MIY March 16 – Week 2 Round Up!

I need a time machine, I can’t believe another week has slipped by. It was another inspiring week of MIY March though and there are now almost 3300 #miymarch16 photos on Instagram. We’re taking over, I love it!!

Week 2’s themes covered everything from sewing heroes, peeping inside people’s sewing zones and embracing everything slow, here were mine and Emma’s top picks from each day (I have to admit this task gets harder every time as there are more and more great pictures to choose from):

DAY 7 – SEW & STYLE HEROES – what a varied bunch!

DAY 8 – SEW ZONE – a nosey peek behind the scenes of all those sewing spaces….

DAY 9 – SLEEVES – the humble sleeve in all its varied forms.

DAY 10 – TROUSERS OR PANTS? – in celebration of the worldwide and hilarious confusions this can cause!

DAY 11 – HOLD IT TOGETHER – our second Prizeday Friday sponsored by Textile Garden, this time 2 of these top 4 picks were the lucky winners of a voucher to spend on beautiful buttons and notions from Maggie.

DAY 12 – PRINT

And DAY 13 – SLOW – one of my favourites so far and something I plan to do more of this year.

Now how can you fail to be inspired by that lot?! If you’re feeling inspired enough to join in follow me @thatwendyward and Emma @dressmakerssocial on Instagram. Full details on how to join in are in this post.

As an added incentive, this week’s Prizeday Friday is from Ernest Wright & Son….!

Missed Week 1? It’s here.

MIY March 16 – Week One Round-Up!

Have you been following #miymarch16 on Instagram or joining in?

For those of you that don’t do Instagram, here’s a little round-up of week 1.

There were over 1800 photographs posted in the first 6 days!!

Each day me and Emma (aka @dressmakerssocial) take it in turns to pick our top 4 pictures for that day’s theme, here’s what we’ve picked so far:

DAY 1 – SEW ME

DAY 2 – FRESHLY SEWN

DAY 3 – DRESSES & FROCKS

DAY 4 – FABRIC FINDS Day 4 was also our first “Prizeday Friday” this week sponsored by Ditto Fabrics, meaning one of our top 4 picks would be the lucky winner of a Ditto voucher!

DAY 5 – EMBELLISH

And DAY 6 – MINI ME’S

Inspired? Join us!! It’s easy, find out how in this post.

I’ll do a little round-up of week 2 next week. ‘Til then, happy snapping!

MIY March is Back!!

Did you take part in MIY March last year?

If so, I hope you’ll be joining myself and Emma again and if not, you need to join in this year! MIY March (aka make-it-yourself March) is bigger and better for 2016, I’ve got 5 amazing sponsors offering some great prizes for each week during March.

Most of the prizes will be available internationally, but some will only be open to the UK, I’ll make that clear when I post that day’s topic.

Here’s the list of daily topics to whet your appetite and start planning your pictures, get thinking!

Here’s how to join in:

• everyday in March post a sewing themed photo to Instagram inspired by the daily topic from the list above, I will post a topic reminder each morning
• use the hashtag #miymarch16 in the caption of your picture
• follow me @thatwendyward and Emma @dressmakerssocial so that you know each day’s theme and can check out our daily top 4 and Prizeday Friday winners
• everyday myself and Emma will choose our favourite 4 pictures to share and repost with you all
• on Prizeday Fridays you will also need to follow the sponsor to enter and the sponsor will choose their winner from our favourite 4
• Prizeday Friday winners will be announced on Monday morning of the following week
• if your account is set to “private” no-one will be able to see your pics so you won’t be able to join in!

So, what’s not to like? Exercise your little grey cells, meet like-minded people from around the world, win prizes and get inspired!

If you’re not already on Instagram there is lots of help for how to set up your account and how to use Instagram here.

Look forward to meeting you!!

Planning Your Home-Sewn Collection

I was invited to talk at the new Dressmakers’ Social group tonight at their first ever meeting.  No pressure then!

The group is the brainchild of one of my students Emma (aka Crafty and Cake on her blog and Instagram).

I decided to talk about planning a home-sewn collection as I think it’s a subject often under-rated. If you make clothes, you want to wear them, right?!

If you didn’t make it to the talk, you can download the guide the I prepared which contains advice about choosing the right styles, fabrics and projects to suit your skill and time, including a project planning checklist:

Dressmakers Social in Brighton

Do you crave the company of like-minded dressmakers and sewists to talk fabrics and seams and zips?

Do you find yourself boring your family and friends with talk of pattern matching and how many pins you need to set in a sleeve?

You need to come along to Brighton’s first Dressmakers Social:

It’s being held at the Marwood Cafe on Ship St in Brighton (the old Post Office building) from 6-8pm on Monday 18th May and yours truly will be there to talk about planning a homemade collection.

It’s all been organised by regular MIY Workshop attendee and all round creative type Emma Miles, also known as Crafty & Cake on Instagram and her blog.

Come along and give your friends and family a break!

Find out more on the Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram and Meet-up.