It turns out that i'm essentially a gay man trapped in a straight guy If it wasn't for the fact that boobs exist and i'm getting married to a girl this year I'd be questioning myself...

It turns out I like to sew stuff, who knew! I inherited a 30yr old sewing machine from my late mother, and we bought some new curtains t'other weekend, which were a bit too long. Ah-ha! I thought, I can do something about that.
So the other weekend I hemmed my first set of curtains, and it didn't go too bad, not entirely straight but good enough.

This weekend however, I hemmed another set of curtains, one of which was pretty fucking awesomely straight if I do say so myself, and thought what else can I do. One trip to John Lewis later for some fabric and a staple gun (staple guns are cool, even though the one I bought was broken straight out of the box. Rather than taking it back, I took it apart and fixed it myself, to try and gain a few man points back) and I did this.



The seat base used to be a grubby white, now it is a sophisticated brown (good for hiding anal leakage)

But that wasn't enough to satisfy my urgings, so more fabric later and this



turned into this



I'm pretty fucking proud of that, all done with no instructions, just figuring it out with me old noggin. Some little bits that aren't finished too well, and the seams aren't exactly straight, but good enough

Table runner and cushions to match next I think, once I have done the second chair.
Sewing appears to fit my natural OCD tendencies quite nicely.

What craft stuff do you do Beexers? Mimi can play, but don't show us up too much

That is kinda cool....

That is well done. I covered a chair a few years ago after watching "The Furniture Guys" on the Discovery channel. It turned out ok!

As for crafty stuff.. I've seen a guy selling miniature arcade machines on eBay out of balsa wood. I'd like to make some of those as they look neat!

...

...

Plus I went to the hitherto unexplored top floor of John Lewis, to a land called Haberdashery. It was fucking great, I plan to visit again.

*leaves for good*

Trooper - my chair badly needs recovering, wanna job?

Whatever I've done, whatever I've said, I didn't mean it.

Try it yourself, it seems tricky, but is just angles and templates and shit like that, all pretty straightforward once you get into the swing of things

Hah. So Fletcher *isn't* your real surname, after all!

Disaster strikes!

The 30+ year old sewing machine has given up the ghost, it got slower and slower and now does fuck all. I expect this is due to it not being serviced in at least 25 years. I could pay £60 to get it serviced, but it is only worth £40.
So if I plan to do any more i'll get a new one for around £80.

I was almost done with a table runner, but to be honest it was looking fucking awful anyway! It's remarkable difficult to sew a 1.5m straight line...

Anyway.

Second chair finished.



Compare the finishing of the first chair.



To the second chair.



Bit of a difference there!

I also knocked up a couple of cushions with the left over fabric.



With no sewing machine left, that is the end of my little sewing journey for now.

RIP little machine.

FIX THE MACHINE!

I'm sorry... am I in the wrong forum or something? This doesn't seem familiar to me?

Why don't you just fuck off?

Better?

Ah.. That's better. Carry on!

IT LIVES!

It just needed a bit of a rest.




It has died again, it needs a rest again.

I have a mental picture of Curio being like the 'Webb' chap from the new Meerkat adverts... not sure why

Neither do we...

I can't explain how my mind works!

John Lewis do a nice, inexpensive, basic but hardworking own brand sewing machine.

I do have a ginger beard...

and angry trousers?

He is currently on holiday though.

Yeah, I saw that online, seems to have good reviews.
The other option is this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brother-LS2125- ... ng+machine

I'm finding it tricky to get a couple of ties for the wedding, need a dark champagne colour (apparently).

So next project, tie making!

How difficult can it be? Right?

Men's ties take a bit more fabric than you might think and usually require a bit if hand sewing. You'll need some light interfacing, too.

Pattern: http://pukingpastilles.com/wp-content/u ... attern.pdf

A how to: http://www.samhober.com/necktie/howtomakeanecktie.htm

If you do pull off making ties it will be a lovely personal touch for a wedding! Russell and I have been busy making things for a wedding we haven't even begun planning during the evenings for the last week and a bit. Fun times!

Ta Mimi.

This looks like a fair tutorial
http://www.purlbee.com/the-purl-bee/200 ... y-tie.html
What do you think?

I think i'll have to hand sew the whole thing really, and work out how to do a slip stitch

Oh, and i've ordered some books on how to do wedding crafty stuff, I'll probably make the favour boxes and the like, I expect.
Ooooh, i've had an idea...

I might start a blog or something, a buffoons attempt at learning to sew.

I'm really pleased that you are picking up my slack, here.

If he starts offering recipes I'm going to start calling him Martha Stewart

I've come back so I can leave again.

Ah, I know the Purl Bee. Great blog, yes, go with that one.

You should definitely blog! Blogging is acecakes!

Cakes aswell!

Cakes are acecakes!

If only I knew someone with a craft blog who could link to it if I did...

I'd link to you, you pillock. It's a given, isn't it?

That was kinda the joke

Tada!

http://www.anamateursews.co.uk/

I know! I shall pop a link in my post that I'm scheduling for tomorrow, as it has a sewing theme

This is the greatest turn of events ever. Love it. You better not inspire me to attempt a new hobby, I tend to be quite impulsive with a short attention span.

Welcome to my world, in case you hadn't gathered already

Woo! I shall even make sure there is something sewing related on it by then.

Aw, I was expecting porn

[edit] Although "What is this pointy thing? Where do I stick it?" is a good start...

Actual sewing content uploaded.

You'd have thought I could easily spell amateur by now...

Isn't "recovering" "re-covering" in this case?

I guess both count...

recovering is correct, though it's more usually used nowadays without an object in mind, as in 'he was a recovering alcoholic', or 'he made a miraculous recovery'. It's still perfectly acceptable to say 'the chair was recovered' but I can imagine that could cause some confusion as to it being lost or stolen, or some such. You could use 'reupholster' but that could be misconstrued that Trooper replaced more than the cover

He needs to reupholster his masculinity.

...I will be requiring a flesh-coloured one with pom-poms attached to the wide end.