Pattern Magicians

In August, which only feels like last week, I picked up on a post at Sew 2 Pro . She had the same thoughts as myself - you buy a fabulous book; look at the pictures; read and try to decipher the instructions but never actually MAKE anything.

But Marianna's idea wasn't Burda or Gertie but Pattern Magic! Nothing like making life a little bit more difficult. I happen to have Pattern Magic 2 and have sat for many hours day dreaming about the fantastic creations I would make and, of course, never made anything. Then Marianna set a challenge -

Calling all adventurous, experimental and courageous sewists!

The Challenge

If you too have had enough of looking at the pictures and feel ready to try out one of the ideas in the book, then I’d love you to join me. Your project can be as simple or as complex as suits you. The only requirement is that your creation is inspired by what you’ve seen in one of Tomoko Nakamichi’s books.

Back in August I had plenty of time, then all of a sudden, it was October! The deadline was mid November. Then Paco sent me a couple of patterns, I was struggling with sewing leather, I wanted some autumn clothes and joined in Stitchers Guild Autumn 6PAC and so on and so on: was I putting off the PM challenge? Emm probably, but at last I settled down and focused on the immediate task

I'd left it too late to do a spectacular creation with knots and wraps and points - not that I am proficient enough to try this anyway - so needed something fairly easy and simple. I had a baby blue lycra jersey in the stash - a poor internet purchase, but I had 4m! It was taking up too much space and I couldn't think of a suitable project to use it up and so it languished in the stash box. I noticed that my nightwear was becoming rather shabby and worn and decided I needed a new nightdress and this fabric would be ideal to sleep in. So dug out the Pattern Magic book and settled down to see what I could come up with.

I choose a square and a triangle - no darts, no shaping, no curves, no closures, interfacing or anything remotely connected to traditional sewing. A couple of seams and hems - that's all.

Fold and cut the fabric.  No straight of grains, not much measuring - I just used the entire piece of fabric. The only waste was three little triangles left over from the square.

Drape over Doris to mark arm holes, fix the triangle points at centre back and determine the height of the centre front seam for the nightdress.

Wear and sleep like a baby...

Thanks Marianna. I would have loved to be able to do pleats and disappearing pockets - maybe next time!


Sew 2 Pro is doing a collage of all entrants this week - so head on over to see what else has been inspired by Pattern Magic books.