this that and the other: blog hop, lisette 2245 & giveaway

this blog hop has been hoping and hoping – it seems like quite some time ago i read an early post and its still going.  thanks to leith from sew brunswick for nominating me.  i love her style and envy her alteration skills – she always gets a fantastic fit. she's also loads of fun, recently we met up in sydney and had a great afternoon of sewing chat while our 4 boys (2,3,4&5!) played at the park.  perhaps i did a bit of play too.

why do you blog?

1. contribute to the online sewing community, as i find pattern review blog posts invaluable when sewing a new to me pattern.

2. meet people who share the same hobby as me.

this is the first dress i made after i started reading pattern review.com and then blogs around 2 years ago - simplicity lisette 2245.  i wore it to a grand final party in 2012 for sydney swans v hawks and this is me wearing it again a few weeks ago at this years swans v hawks grand final.

after reading more and more blogs i decided i wanted to become a blogger - then it only took me about a year longer to start one.

what are you working on?

i have just finished a linen camber dress, but it doesn't actually look much like a camber.  in the past i was a bit less persistent with my sewing and would throw something that wasn’t working in the ufo pile.  now i try to get a wearable outcome so i will often change things in patterns as i sew.

how does your blog differ from others of the same genre?

my blog is a pattern review type blog, in that i try to give key info about a pattern for a sewer who is after some info before sewing it.  having said that i find it pretty exciting that a bunch of people have decided to follow my blog too!

the main difference is probably that my blog does not look nearly as slick, fun and inviting as so many others as i am very low-fi on the tech front. i hope this improves one day!

what is your writing process?

i take some photos, upload them, order them and then write a couple of paragraphs between each photo.  i would like to say that the focus is on a reasonable photo of the garment and not me like lara – but that would be a lie. i try to provide key info eg, pattern, where i got the fabric, the size i cut, construction info and alterations.

where does your blog name come from? (i added this question after seeing it on funkbunny!)

when i started my blog i turned to google for name inspiration.  i googled ‘singer sewing machine’ as my first sewing machine was a singer and came across ernest flagg, an architect who worked for the singer sewing corporation in the early 1900’s. he worked in the real estate part of the corporation and according to wikipedia was responsible for some of the first planning zoning and height controls for manhattan.  my day job is an urban planner so i was sold as soon as i read about him.  i also like that my blog name is masculine, but sewing is mainly a female hobby.  i don’t think i will ever tire of getting introduced as ‘ernest’ either!

back to a bit more sewing here’s 2 other lisette 2245’s i made quite quickly after the first red one.

i quite like the black one made from sateen and with short sleeves - it has had quite a bit of wear.  the colourful one is made from liberty but unfortunatey I find it pretty blah and don’t wear it much.  the bummer about the dress design is that it is made from smaller irregular shaped pieces so i am yet to work out how i could cut it up and sew it into something else.  its my first and only liberty piece to date and it’s a bit of a thumbs down for me.

as i said above i am genuinely chuffed that a bunch of people out there on the www have decided to follow my blog and recently i reached 100 followers on blog lovin’.  to celebrate i am having a giveaway, open to anyone and i will post the loot anywhere.

i have a tessuti remnant of about 1m (cotton voile?), a butterick jacket pattern and if you or someone you know happens to be pregnant a kwiksew maternity dress pattern up for grabs.  both patterns are unused.  all you need to do is leave a comment and say which one/s you would like.  the giveaway will close on sunday 2nd november 2014 and i'll announce the winners soon after - should more than one person want the same item the lucky recipient will be selected randomly.

thanks for reading! lastly i would like to nominate renee from nearest the pin for the blog hop. i was lucky enough to meet her recently, always love her fabric choices and would love to hear more about her.

emma