Our local park is my favourite place in the world for dog-watching, second only to Cramond shore in Edinburgh (where I once watched a tiny dog chasing the waves away from the shore and back for a full half-hour. I think he was hoping the tide would go out so he wouldn’t lose face).

So you can see why this is my new favourite tea-towel:

As modelled by one of my kitchen cabinets

I think my favourite is the Belgravia corgi. You can get it from the Garudio Studiage website here.

If you REALLY like dogs they also sell this adorable puppy :

Don’t worry, he doesn’t need feeding as he comes flatpacked. Not much good for walks but I think he’d look nice on my sideboard.

It’s true, even if you wouldn’t be able to guess it from reading this blog. I’ve just been too busy writing endless job applications, attempting to get our boiler fixed, and practising my new Ballet Workout exercise DVD (okay, I haven’t actually done that last one very much).

I’ve even been keeping my resolution of sewing with Burda patterns. This skirt is from 08/2011, made in lovely felty wool from Fabricland. The top is another Sorbetto.

I’ve pressed the heck out of these darts but they still look strange. Hmmm. I liked this skirt because of the lovely inverted pleat and petersham waistband, but I added a few details:

• A lining (made from the mysterious American D-Kripp from Ultimate Craft! At 1.50 a metre you can’t go wrong)
• Pockets, also from the enigmatic D-Kripp
• A back vent, from this A Fashionable Stitch tutorial. I didn’t incorporate the lining. I had a look at an old RTW pencil skirt and there’s a big hemmed rectangle cut out of the lining back seam, so I did the same here. Well, if it’s good enough for M&S…

I’ve had NO luck with my stupid Burda invisible zip foot lately. The teeth just get stuck in the groove, resulting in little fabric puckers all the way down.

I put this one in with a normal zipper foot, but it’s less than perfect. Any top tips? You can see how rubbish it is here:

The Sorbetto is entirely stash-made, from fabric and bias binding left over from my birthday dress, as well as various random trimmings I found while having a tidy up. There are three tiny pearl buttons at the top. It’s a possibly a teeny bit too Per Una-esque, but I like it anyway.

I have one and a half metres left of this bright blue wool fabric, so I’m thinking another skirt might be useful, only this time one I can wear on my bike (Have you ever tried cycling in a pencil skirt? Not recommended).

There is a matching jacket in the Burda issue, but I’m not sure I could pull off a whole outfit in what I like to call ‘Cookie Monster Blue’…

On Saturday we went to the St Pancras Renaissance hotel. I’ve been dying to see inside since it opened.

The outside is this insane gothic wedding cake of a building. Inside it’s a huge hotel and apartments – apparently if you live in one of the top flats, you can order cocktails from the bar and have them sent up to you.

We just went to the lobby and had some tea and cake, and we probably could have bought a new boiler for what it cost (4.50 for a tea, although they forgot to serve it in a golden cup).

It’s a huge space with a glass roof and pale blue girders. It’s nice, but feels a bit too much like a hotel lobby to be super-glamorous. The bar is more buzzy, it’s in the old ticket booking office and a door leads directly out onto St Pancras.

I did enjoy the rather odd uniforms the female staff wear. Didn’t get a photo but they’re a cross between a 1950s wiggle dress and something a lady alien ambassador would wear on Star Trek.

The lemon meringue pie was pretty good

I also popped into the British Library bookshop and bought a Herb Lester map of London. I love the idea behind these. For three quid you get a well designed, fold-out guide to a city, a nice object to hold rather than a boring old i-phone app.

This is the first one they issued, called ‘You Are Here‘, which is a guide to cafes, bars and tea-rooms in Central London that are ‘quiet spots to think’. Somewhere you can always find a seat to settle down and get some work done. Or just read a book.

I especially enjoyed their recommendation of the Garden Cafe at Regent’s Park- apparently the staff are so rude and the service so bad that hardly anyone goes there, and you can sit in peace for hours without being disturbed. Will have to try it out.

Anyway I recommend a trip to the Renaissance Hotel, overpriced tea and all.

But I can count on the fingers of one hand the amount of clothes I’ve actually sewn from them.

This isn't all of them. They hide round the house.

It’s such a gigantic pain, and I am very lazy. Cutting out is already my least favourite part of sewing, and now Burda want me to trace off the pattern as well??

But where they win out is if you need a simple pattern for a top or a skirt. You’ll find it somewhere in a back issue for free, rather than having to pay 6 quid or more for a brand new pattern. So my 2012 sewing resolution is to make the most of my Burda stash.

I haven't quite got the hang of 'I'm a little tea-pot' yet

This top was a pretty easy start, it’s only got two pieces so it wasn’t too hideous to trace (using a spiked wheel, as explained by Melissa of Fehr Trade. Please do not risk your sanity by trying to actually trace the patterns with blank paper on top.)

It’s from the 09-2011 Burda issue, which I nearly didn’t buy as I have little use for a dirndl and/or traditional folk-style waistcoat, which make up the bulk of the issue (see paunnet’s post for an amusing overview).

I do, however, love jersey tops with kimono sleeves.

I’m also obsessed with sewing tiny little useless triangular pockets. I once bought a t-shirt with this detail from M&S (the glamour never stops round here), and since then I’ve added an identical pocket to every knit top I make. They are totally pointless, unless you need to store some loose Polo mints or perhaps a single pound coin, but I like them anyway.

This fabric is from Ultimate Craft. The stripes are a little bit too close together and it hurts to look at it for a long time, the whole thing starts to flicker like one of those Magic Eye pictures.

So to break up the eye-hurtiness, I lowered the neckline and used this brilliant tutorial from CraftStylish to add a finishing band. I sewed the whole thing on my overlocker, except for the hem and sleeve finishes (twin needle).

I’ve noticed that in most RTW, the grown-on sleeve only extends to the elbow or above, and below that a tube of fabric is sewn as a little sleeve extender. This is probably to save fabric, but I like the way it looks with stripes so I used it here (the pattern as written has a grown-on sleeve all the way down to the elbow).

I’m definitely making another one of these from the lovely leopard-print fabric I got from Claire at the Brighton swap. Two thumbs up for Burda.

The swap was epic and took at least an hour. I feel a tad guilty at how much great stuff I managed to snag, but at least the things I brought found a good home (looking forward to seeing what the stylish Rehanon makes with some hot pink tie-dye fabric I swapped)

Highlights for me were:

- Turning up wearing the same hat and gloves set (hand-knitted obvs) as Shivani of Pins and Needles

- Finding this unique fabric in Ditto. Is this a famous photo I am too culturally illiterate to recognise? You can now buy it splashed across jersey knit in no less than three different colourways. I guess it could be good for…no, actually, I can’t think of anything.

- Zoe’s rather excellent 70s pattern for high-waisted flares (please note that the model is working the classic hand to face pose)

- The swap: like free shopping, with the added bonus of clearing out fabric that you’ll never use (but that someone else loves).

- Meeting Julia of The Secret Life of Seams and admiring her truly amazing tiger-print dress in person

- Hanging out with lots of other super-nice sewing ladies.

- Going to Brighton again. I went to uni there and haven’t been back for ages. We were so busy chatting and swapping I didn’t have time to look round Snooper’s Paradise, gaze at the sea, play the 2p machines on the pier, or eat lots of doughnuts. Next time for sure.

Here’s my haul from the swap. I actually came back with more than I took, which wasn’t exactly the plan, but I love all of it:

The top fabric is from Ditto. My boyfriend took one look at it and described it as ‘Beetlejuice chic’ but whatever, I think it’s cool. It is channelling a sort of hip prison uniform vibe, which should go nicely with my lady prison warden dress (maybe I will sew a incarceration themed collection, along the lines of ‘Derelicte‘. What do you think of ‘Pénitentiaire‘?)

Zoe and Claire v kindly made us a goody bag each containing zips, buttons, and pipings, which is on the left.

I’d also like to draw your attention to the 1970s pattern in the lower-right hand corner, which for some reason nobody else wanted to take home. It’s a beauty, and I think it deserves a post of it’s own, which I’m sure you are now hugely looking forward to.

Thank you SO much to Zoe and Claire for organising, it was great!

- I’m not really a Tumblr fan (I just…don’t get it) but I have to admit that it’s the only way to go for single-topic blogs, and I just found my new favourite: Wear Color. Tons of amazing colourful clothing inspiration.

Here’s a picture of my dream coat, a  Gloverall* tartan duffle which I found via this blog. It’s great how they’ve lined up the print so it makes little wingtips on the collar.

*the original duffle coat makers!

Image from wearethemarket.com via Wear Color

- Shivani of Pins and Needles posted about the new collaboration of Clarks + Liberty, which should be enough to give me a heart attack, but I think they could have done a bit more with this collection. Hopefully it’s the first of many. These are my favourites:

Picture from clarks.co.uk

- I’m sure you’ve all seen Luxirare’s blog, but I thought this was a particularly interesting post which has a lot to say about the nature of creativity and the importance of hard work and attention to detail. Everything she makes is so super-slick, it’s very interesting to see behind the scenes. (Also includes a massive close-up of a Pfaff embroidery machine if that floats your boat.)

- And finally, I heartily endorse this review of tights from Already Pretty. The cold weather has finally found us, and I totally believe that wearing wool tights is the ONLY way to keep warm in sub-zero temperatures.

If you like that, you’ll also enjoy this tights test from the Guardian. This is the kind of pioneering fashion journalism that I can really get behind.

And here is a vintage tea cosy pattern.

I have knitted the evocatively named 'Model B'

Notice any family resemblance? Here’s the hat again, to jog your memory.

I didn’t put any holes in my hat for a tea-pot handle, otherwise it could be a useful multi-purpose knitted object (it would be nice and warm when you put it on your head.).

Luckily I don’t mind my head looking like a tea-pot, as this hat has been permanently attached to it due to extreme coldness.

The pattern is called ‘Starving Artist’, and you can find it on Ravelry here. I only did two thirds of the increases. No idea what the wool is but I’m incredibly smug at using up the whole ball, by means of adding a ridiculous pom-pom.

(Sorry for the dreadful photos – natural light is hard to come by at the moment. My hat isn’t quite such a hideous shade of plaster pink in real life)

Okay, so in my last post, I tried to examine whether in terms of cold hard cash, sewing is a money-saving activity. And in the most basic economic terms, it’s not. As Lizzy said in the comments, if you want to save money, don’t sew yourself a cushion, just… don’t have a new cushion. The same with sewing – it would be much cheaper to clothe yourself entirely from Primark/charity shops/hand-me-downs.

If you want to save money, don't buy this cushion from Liberty. Even though it's lovely.

But what fun would that be? If you like clothes, as you surely must do to enjoy sewing them, it sounds like a kind of polyester purgatory.

What I left out of my first post, as Nicole commented, was the issue of:

Quality vs Quantity

There’s no point comparing apples to oranges, and I doing that when I said that you can buy clothes for cheaper than you can make them. Of course it’s true in most cases, but it’s also a bit of a fudge. Say you do buy that 20 pound suit from Asda – it won’t fit properly, it will be badly made from cheap materials, and it will probably give you static shocks whenever you sit down.

The blog Kitchen Counter Economics put this better than I can, but if you sew, you can add quality and longevity into garments, making clothes you will never find in a shop. Even super-posh and expensive wool coats from somewhere like Hobbs will have a cheap man-made lining which will shred in a couple of years. Manufacturers are always going to cut corners somewhere, mostly on the bits you can’t see but that contribute to the long life of the garment.

I've just put this coat in because I love it and wish it was mine

Sewing teaches you what well-made clothing actually looks like, which is pretty important in a society where quality and price are thought to be exactly the same thing (news flash – they are not)

Home-sewing enables you to prioritise quality over quantity.

And, when you sew your own clothes, you’re not paying for somebody else’s marketing budget.

Of course, it’s hard to sew well-made clothes. I hardly ever do (i’m a chronic corner-cutter myself). And in some cases, its impossible to achieve the same finish as professional manufacturers, because they have resources that are beyond the reach of the home-sewer.

But I think we need to be cool with this, to find our own path, not to obsess about neat machine-made finishes at the one extreme, or deeply tedious couture perfection on the other.

Hope that made sense.

This week I watched a money-saving programme on Channel 4 called The SuperScrimpers. It’s full of dubious tips like coating your lashes with baby powder in lieu of mascara, putting foil behind your radiators, and freezing lime wedges to put in your G&T (a good tip, but money saving? A lime costs about 20p!)

Anyway, this episode had a group of girls learning to sew. It’s about 35 mins in, if you want to watch it. They were all complete beginners who were scared of the whole idea, and it was lovely to watch them learn how to create something from nothing (in this case, cushion covers from old scraps of fabrics and unwanted clothes).

But is sewing really a money-saving activity? I don’t think so, and here’s why:

Firstly, the fixed costs. You’re going to need a sewing machine, which will cost at least £100. Yes, you can get them cheaper, or second-hand and refurbished, but it depends how much time you have to hunt around.

Secondly, the equipment. You won’t get far without an iron and an ironing board. You need tools – at the very minimum scissors, a seam ripper, a tape measure.

Image from mycompedium.blogspot.com

And the more you sew, the more stuff you will accumulate. That’s because sewing is an activity where new tools make a big difference.

This is in sharp contrast to other crafts like knitting or embroidery, where start-up costs are minimal. Yes, you can spend hundreds of pounds on cashmere yarn or silk thread, but the basic skill is in your hands, and is free to learn. With art, it’s the same – it’s your ideas that matter, whether you have a full Lanvin-designed Caran D’Ache set, or a single pencil.

Van Gogh used to draw in pencil on the back of envelopes. Image from vangoghgallery.com

But in dressmaking, there are things that you just can’t do without the right machine or tool. And the more professional the sewing, the more specialised the machine. Clothing companies can afford to spend thousands on, for example, a piece of equipment that only makes buttonholes. In home sewing, we have to use a mixture of work-arounds, substitutes, and make-dos.

That’s before you even get into the costs of fabric and notions to make garments, which can add up. (If you’re interested in this aspect, check out Zoe’s blog - she only sews with second-hand or repurposed fabric)

Where sewing can start to make financial sense is in comparing like for like. Karen did an interesting cost break-down of the beautiful coat she made, comparing it to what she could have paid for something shop-bought. For me, making my own clothes only becomes worth it when sewing something that I literally cannot buy in the shops.

For some reason, nobody is making replicas of Bette Davis' wardrobe in Now, Voyager

For instance, I can’t buy dresses that hit me at my natural waistline. I can’t buy shirts and blouses in non-polyester fabric, that fit my long torso. In financial terms, the sewing machines and equipment I’ve already bought are Sunk Costs – irrelevant to future decision making. And on that basis, I do save money by sewing. I recently made myself another Sorbetto top out of fabric scraps from my birthday dress, embellished with lace and pearl buttons from my stash (another sunk cost). I love it and you could say it was entirely free.

But that doesn’t change the fact that that sewing is a privileged activity. You need time and money to devote to it. It has a sharp learning curve, and you won’t be able to knock off that Prada silk dress after an hour’s workshop, maybe not even after 5 years of practise.

Although if I could get hold of this fabric I would definitely give it a try

Because sewing is intimidating. It’s difficult! It involves expensive machines with very sharp moving parts. People don’t know how to do it any more, so you can’t just ask your mum or gran to show you how to put a button back on a coat (why do you think all those new London sewing cafes are springing up? They make money from running super-basic ‘sew a hem!’ style courses)

You might notice I’ve left out any mention of non financial benefits, which is deliberate – I wanted to consider the purely cost-based implications. My contention is that sewing is not a money-saving activity in today’s world, with Asda selling a three piece suit for cheaper than you could buy material to make it.

If I was a millionaire, with enough money to buy whatever I wanted, to have my own amazing fabric printed, to commission tailors to custom-make me perfect dresses….would I still sew? I think so, but that’s a whole other discussion, and this is long enough already.

I think that sewing does still have a cultural echo of thriftiness, a ‘Make Do and Mend’ nostalgia. That’s probably why it was included in the Channel 4 programme, which was appropriately a bit of a rag-bag all round.

I’d be interested to know what others think. Do you save money through sewing? Is quality more important to you than cost? And would you put foil behind your radiators or is that a money-saving step too far? (personally it just reminds me of this 90s plot-line on Eastenders)

But seriously, look at this jewellery from Galibardy, it’s SUPER-nice.

For example, this tape measure bracelet. It’s like a secret dressmaking symbol, just a bit less permanent than getting a massive sewing tattoo.

Image taken from the Galibardy website

I also love these bee earrings.

Image taken from the Galibardy website

And this ring shaped like a rabbit coming out of a top hat. Of course.

Image taken from the Galibardy website

Galibardy stuff has been spotted on ‘celebrities’ including Peaches Geldof, Fearne Cotton, and Pixie Lott. But it is nice jewellery, which hopefully would not identify you with any of these people.