THE DRAPERY BLOG

These pyjama pants were cut out across the width of the fabric, to make the most of the beautiful Nani Iro 'Painting Check' design ( available in store or online here ), which changes colours as it nears the selvedge.  The brushed cotton is extremely soft and supremely comfortable. And these didn't even need hemming because the bottom edge is the little fluffy selvedge itself. They were made for my husband, on his request. I unpicked an old pair of his PJs to use as a pattern. They're mostly a very simple design, being mass-produced cheapies from many moons ago, yet somewhat bizarrely they featured a full button fly. In elastic-waisted pyjama pants. Didn't think I'd copy that part. Yes, the Nani Iro is a slightly more sophisticated look for the grown man than these elephants Instead I opted for a faux fly opening and full elastic waistband, with functional self-fabric drawstrings in the front.  Adding patch pockets to the sides allowed more de

Our love for Deer and Doe patterns continues! Fresh from the success of the free Plantain t-shirt pattern, the next project we picked was this 'Aubepine' dress.  Here it is freshly finished, unironed - in its 'natural' Natural Linen state. (And really, this is how we like our linen.)  As the pattern says: "Empire waist dress with elbow length sleeves, lined. Tucks on bodice and sleeves, adjustable waist string and flared skirt punctuated by 8 inverted box pleats." Deer and Doe patterns come with both English and French instructions. They are beautifully packaged, with excellent instructions and diagrams. You can see more garments on 'real life' sewists of varying shapes and sizes in their Flickr pool here . It's Deer and Doe's policy to only sell their patterns through 'bricks and mortar' shops so we can't offer them in our online shop. However, if you are not nearby The Drapery, you can ring us (Wed - Fri 10am - 4pm

This post is kind of technical and specific to certain machines. However I could not find this help elsewhere on the internet so consider this my contribution to the sewing machine self-help knowledge pool. If you find it helpful please let me know! The clever Nichola at Handmaker's Factory in Melbourne recently posted about fixing the timing on the industrial Janome sewing machine in their studio. This spurred me into action because I knew I had an old Singer that needed its timing fixed. I have a love of old mechanical sewing machines and fixing minor issues makes me feel rather handy. So I watched the videos, gave it a try and it worked! Booyah! But. The machine still had a problem. Pretty much total lack of tension on the upper thread. The end of the tension dial would not wind in far enough to put pressure on the tension discs, and when wound out, it would keep winding and come right off. The machine is a Singer 348 - the beguiling 'Blue Magic'. This is how