Oh but my mom has given me a lot. She has taught me about style and good taste. She has taught me about layering and mixing textures. Putting old and new things together.  She has taught me how to shop like a pro, scan the stores and find the magic piece or fabric. All this through watching and listening to her. 
She might not have been sewing, however she was quite crafty- she would make giant dolls for window displays, macrame lamps and pot holders. I can't tell you the amount of jewellery she has made. She would love to thrift shop ( and still does) only to come home and cut into what she had found, dye it and make it new. I can't tell you the amount of things we have dyed. She was the master of up-cycling, making clothes for me and my sister from hers.

When I started this blog  a year ago it was a step into the unknown. I sent Suz at Sewpony an email asking advice and she generously sent a really detailed response. I was touched. 

Since then I've been a Sewpony fan, for her sewing, but also her imagination. 

The Secret Squirrel series run by Sewpony and Straightgrain (who was here yesterday - how cool is that!)  is inspirational. So I'm thrilled that Suz agreed to take the baton for the next step in the Take One Dress challenge: 

Hello everyone:) I'm Suz and I blog from sewpony all the way from Australia.  I have known Victoria for about a year now and we share a love of making dresses for our daughters!  So when she explained her concept of take one dress, I was really excited to take part.  I was given the dress below as my inspiration from Jenya (my Aussie neighbour), from While she was sleeping. 

Some of the things I thought after seeing this dress:

- like it

- don't want to make a big fancy collar as I hate ironing them, so I will make a softer, easier to iron collar!

- blue and white - love

- nautical

- I need a dress with a fitted bodice, some sort of different collar and a fullish skirt... the Antoinette dress - yay I get to finally use that pattern!

I must say, I really love this dress! The pattern is the Antoinette dress by Nele of the Dutch blog, Spiegelstiksels - of which I am a new follower and fan!  The pattern was passed on to me (with permission) by my friend Rachel from Nest full of eggs over Christmas and I have been waiting for an excuse to make it. Nele drafted the pattern for a charity project and it is no longer available for sale. The pattern is very professional, however, it is written in Dutch.  Rachel also kindly passed on the google translate email to me but I was too lazy to print it and just figured out the construction without it.  

The fabric is a super soft cotton shirting I found for $4 per metre (score).  The bodice is lined and the collar/bow (all in one) is just some blue quilting collar I chose to match the stripes. I think it is such a smart design. I love the slightly scooped neckline, the bow collar and the unusual pockets.

The back meets in a soft v with an invisible zip.

I was very pleased with myself with inserting this zip as I figured out how to conceal the lining in the zip without handstitching... something I knew must be possible but I had just not invested the time to work it out. It was easier than I thought and looks super neat inside!

So this is one of my current favourites already of Juliette's dresses!!

Now for my inspiration dress! I have the pleasure of choosing a dress to inspire the lovely Trine here is my post....please remind me the time you will post. hope you like it! thanks for having me:)) from Groovybaby...and mama!  It was so hard to narrow it down to just one dress.  I poured over my Little girl style board on pinterest and settled on this one that I love...

source

I hope you like it Trine! And thank you very much for having me Victoria!!

Thank you Suz! I love that dress so much! It's kept the nautical vibe, and strong collar idea but is so wearable for a little girl to wear. Stunning. And now Trine...over to you. Can't wait to see what Groovy Baby and Mama comes up with on May 5.

It's the next  step on the "From My Mother to Me" series, a weekly journey to Mothers Day on May 11. And I can't tell you how delighted I am to welcome An of StraightGrain here to As it Seams. 
I confess, I'm a 'StraightGrain Groupie.' 

An's simple patterns have formed the backbone of Missy's wardrobe this past year. I've used both her Tinny and Hanami dress patterns time and time again.They are classic and adaptable. So I'm intrigued to hear a bit more about An's sewing heritage and the roots of her talent...Over to you An


Hi everyone. I'm An from StraightGrain, and I'm happy to be sharing some tips and tricks from someone with around 70 years of professional sewing experience! 

When Victoria asked me to participate in this series, my first question was: Does it have to be about what my mom taught me, or can it also be about my grandmother? My mother learned to sew when I was a child, but she was never really passionate about it. 

For her, it was a purely practical thing: hemming pants, fixing holes - in short, all the things we passionate sewists hate so much :-) She hasn't touched  her sewing machine in years, which might also be due to the fact that I'm using it now. Thanks mom! 

My grandmother Maria, on the other hand, used to sew day in day out. She learned to sew from a tailor at age 14, and was a professional seamstress for many decades, creating luxurious garments for well-off clients. Perfectionism is her middle name. 

When I visited her a few weeks ago, I asked her what would be the most important tips she could give. 

Here is what she said: 

1. "I always have a hot iron ready when I'm sewing. Only by meticulously pressing each seam as you are sewing, can you achieve perfect results" 

2. "When the front and back and/or top and botton of a fabric are hard to distinguish, I always indicate them on the fabric with tailor's chalk before cutting my fabrics." 

3. "Immediately after serging my pieces, I always press the serged edges with a hot iron. This way, they are pressed deep into the seam allowance, which prevents them from showing through the right side of the fabric when you iron your garment." 

4. "Instead of pre-washing your fabric, you can also press it with a lot of steam in order to prevent the finished garment from shrinking." (when sewing for clients like my grandmother did, this is the only option, because you want your clients to get 'new' garments, which have not been washed yet). 

5. "I always use a 3 cm seam allowance, so I can make the garment wider when gaining weight." 

 I would lie if I said that I apply all these tips. Tip 1 is one always use, and tip 4 is one I use sometimes when I didn't have the time to pre-wash.  

So which tips will I give Norah and Ava? 

1. Always soak your garments in cold water and vinegar for a night to fixate the colors. 

2. Don't use fabric scissors to cut off zippers. It ruins them. I know. From experience. 

3. Treat yourself to beautiful quality fabrics. Making clothes yourself will always be cheaper than buying clothes of the same quality anyway, so indulge yourself! 

4. Use blind zippers whenever you can. They are easy and superfast to install, and stylish too. 

5. Don't waste money on expensive thread. Spend it on nice fabrics instead. 

This was fun! Thank you so much for including me in this great series, Victoria. 


Thank you An! I love the 3cm seam allowance for 'putting on weight' - I sometimes do this for Missy, in the anticipation that I can make things bigger when she grows. But I never do. I'm too busy thinking about the next thing to sew. 
And I love seeing Norah with her great-grandmother, in her Tinny dress. Your grandmother must be so proud! 
 Next Sunday Celina from Petit a Petit and Family will be here to share her mother's wisdom. Do pop back!

Miss Taylor ran another shop, a ladies' drapers as it was called, selling underwear and stockings. She taught my mum to sew. Here she is with my mum, who is aged about 16 and is wearing a cream wool boucle coat that  she made herself, under Miss Taylor's guidance. It's a Vogue pattern complete with black leather buttons.  Miss Taylor taught my mum lots of things - how to make bound button holes, buttonhole stitch ( a kind of twisted blanket stitch for hand finishing button holes), how to cut properly and mark everything with tailor's  tacks.

In those days, the late 1950s and early 1960s, everyone was smarter and clothes were more expensive. So my mum made beautiful tailored pieces like this coat, which required really perfect sewing skills.

She also made some pretty crazy things. Like this dress.

I love the photo of my mum in her Vogue coat with Miss Taylor. I love to think that when I slipstitch a hem (as taught by Miss Taylor to my mum...) something of this old lady that I never met lives on....

And what do I hope Missy, and Torin, will take from watching me sew as they grow up?

From my Mother to Me series continues with the most amazing line up over the coming Sundays.

Look out for An from Straight Grain here next Sunday!

There's a sewing challenge running right now over on Project Run and Play to tap into our animal instincts...

The theme for the week is 'Put me in the Zoo.'

Now I'm feeling a little smug with this one - been there, done that...

A few months ago I wrestled with a shark, elephant and a boa constrictor to create an outfit, so forgive me for reviving that post this week for the Put me in the Zoo challenge. 

I was inspired by the Secret Squirrel, he's skipping around sewing blogs on his way to Straight Grain's blog,  offering a monthly challenge and this is my 'sew along' version. It's my second  Secret Squirrel outfit, the first is here .

 

The Secret Squirrel themes, suggested by I Seam Stressed (the Little Prince, Green, Bias, Great White Shark and Zooey Deschanel) took me right into zoo territory.

My sewing brain went into overdrive with shark's teeth and this illustration from the Little Prince forming the basis for my vision.

Grown-ups looking at this picture see a hat, says The Little Prince, but this is actually a picture of a boa constrictor swallowing an elephant. 

The vision materialised into this white blouse, adorned with a yoke of 'shark's teeth' pintucks and green bias hand-made piping (Kerching... that's shark, green and bias all ticked off, phew). But getting this blouse to fit, and realising that this required some serious ironing, led me to question my sanity!

Of course the blouse had to be white. I just couldn't bring myself NOT to have white shark's teeth. 

But it was a nightmare to photograph. I hope you can make out the detail. 

AND this blouse has only been worn for five minutes for the very first time in these photographs, and it ALREADY has a smudge on it...What was I doing to myself with this idea?

But doesn't it look pretty!

Mr As-it-seams said it's a bit 'flouncy choirboy'. I was aiming for more 'cute peasant'. Like everything I make, it's big on Missy, particularly the bouffant sleeves. If I can find a last ounce of emotional strength I may refashion them. But overall I'm chuffed. I love the structural effect of the sharks teeth.

 

Basically they are pintucks, snipped and ironed in place as alternate triangles, then over-stitched with a zig-zag. It was simple but required  industrial style ironing and every pin in my tin. 

I stumbled on this tutorial, and I've done my first ever tutorial over here! The pattern for the blouse is loosely based on the Sunshine Blouse, which in turn is adapted from a Burda pattern. The yoke is lined in muslin, and it closes with a single mother-of-pearl star button and handmade button loop.