Sewing Basics For Every Body – Giveaway Winners

Instagram Giveaway

A Beginner’s Guide To Sewing With Knitted Fabrics: Techniques / Guides / Resources

MIY Skirts Winner!!

Inspiration For Your Entries to my Skirt Book Competition

Beginner’s Guide to Making Skirts Competition

Sew Dots with Rosie Martin

I’m really happy to be supporting Rosie Martin’s Sew Dots challenge this month.

You may know Rosie as the author of two gorgeous sewing books; “DIY Couture” and her latest work “No Patterns Needed“.

Rosie doesn’t just write sewing books though, she also works for the RNIB and if you’ve ever known anyone who’s lost their sight you’ll know what a traumatic experience it is not only for that person, but for their family and friends too.  My beloved grandad lost his sight in the final years of his life and I personally found it an extremely upsetting experience to watch him lose his independence and to see his previously gregarious outgoing personality shrink into one of fear and dependance.

To get involved and support Rosie’s challenge you can find out more over on Rosie’s blog here.

Part of the challenge involves a bumper prize of sewing goodies, one of which is a copy of my new book “A Beginner’s Guide to Making Skirts“, see what else you could win here.

Happy dotty sewing, I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Beginner’s Guide to Dressmaking – Dream Outfit Competition – WE HAVE A WINNER!!

Wow your entries for this competition were fabulous – so much thought went into them and you were all truly inspired and inspirational, thank you!

If you haven’t seen them all, have a read through the comments on mine and Winnie’s blog posts. You’ll then see what a difficult job we had choosing a winner.

But, we did. Find out who it is over on Scruffy Badger Time…..!

MIY Makers Monthly Challenge Starts Today!

I love seeing all the MIY Collection makes that pop up on social media and I’m always impressed by how different they all look even if they’re made using the same pattern.  I see it happen in my classes too.

So, to celebrate this creativity and industriousness I’m starting a monthly MIY Makers challenge, here’s how it will work:

• share your make using one of my MIY Collection patterns on social media (Instagram / Twitter) using the #miymakers hashtag
• if you want to join in on Facebook you will need to post your photo direct to the MIY Collection Facebook page and use the #miymakers hashtag in the caption of your photo
• this is also open to my MIY Workshop students who use my patterns in classes, but you must post your photo, not me!
• at the end of each month I will choose my favourite make and that person will receive a voucher to get their next MIY Collection pattern for free (UK makers will receive a paper pattern / makers outside the UK will receive a pdf pattern).

Simple as that. So get making and sharing people!!

**NOTE: by taking part and sharing your photo you are allowing me / MIY Collection to re-use your photo in any future promotion. Not a bad thing as your handiwork will end up being shared and admired by many!**

Win a Copy of Beginner’s Guide to Dressmaking

***30/6/16 – this competition is now closed, a big thanks for all your thoughtful and inspired entries, the winner has been announced here***

Have you seen the fishtail skirt that Winnie aka Scruffy Badger recently made from my first book “Beginner’s Guide to Dressmaking”? I do love that skirt in denim and wear mine regularly.

Well Winnie loved the skirt so much she asked if she could host a giveaway for the book. We’ve come up with a cunning plan to make this more interesting that a boring old “share and leave a comment” competition, so here’s what you need to do if you want to be in with a chance of winning….

My aim when writing this book was to create a collection of patterns from which you can easily create a wardrobe of everyday basic garments. I tried to create patterns with enough adaptability for readers to make basic changes / additions to really make each garment suit their own style, with suggestions and instructions for how to adapt the basic patterns and inspirational photos of different versions of the garment. Of course all your basic dressmaking techniques are also explained in detail.

So, what Winnie and I want you to do to be in with a copy of the book is to describe a dream outfit that you could make from the patterns in the book!

Here are the 6 patterns included in the book, along with examples made in different variations:

If you need a bit of inspiration, here are some outfits from the book:

and if you need more, have a look through my Me Made May weekly summary posts as I regularly wear a lot of samples from this book!

Once you’ve decided which are your favourite patterns and have your dream outfit in your head, share your ideas in a comment. Just tell us your favourite 2 patterns from the 6 in the book and then describe your dream outfit that you would make using those 2 patterns.

Winnie and I will pick our favourite and the winner will be announced on Monday 27th June.

If you can’t wait that long and need a copy of the book for yourself or as a gift for a new stitcher you can buy it here.