to remove your clothes in a small room with a questionable floor and worse lighting whilst a thin curtain separates you from a group of teenagers who would have no issue with ridiculing you should the bloody thing start to flap and reveal you in your shopping pants, standing on one leg, trying to cram yourself into a pair of jeans that your not sure are sized accurately...... Changing rooms eurgh! I would love a clean changing room, with multiple mirrors, lots a hooks to hang things, a chair to sit smalls on and a door! A REAL DOOR! none of this half sized door crap just a full sized lets not flash the public door! 

which brings me nicely to my second point!

- People in changing rooms. I'm not sure whats worse having to hear people use the word fat to describe themselves "I look so fat in this I'm huge!!!!" or hearing people slag off other people in the changing rooms "OMG did you see her in that! She looked awful!" I mean cmon! Really? Women shaming other women? Not cool and shaming yourself even worse! I mean your not fat! You have fat, fat is not who you are! 

That said I really did have a great time and I got some awesome stuff!!!! Plus I got some great ideas for things to make! 

So I can't wait to get sewing next week!

Much Love

Frankie 

xxx

DIY Camera Bag

I'm still working my way through a few items I pulled from my wardrobe to up cycle! This bag was next on the list, nothing in particular wrong with it apart from some slight staining on the front.

I was inspired by the fun novelty bags you can get now and decided to turn it into a "camera bag"

I laid out my materials [I painted some old leather in silver and black using revell modelling paints]

And found some inspiration!

Then I had a play around with making a camera effect using the materials!

Then Finally stuck everything down using my glue gun!

I think in total the whole project took about an hour maybe? It was very quick and satisfying! 

I think you can just about tell its meant to be a camera but its not as good as my moustache bag that I made when I first started blogging. 

Mainly I used old pieces of leather, and a red button for the flash but now I'm thinking I should have used felt and it would of looked cuter.

I think the overall look could be more polished I probably should have taken a bit more time over the whole thing rather than just bust it out because I was bored and needed something to do!

I'm considering add a strap and maybe trying to neaten it up a bit, but I'm not sure if I'm that bothered because I tend to just use the same few bags! 

So yeah I'm actually feeling a bit more blah about it the more I look to be honest. And now I'm annoyed because I used the last of My glue gun stitcks on it!

Much Love

Frankie

xxx

Everybody vogue!

I got an email a few weeks ago from my lovely sister and it went something like this "I really wish I could sew I love this coat!" 

And well one thing led to another and now we are both making this coat, together. There is a vogue sew along happening for this coat but there is no way in hell we are going to be able to keep up with that so we doing our own sister sew along! (Cute right?) 

Here's my sister 

I've grown a little since then.....

Anyhow after much discussion we actually went and purchased fabric on Sunday! We decided to go to abakhan fabrics in Stoke on Trent. Although we were slightly worried becuase they didn't seem to have a huge selection on the website, I am so glad we weren't put off going they had a Brillant selection and as always the staff were Brillant! Sometimes fabrics shops can be quite iffy but the people at abakhans are always knowledgeable and just generally lovely and helpful! 

Sadly I don't have a picture if what my sister brought, but it was a nice teal velvet for the outer coat, a silver silk for lining and some blue organza and blue velvet just because "their pretty" that's a direct quote! I think I might of created a monster! 

I got! 

Some red cotton to complete orders.

A beautiful boiled grey wool for my coat

And some nice slippy pinkish , reddish, purplish material for my lining. 

And 

Some striped  polyester drapey type material just becuase "it's pretty"! 

I also got some buttons for my coat 

I had a wonderful time shopping and thank you to momma Knitwit who also came with us and offered advice. And also thank you to handmade jane who gave some recommendations via email when I was panicking about where to find fabric! 

Now we just have to make a start 

(Sobs in corner) 

Much love 

Frankie

Xxx