Mega Minerva Meet-up

If you look at any sewing blogs, you would have noticed a number of us talking about the big Minerva Crafts meet-up, which happened last weekend (14th of June).

And what a weekend it was! I'm still smiling and laughing to myself whenever I think back to all the great times I had in Darwen with all these beautiful, talented bloggers and the generous team at Minerva.

I set out at an uncivilized hour - 5.30 am!! - from chez Needles in order to get the train to Darwen, where Minerva is based, just an hour or so outside Manchester. Luckily, I had some company on the way - Clare Sew Dixie Lou, Crafty Ali Bobs, Emmy Oh Sew Vintage, and Sally Charity Shop Chic:

Emmy and Clare - are we there yet?

After a few hours travelling we arrived in beautiful Darwen. Since Minerva is spitting distance from the station, we jumped straight in. I knew that Minerva was one of the web's largest retailers, but the reality of it took me by surprise - it's a huge, crafty barn!

They really do have everything you'd need for sewing, knitting, embroidery, and most every other craft you can think of. I even saw some latch hook rug kits, which brought back memories of an unfinished one I started in the 80's. Throughout the day there were workshops; talks from By Hand London and Karen of Did You Make That? among others; prizes and demonstrations. (I managed to win a Terry's chocolate orange, which I'm saving for a special occasion). And there was time for just hanging-out with our fellow Minerva bloggers, as well as meeting those who had been following us and our projects on the bloggers network.

Emmy discovering the joy of covered buttons

The humongous warehouse next door

 Vicki and the rest of the Minerva team put on such a great event for us, but that wasn't all they had in store for us. All of this was a build up to the evening event, where we would be revealing our dresses which we'd been working on for the previous weeks. Enough of my rambling, I'll let the photos do the talking:

Just a small selection of the ladies who attended

Our venue for the evening - Ewood Park, home of Blackburn Rovers!

Pre-dinner drinks and mingling - still pretty civilised at this stage...

Sequin sisters - Vicki and Emmy

After dinner dancing! Non-stop great tunes courtesy of DJ Paul

As is the way when you have a number of Spoolettes in attendance, we managed to squeeze in pre-pre dinner drinks, where we had an opportunity to get a good look at each others creations:

Rehannon and Clare

Sally (just seen), Marie, and Ali

Emmy and Sally

Emmy and her gorgeous sequinned dress - the patience she must have had...

Kathryn in her 'Rachel' pose

Emmy, me, and Clare, also attempting some 'Rachel' poses

Me, Katie and Kathryn

(photos above courtesy of Emmie Oh Sew Vintage, What Katie Sews, and me)

What I love about these ladies and their outfits is that they all look absolutely brilliant and completely different. Everyone interpreted the idea of 'evening' in their own way, from jumpsuits to pencil skirts, florals to abstract, and a sprinkling of sequins. We even had a dress inspired by one worn by Cher in 'Mermaids'! (I'm looking at you Rehanon!)There was no real theme or one type of shape, unless you count looking fabulous as a theme.

Mine was inspired by the mambo scene in 'West Side Story', so that meant ruffles would be included. I also wanted some bare shoulders, but not strapless, so I used the Sewaholic Lonsdale as the top. I adapted my pencil skirt block into a wraparound, with a curved front edge at the front. This was all topped off with a curved skirt frill at the back, and an extra curved piece for the front. If this doesn't make sense, here are some photos to make it clearer:

I used the top from the pattern on the left, but with a pencil skirt. Then I added the frill from the skirt on the right. I also changed the bodice to a side zip. so the back wasn't disrupted with a seam. 

The skirt is a wraparound attached at the waistband - so 1 back piece and 2 overlapping front pieces. The front was edged with this spiral piece, which I drafted free-hand. This tight spiral meant that when it was added to the skirt it was super-frilly.

And because I'm super fussy about the insides of my projects, everything was lined, the skirts and frills were self-lined, ie a double layer sewn right sides together and turned inside out, and there was an extra piece of lining gathered under the skirt to give it some extra 'oomph'

And one final detail - I decided at the last minute to add some spiral boning to the side seams of the bodice, to make sure the top half of the dress stayed in place all night. I sewed little channels into the side seams and slid the bones in, then tacked them closed so they can be removed before washing the dress.

The dress was a joy to wear, mainly because the fabric was so comfortable - it was a cotton with a little stretch added, so it could fit closely to the body, but moved with you. Which was totally necessary, especially when dancing to 'Proud Mary' by Ike and Tina Turner - that was like an aerobic workout!

I had a great time hanging out with my fellow bloggers, and finally meeting Vicki and co. was a pleasure. It was such an inspiring experience that as soon as I arrived home I wanted to get sewing straight away. If you can visit Minerva, I urge you to go!

See you soon!

Strike! The Spoolettes Hit the Lanes

You may have spotted in a few other posts around the internet that a rather special group has started here in London - the Spoolettes! (Read about it here, or look at the Facebook page here) No real agenda, other than having fun and finding reasons to get together and wear special outfits we've made. 

And for our first big night out, we hit Bloomsbury Lanes for bowling, pizza, burgers, karaoke, and fabulous home made outfits!

Here's some highlights:

Kathryn of Yes, I like that in her shirt from outer space!

Emmie, Janene, and Jo in more gorgeous creations

Katrhyn, Clare (who organised the whole shebang), and me

Sally, the best bowler of the night, and just look at that embroidery

Rehanon, bringing extra sass!

Fiona, looking extra cute!

Who's the best dressed person in this picture? The Spoolette, of course!

Alison's perfect bowling stance!

And as usual, I was having too much of a good time to actually take any photos of my own outfit. I decided to go for a bowling-style dress, based on this pattern:

I used some red cotton drill from Dalston Mill, combined with some scraps of black poly and a few adjustments to the pattern to make this:

The main change I made was to the back, where I added a yoke and some pleat inserts, as well as some little tabs and gathers to pull in the waist a bit:

As well as this, I added black flaps to the pockets:

The most time consuming part was the back embroidery:

I drew the logo freehand onto my trusty roll of baking parchment (it took many attempts to get just right), then pinned that to the back of dress and embroidered through it:

Not being an expert on embroidery, I just made it up as I went along, I think the stitch I used is called a split stitch. Whatever it is, it worked! Here's some details:

That's meant to be a bobbin...

... and that's a needle

I also put my name on the front:

I'll leave you with a photo of Clare's vegetarian burger and her alcoholic shake, which was a delicious revelation:

See you soon!