Site-Wide Activity

Nicole, thank you , sewing has become my therapy in the wake of my mothers passing away and being diagnosed with depression. I can’t tell you what your blog has done for me, I sincerely thank you and wish you and your family a merry Christmas

I was just admiring the fabrics at The Draper’s Daughter yesterday. Karen has a great eye and only selects really beautiful prints and patterns. It’s all very high quality, too. https://drapersdaughter.com/

This time of year is so busy!
Thank goodness the Champagne is fizzy.

When will the new patterns arrive?
I need some more to survive.
A proper men’s shirt!
Ladies’ jacket and skirt!
My savings will take a swan dive.

This time of year is so busy!

I find most stores stock these type of fabrics and colours, you just have to be disciplined enough to only look for them.

My sewing, a few years back, was ALL the colours and patterns. Now it is very subdued but much more wearable.

Spotlight (Joannes in the USA) stock plain linen, often on sale, which washes and wears quite well.

If you are…[Read more]

Thank you Florence, that made my day to read that.

I am not on FaceBook so thank you for telling me.

This is a lovely forum and was a wonderful therapy for me when I was a bit poorly, post natal. I have made amazing friends which have traveled over to real life.

Nicole, I am so happy to say that I found your blog and since then have successfully completed 4 more plus the multiple more following your stellar instructions. Its like you are walking e through it and I am rewarded with a great outfit. I don’t know if you are on the Oliver +s friends fb page but I did load my pictures and dresses. Thank you so…[Read more]

When will the new patterns arrive?
I need some more to survive.
A proper men’s shirt!
Ladies’ jacket and skirt!

You can do it Nicole!
My Christmas gift sewing so far: a couple of bags and a wallet using Kraft-Tex washable paper, one for my mum and the others are teacher gifts – that stuff is great fun!
I’m sewing a stencilled school bus t-shirt for my nephew and an All Day Shirt for my husband.
On the rope craft front I’ve made a dreamcatcher (shudder) for…[Read more]

When will the new patterns arrive?
I need some more to survive.
A proper mens shirt!

I have a few tutorials for some of the older patterns and always happy to help, if I can.

Some of the photos are pretty cheesy, as is the text and I appear to have had a thing for coloured font…

You absolutely can Florence!

May I suggest hand basting so things don’t slip around whilst sewing.

What are you sewing… for Christmas?

I have decided to sew a garment for each family member. We have cut way back on purchases this year and upped our donation to our state children’s hospital but the ‘under-the-tree’ is looking a bit bare.

Sooo… Japanese lawn shirt for Jed- vintage Butterick pattern as it is quite full, for his belly (I…[Read more]

I used to have problems printing off patterns here in NZ and had to enlarge by 108%.
I have just successfully managed just to print the size layers I need using adobe acrobat at the correct scale, meaning a big saving on both paper and ink.
Just love all the patterns!!

Thanks for your reply @Todd! Yes, we did try using Adobe Reader on the PC, the Mac was using Apple’s Preview program. I wondered about the printer drivers, so we tried two different printers (one was an old HP and one was an Epson, so different drivers). I really appreciate you verifying in your file for me. I’ll see if I can enlarge it slightly…[Read more]

That does seem a little odd to me.

I’ve checked, and the source file is spot on. I’ve just looked at it in our design software, and the box is set to be exactly 1 inch by 1 inch. And I printed the same page you have, and mine measures exactly to spec. I’m not sure why you’re having the issue you are seeing. It could be due to the printer and/or…[Read more]