Since you've been gone

I know things have been rather quiet for a while, but it took me a rather long time to get over the loss of my beautiful Kate and William mug. It was a rather traumatic summer. Of course I spiralled into a deep depression following the end of the jubilee celebrations (and all I have to say about it is that Kate should not have matched her dress to the chairs on the boat) and then had the anxiety of learning of the illness of poor old Phil. Following that Harry sent my blood pressure soaring (not in a good way), and of course young Kate just made things worse. 2012 was not really been the best royal year.

HOWEVER, I have added not one but THREE new mugs to my collection. One, of course, to replace the late Kate and Wills mug, one to celebrate the jubilee, and one to celebrate the Queen's coronation. Marvellous. With any luck a new mug will be added to my collection in July.

I've been sewing a bit too, but that's not as interesting as my collection of royal memorabilia.

Pin's Purchases: Buttons

Today I dragged my poor Father into the Barras. This time I wanted a forage in the actual market. For those of you (Tori) who are not familiar with the infamous market, it's in the east end of Glasgow. In its heyday it was packed and a great place for a bargain. I remember visiting as a child and being in awe of the stallholder's Glasgae patter. Sadly, it is no longer what it was, bits of it are now more akin to the late Paddy's Market than anything else.

Anyway, there were a few good stalls to be found, (after my dad dragged me away from the 'Mulberry' handbags, I didn't know they did a PU range...) one of which sold some rather awesome buttons. 

I'm a bit of a button fiend. I was reading a post the other day over at Tilly and the Buttons about 'satisficers' and 'maximisers' and I was convinced that I'm a 'maximiser'. This may be true, but I think I'm also a third option...a 'hoarder'. If I see a button which I think is pretty then I will buy it(and can never bring myself to use it). It doesn't matter if I have nothing to go with it, I will buy it (ok a set of them...) anyway. My obsession even extends as far as buying random buttons from Ebay- as in a lot of 100 which again go with nothing I'm sewing...

My love for buttons stems back to the days of my Mum knitting me beautiful mohair cardigans with shiny heart buttons on. I LOVED those buttons, so much in fact that I still have one 20 years on. I also have kept a gorgeous button I found in my Gran's button tin after she died; its a really nice pink with silver detailing that I can't bring myself to use because its so pretty.

ANYWAY, today I bought some really nice buttons...just because I liked them. In the Barras. See, I knew this post would make sense eventually! So without any further ado...the buttons from the Barras...                                                  

 I think I might use these beauties (left) for the front of my dress.

Or maybe these lovelies (right). I'm a little bit of a Magpie...

 These are my favourites (£1 for ten, amazing!) but I haven't got a clue what I'll use them for (left)

 Oooh, or I could use these ones for my dress? Or perhaps the skirt I'm making?(right) 

 We chose these ones for my Mum because she knits lots of Aran cardigans. (left) 

Any advice on places to find buttons (or button donations!) would be much appreciated!

Machines

It's almost time for my next night class and I still haven't written about last week's! Well, not much to report other than...I learned to use an industrial sewing machine which was trés exciting. Threading machines up poses little difficulty now (I've been shown how to thread at least 6 different machines, I'm now quite happy to just sit down and have a go) and the fact that it was proper heavy duty made it very novel. I won't babble too much about the machine, but using one of these bad boys could be likened to driving a car you have lusted after for many years. It had all sorts of little added niceties, you can cut the thread with the pedal as well as lift the foot, which made it a dream to sew with. I'm looking forward to using it for the next few weeks.

I've chosen my fabric (see previous post) and my pattern so I'm ready to go. I had another wee wander to the Fabric Bazaar to pick up a little more material to have a go at making a skirt too. I'm nothing if not ambious!

Pin's Purchases: I'm so excited

So I was going to write a blog post about Wednesday's class, which I will later, but I'm FAR TOO EXCITED to do that yet. You see, yesterday I went to a new fabric shop for the first time.

I've heard a lot about the Fabric Bazaar on London Road but I've never had a chance to go seek it out. Every night class I've been to has recommended it as the cheapest fabric shop in Glasgow and I concur that it is most definitely worth a visit. I've chosen my pattern for my dressmaking class (Simplicity 1913, it has appeared in quite a few blogs recently and I must say, every different version looks beautiful) so I desperately needed some fabric to use.

As you can see I got a bit over enthusiastic- all I went in for was dress fabric.  I went a little wander round a few of Fabric Bazaar's competitors (who for now will remain nameless since I'll assume they were having a bad day) but was left uninspired. I had an idea in my head of what I was looking for, but I didn't know what it was called or what colour I wanted. Anyway, on perusal of FB's shelves I happened across a nice, plain, navy cotton. I thought it was the one for me so I went to get some cut. But then, suddenly, a beautiful, navy, polyester wool mix practically leapt off the shelf at me. It was love at first sight. At £1.99 a metre. FB, I'm in love with you. (On another note, I have no idea if this will actually work out...but if it is no good for this dress then I'll get a lovely pencil skirt out of it)

As you can see I also have a bit of a love affair with zips, particularly the big teethy ones. Lovely. Oh, and buttons, shiny, shiny buttons. And thread. I bought the pink on a whim, I think I might topstitch with it. But then again...

Anyway, this lovely pile cost me a massive £11.96(I ended up with 3.5 metres of fabric). So in conclusion, Fabric Bazaar is a little out of the way (it's down by the Barras) but it is well worth a trip. I get the impression it's the kind of place you'll never know what you're going to find. 

I'll post a wee blog post about what I class as being a sewer's best friends, but for now I'm going to upload  a photo of my latest Cath Kidston purchase. I'm a big Cath Kidston fan and can regularly be found perusing the aisles of the lovely new (ish) Glasgow shop on Gordon Street. I've had another case in the past with mini spools of thread in it, I much prefer this new version with a thread pleat (love love love these things). 

The scissors were from a craft fair in the SECC a few months ago- an impulse buy but I rather like them.