The 'Sew Over It' book I Won (for my friend...)

Last October was my blog's first anniversary which I celebrated by stash-busting my patterns in a giveaway :) I met a few more sewing friends since (in blogosphere and in real life) and kinda excited that a couple of my old friends shared with me of their interest in this hobby. One got herself a machine around Christmas, while the other is shopping for one as we speak :) I sent a Japanese sewing pattern book I bought back in 2011, 'I Am Cute Dresses: 25 Simple Designs to Sew', to a friend in Malaysia since she wanted to learn to sew herself some tunics and flowing tops and I figure she will appreciate the designs in the book more than I had. :)

As for the other friend, I entered Zoe's of the "So, Zo..." blog giveaway and won for that friend the 'Sew Over It' book! [p/s: Thank you again so muchhh for the giveaway and the book Zoe!!! My friend is ecstatic!] Let me tell you that I can be quite a selfish person... So to make sure that I don't fall prey to my own greediness and keep the book for myself (because let's face it, new sewing books are lovely to look at, smells good, and all the pictures are well, yummy!) in my entrance comment I mentioned to Zoe that I'm entering the giveaway for my friend who is new to sewing!

And somehow, for the first time in my life, the sewing stars align, and I won a giveaway! Can you beat that? Now, why can't I win something I want for myself yet? :)

The book took a while to reach here from the UK, and then after a quick glance over it got locked up with the rest of my sewing stuff for a while. I'm going to post it to my friend this week, so last night I check out the book more closely.

Let me tell you now that I love this book. It's so pretty and well organized! Be warned that I'm not a good reviewer since I ramble rather than string critical, thought provoking, clever observations... (hence why I almost never try to pattern review or review a book), so this is just my opinion on it.

In her giveaway blogpost, Zoe described the book as being aimed mostly at sewing/refashioning beginners (read more on Zoe's description of the book here), while still providing those with more experience things to learn from and ideas to take up as inspired by some gorgeous pictures of the gorgeous author.

Based on my own scale I always insist I am a novice, but I suppose compared to those who are just getting acquainted with sewing, like my friends, I would be nearer to intermediate level. So while I am extremely itching to hide this book for my "collection" and claim to my friend that it never got here, alas I know that the sewing fairy will not look upon this transgression lightly and since it will be so much more beneficial for my newbie-r friend who will be able to grow (and hopefully fall in love with sewing) and try her hand on the easy-to-follow projects shared in the book I will bid adieu to this loveliness.

The author Lisa Comfort who runs Sew Over It, a sewing cafe in South London that this book was named after, included in the book from basics such as introducing the sewing machine, to customizing and altering your existing clothes by resizing or adding interesting details such as beading.

In fact, beading on clothes is something I have always been interested to learn more about - I signed myself up in the "'Embeadery' on Fabric" workshop in the upcoming sewing and stitchery expo in Puyallup, WA next month (I got my tickets in the mail last week, yay! I'm super excited! Join me!!! Or if anybody reading this going, I will be there on the Saturday :) ) The last time I added beads to my sewing projects were the M6204 asymmetrical top and my sewing class dress, which need to be reworked, donated or refashioned!)

One thing she mentioned was refashioning from larger clothes to fit a smaller sized person being much easier (and easier to write about and illustrate I am sure). I do not know of any resource about refashioning or altering a too small clothes to fit a bigger body. For me, this is often the case, as my body changes (read, grow rather than shrunk) in the past decade, especially the past 2 years of post-pregnancy.

Unless I buy/go thrifting some too big clothes with refashioning in mind (which is rare, and sometimes I purchased even smaller thrifted stuff: a red leather jacket and so on), my "raw materials" so to speak are the stash of clothes that I saved up; the too-small clothes from my early 20s up to pre-baby, that I can't part with because of the fabric or design, and thus the challenges to refashion them is greater but still IMO doable. As my confidence in sewing grew, the more I will dip into this treasured box of clothing, take the seam ripper to them and experiment with my refashioning! I do share my refashion projects here on this blog every now and again. :)

Anyways, if anybody interested to get a copy of the 'Sew Over It' book, you can get it from Amazon UK. The US Amazon website do not have it (says it's out of print/limited availability).

I still have a bunch of sewing books to get through, and projects in them to try out... But same as music, movies, fashion trends and so on, I might get on to those when they are no longer popular or in the wrong season ;) Never de rigueur, moi ;) But hey, here I am slowly sewing along and happy as a clam, trendy or not!