If you have been following me on Instagram, you would have seen all of these posts before, but I like the idea of creating a round up of them for me to look through later and for my non-Instagram followers.
Bimble + Pimble made a sewing photo a day challenge called Sewvember for November. The concept was to loosely follow the theme for each day. Everyone had a different interpretation for the theme and tagged #bpsewvember to follow along with the group.
The great thing about the whole challenge was the sense of community it created. I followed so many new and wonderful people from it, started conversations, learned new things, bonded with fellow geeky sewists, and just felt really great about the whole experience.
The sewing community is a very supportive community and great for encouraging all sewists.
Here were the themes for each day and below is a gallery of my photos with my descriptions. Thanks for reading!
Day 1: My super messy sewing space that got hit with October’s craziness. I mostly carry my sewing machine upstairs and sew on the dining room table because there is better light there. I’ll get a shop light one day and make this space super organized. #dreams #bpsewvember #sewing
Day 2: technique. Not much to show here. Cutting out my first M6696. I use coasters for weights and cut my notches outside of the pattern lines. Not much technique here. #bpsewvember
Day 3: stash, one shelf, one large suitcase, two drawers plus one drawer of patterns. Not included: several pdf patterns. Verdict: I have a problem. #bpsewvember
Day 4: WIP. Two #WIPs at the moment. The bulky cowl from @andisatt on tuts+ and my M6696 for the #catladysewingchallenge and #1000shirtdresses The dress isn’t even cut out completely yet. I need to make some decisions on solid black accents and I have to do a large bicep adjustment for the sleeves first, but I’ll get there. #bpsewvember
Day 5: tools. Glue tape for pdf patterns, pins that I use sparingly these days, my seam ripper and my hands. #bpsewvember
Day 6: Me with the Tardis. #bpsewvember
Day 7: insides. Inside my Star Trek dress M6503. So proud of this one with its french seams. Some parts aren’t perfect but I adore it and it looks great on me. #bpsewvember
Day 8: my signature style. Adorable but edgy. #bpsewvember
Day 9: next project. Have to make a muslin and then I am making a practice coat out of wool suiting before I use the woal coating. I’ve never made a coat before so I want to get this right. #bpsewvember #sewing #sewcialists
Day ten: inspiration. Before I discovered sewing blogs which tend to be my inspiration to sew these days, I loved watching movies where there was a sewing: Pretty in Pink (my sewing blog inspiration), Cinderella, Gone with the Wind (heheh… Carol Burnett pictured making fun of the curtain dress), Batman Returns (Cat Woman making her costume), etc. So many great movies where badass woman make their costumes or ball dresses. That’s my inspiration. #bpsewvember #badasswomenwhosew
Day 11: Early make. A mash-up costume of little red riding hood and the big bad wolf. The burlesque costume that did so many things for me. I started chatting with my amazing fiance over Facebook and came up with thia costume. I wore this for my first burlesque group dance. I bought my first sewing machine for this. I self-drafted an entire costume (sans the corset and undershirt). When I flew to Toronto for the first time for Halloween weekend to meet my fiance in person, I wore this costume while I sat on his lap and told him I loved him and wanted to be with him forever (moved to Toronto six months later). It makes me happy thinking back and knowing how far I’ve come since the nerves of that night and the nervousness of a new relationship and the wonder of the sewing adventures to come. For me, my early makes are all about the freedom of discovering who I am. #bpsewvember
Day 12: Favourite finish. The french seam. ❤ I use it on most of my wovens. Makes a dress feel sew professional. #bpsewvember
Day 13: View. Led Zeppelin. Huge zep head. My sewing space is slowly becoming awesome as I reorganize. #bpsewvember
Day 14: UFO. Looks complete, but I need to chop off the length into a cropped cardigan because I didn’t like the fit at this length. I’ll get to it eventually… #bpsewvember
Day 15: Library. I mostly use Google and have ebooks. All of these were gifts from people who get me. I’ve made skirts from the skirts books and some failed things from the other book back when I was a major novice. #bpsewvember
Day 16: organization. Do you ever get slightly panicked when you see multiple spools getting low like that? I am completely out of black thread now. :-S #bpsewvember
Day 17: planning. I sit down with the pattern and read through it once, especially for complicated ones like this coat. I usually play with the fabric a lot but often make changes to my fabric choice based on the pattern instructions. I do some planning on my blog but most is in my head and sitting down with pattern and fabric to make sure it works. #bpsewvember
Day 18: Fun. Actually not having a ton of fun today working on alterations on pattern pieces for the coat. Blecch. But I am being zany and making my own fun. #bpsewvember
Day 19: Fit. Thank you so much to Mary @idlefancy for her princess seam tutorial because the princess seams are perfect and I have a perfect amount of ease for the bulk of the material in the final version. I ran out of material to fit the sleeves! Oh well another day. Getting the perfect fit is all about trial and error. Luckily, this fitting had very little error. So excited about this! #bpsewvember
Day 20: Notions. Ribbons and laces and sequin trims, oh my! #bpsewvember
Day 21: Craziest fabric. I love Hello Kitty and I love Halloween. What could be crazier? 🙂 #bpsewvember
Day 22: Tried and true. Definitely the Moneta a from @colettepatterns. Such a versatile pattern and so easy to make. I just love knit dresses. #bpsewvember
Day 23: I have a small paper pattern stash mostly of McCall’s company patterns, but I have a vast stash of PDF patterns. Some printed and put together as you see here in the box on the right. Some printed and waiting to be put together. Some not printed at all. I have a problem. On a pattern buying freeze from now until the wedding next year. #bpsewvember #gottasaveup
Day 24: Challenge. My coat making continues with the third sleeve muslin. Now that the sleeves are in I will have to make a broad back adjustment because there is some tightness across the shoulders when I cross my arms. The never ending muslin…. #bpsewvember #sewprettyinpinkmakesacoat
Day 25: Complete. I have some fails complete but I’m not ready to share them yet so this is a throwback to last week. Pictured here: Jenna Cardi from Muse Patterns and Pavlova skirt from Cake Patterns. #bpsewvember
Day 26: Red hot mess. Er…hot pink mess. One of the first things I made. A skirt made out of rayon. I wasn’t prepared for all the slipping and basically botched my hem entirely and did a crap job on the waistband. Horrible insides. It doesn’t fit me anymore but I would still wear it. Super cute color and I love polka dots. #bpsewvember
Day 27: Best make. Definitely my gold @colettepatterns Moneta. Love this dress and am super proud of it. The second runner up is my kitty chronicle dress. 🙂 #bpsewvember #thispicturemakesmemisssummer
Day 28: Hem. I love using the twin needle to finish the hem on a knit garment. #bpsewvember
Day 29: Learning. Bra making has been on my list for a really long time. So happy to be doing this. #bpsewvember #bramakerssupply
Day 30: Top tip. Don’t forget to add little touches to your garments that make you happy, whether it’s bows, bias tape, ribbon, buttons, or a tag at the back that declares it handmade. We make these things for ourselves or others and should have fun declaring it as ours and making it wonderful. I am sad #bpsewvember is over today. I’ve met so many great #sewcialists through it and enjoyed every minute. Thanks so much @bimbleandpimble for hosting this wonderful photo a day sewvember. #sewingmakesmehappy
Andie Wells Studio 
I really enjoyed seeing all of the #sewvember posts on my instagram feed, I wish I had joined in! I missed the first few days, and thought I was too late to jump onboard, and by the time I realised that it probably wouldn’t have been a problem I was definitely too late! Hope it happens next year, its awesome to see little glimpses into other peoples sewing lives 🙂
I think it will be happening next year. 🙂 I think even if you followed the posts but didn’t post your own, you would still get a great sense of the community. 🙂
Ooh i missed that gold(?) Pattened dress, its lovely 🙂
Thanks, Kara. It’s a gold patterned Moneta from thirfted spandex. Definitely my favorite dress. 🙂
Great idea to post your round up of sewvember! I took part and thoroughly enjoyed it :-).
It was so much fun! You should do a round up post too! 🙂 It’s great seeing all the pictures together.