THE DRAPERY BLOG

The Merchant & Mills patterns receive a lot of love at The Drapery, and it's easy to see why. The designs are ridiculously comfortable and very practical to wear. Yet they also include enough smart, tailored detail to make you feel stylish and like you've actually 'made an effort' rather than just thrown on a sack. And so here is their latest offering, the Union Dress , which we made up in Merchant & Mills' own 'Oxblood' washed linen .  The wrinkles you see in these pictures are the result of it being freshly washed and ironed, then moved around in just a little... give it another hour of wear and it would be evenly, softly crumpled all over. The Merchant & Mills washed linens are very soft and feel gorgeous to wear. It was a bit shifty to work with at cutting out stage, but with just a little extra attention to straightening the grain, all was well. This dress was made up as a sample to live in the shop, and so I cut a straight si...

 We have been so happy that the excellent Grainline patterns have recently started to convert some of their PDF-only patterns into printed versions. Hooray - less sticky taping! Among the patterns that have recently been put into print is their popular Scout Tee for woven fabrics. Yep, a t-shirt for woven fabrics. A wonderfully useful wardrobe item that can be sewn up in many of the wide world of printed woven fabrics (it would  make up well in any of our lightweight cottons . ) There are no bust darts, but it's one of those well drafted - almost magic - garments that seems to fit a wide variety of body shapes really well.  The Scout can be made from a US size 0 (32 inch bust) to an 18 (44 inch bust).  I thought this pattern would be a good one for my 11 year old daughter (so hard to find nice age-appropriate clothing for this in-between age group). So, we sewed up the size 0 in this fantastic Leah Duncan print for Art Gallery fabrics. This f...

Um, apparently, no. The Box Dress, pattern D from Stylish Dress Book 2 , is just so good, shortened into a top too! We love its simple form as a showcase for a stunning fabric like this: It's one of our new Cotton + Steel cotton lawns, in this irresistible Octopi print from the 'Tokyo Train Ride' range by Sarah Watts . All the Cotton + Steel fabrics are made in Japan and this lawn is an absolute delight to sew and wear.  This top was made without the sleeves (since the bodice makes such a lovely little cut-on cap sleeve anyway), with the neckline finished with visible self-bias and armholes with bias turned to the inside.  I made a 2-inch-deep facing for the bottom to give the impression of a deep hem. The whole top was cut from 1.2 metres of this 110cm-wide fabric. You can find some other beautiful Cotton + Steel lawns here ... it's tempting to make a Box Top in every one! - Jane & Fiona xx

For the second year, we're bringing you a bunch of ideas for handmade Christmas gifts and also, lovely gifts for the makers in your life. (Or, gifts for you to hint loudly at with your loved ones!) On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me... uninterrupted sewing time for myself! (Hey, we can all dream, right?) In any case, 'tis the season to wear something a bit special and make every occasion more festive. Here's a couple of things for inspiration: Liberty of London Tana Lawn, 'Daniel DJ' print , made into the Deer and Doe Aubepine dress (pattern available instore or by phone or email). Nothing beats the feeling of Liberty Tana Lawn on a summer's day, especially in a dress with a bit of 'swish' factor. Hemp/Silk blend Charmeuse in a vintage jacket pattern, just awaiting the perfect vintage button. We are delighted to report that this Hemp/Silk washed beautifully (warm delicate machine cycle, liquid wool wash), line dri...

For the second year, we're bringing you a bunch of ideas for handmade Christmas gifts and also, lovely gifts for the makers in your life. (Or, gifts for you to hint loudly at with your loved ones!) This isn't the prettiest of projects but it's a highly practical one, and something you might consider making for yourself, if not for gifts. These soft, lightweight drawstring bags are intended to replace the throwaway produce bags you find at the supermarket. You know, the ones you put your individual types of fruit and veg in, and things from the bulk bins? Usually they're plastic bags on a big roll but our marvellous local Foodland also has brown paper bags for the organic produce. Whilst paper is preferable to plastic, it still seems a bit wasteful to be using and tossing (or recycling) quite a few of these bags each week. To make a useful replacement, we thought a bag needed to be: - lightweight (won't add weight to what you're paying for, and also ...

 Once more this year, we are bringing you twelve days of Christmas ideas - both handmade gifts and gifts for makers. Today we present the simple but beautiful Japanese fabric gift wrapping technique, Furoshiki . Using basic shapes of fabric, you can simply dress a gift. Plus, the gift wrap is reusable, either as gift wrap again or as a tea-towel or napkins or any other fabric-y plan you may devise. So it's environmentally friendly, too - score! For this project, we have cut a half metre of this 110cm wide Japanese linen/cotton gingham . We then cut one piece to 70x50cm, leaving the remainder piece measuring 40 x 50cm) and sewed a double fold hem around all edges. Here they are with bonus Lego man for scale, courtesy of my lovely 6 year old assistant. Since there's plenty of wine changing hands at this time of year, we thought the wine bottle wrap would be a good one to start with.  Take the larger piece of fabric. Turn it to landscape, then fold the bottom t...

For the second year, we're bringing you a bunch of ideas for handmade Christmas gifts and also, lovely gifts for the makers in your life. (Or, gifts for you to hint loudly at with your loved ones!) Today, we're celebrating fine pins, and no, not a good set of legs. We're talking dressmaking pins, those fiddly little things you probably use all the time but don't give a lot of thought to. Then perhaps the pleasure of using Good Pins awaits you! Good pins like these: (All available in store or online in the Tools & Notions section .) Frankly, for far too long we'd both been using pins, at home and at The Drapery, that were more like this:  Little did we know what we were missing! Now, we are converted to the fine quality pins from Merchant and Mills. In particular, for garment sewing, we have enjoyed the Toilet Pins and Entomology Pins. The adorable Wooden Map Pins are newly arrived (they're red! they're wooden!) and the Spanish Lace Pins, we...