Tag: dressmaking

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The Machine that Changed My Life: A Love Story

My first sewing machine, dusted off to list for sale

Why can’t I part with it? Yellowing, with a spool holder thick with layers of glue, it’s still in perfect working order. This little Singer Tradition sewing machine isn’t the byword in Vorsprung Durch Technik. It has a fiddly front-loading bobbin, I’ve never managed to get the needle threader working reliably, and it clatters along well below the top speed of my later machines.

It’s not even my most cherished machine. That accolade resides with the early electronic machine I inherited from my beloved grandma, with the once-working metal toy machine used my mum a close second. I also have two beautiful, decorated handle-wound antique Singers, both in need of a good service (and me a good lesson in how to actually use them).

With one of my ornamental antique Singers that I wouldn’t know how to use even if they still worked.

After several years lying fallow under my desk next to a further two spare machines, it was time for this one to find a new home. But I couldn’t do it.

This was the machine my parents, grandparents, siblings and in-laws had clubbed together to buy me for Christmas over a decade ago. The machine two of my best friends from my NCT commune, Siân and Fiona, had taught me to use. The machine that accidentally changed my career and a fair chunk of my life.

I’ve been sewing since I was 5 but sewing machines terrified me. All those sharp things hammering away, grabbing and tugging at your precious fabric. No thanks. My grandma ended up making most of my GCSE Textiles project because I just couldn’t get my head around the machines (she got an A). So I did everything by hand.

I had time and it was just a hobby. Then another great friend had a knicker-making workshop for her hen do. We only had a couple of hours. There was no avoiding using a machine. I took a deep breath, winced a bit and my tense, clawed toes nudged the pedal. Bbbrrrrzzzz. Done. Elastic in.

I did it! That was so easy! That was so quick! It wasn’t me that had been the problem; I just hadn’t had the right machine! It went straight to the top of my Christmas list. I remember thinking this was going to change everything.

The Fabricland Massive: me with Fiona and Siân

Siân and Fiona taught me everything. How to thread it, rethread it when I snapped the thread again, why I kept snapping the thread in the first place, how to change the feet, the stitch type, stitch length and tension. I could run up outfits for my toddlers while they were at preschool in days; dresses for myself once they were in bed.

Friends asked me to make things, then friends of friends, and before I knew it, I had a viable business. A year later, Siân also started her own sewing business and we continued learning together: new techniques, overlookers, coverstitchers, embroidery machines.

More machines have followed in the eight years since and I’ve realised I’m far too sentimental to sell the one that started it all. I do need the space though, so my yellowing Singer Tradition is now on permanent loan to a the mother of a very good friend, whose daughter is going to teach her to use it. Her daughter, my very good friend, is Siân.

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How old is “vintage”?

I was wrong.

Anitta at the 2023 Grammy Awards wearing a black "vintage" Altelier Versace gown from 2003
Anitta in the infamous “vintage*” Atelier Versace gown in Sarah Hambly’s video that had me spitting my tea. *Or is it..?

This week’s tea-spitting moment was brought to me by the otherwise utterly awesome dressmaker Sarah Hambly casually mentioning in her Grammies fashion round-up that Anitta’s Atelier Versace look was, “Vintage, from 2003.”

(If you missed me literally spitting my tea at this, you can catch it below and here.)

Here’s a confession: I believed she was right. I’d assumed that ‘vintage’ stemmed from the French word for 20, ‘vingt’. The uproar in the comments prompted me to check my facts.

I was wrong.

Or possibly not because I can’t find an actual, to-the-year, official definition.

A good year

My beloved dictionary of etymology informs me that ‘vintage’ is actually born of the pre-1425 Old French ‘vendange’, meaning a yield from a vineyard. A grape harvest if you will, as evidenced by going even further back to the Latin ‘vīndēmia’, which itself is formed from ‘vīnum’ (wine) and ‘dēmere’ (to take off). You can see where we also get our words ‘vine’, ‘wine’ and ‘vintner’. And why we talk about wines having a “good vintage” (or not), first recorded in 1746.

No mention of any age, 20 or otherwise. Oops.

Despite the word being used for nearly 100 years (since 1929) to describe something being of an earlier time, I can’t find a firm definition for how old something has to be to be be officially ‘vintage’. At least, not one with universal agreement.

Cheers to vintage

Contrast this with ‘antique’, which seems to enjoy broad acceptance as meaning aged 100+ years old. Just a quick Google of definitions of ‘vintage’ throws up anything from 20 to 93 years or more.

Cars

It also depends on what we’re talking about. Cars have clearer definitions, with only those manufactured specifically between 1919 and 1930 considered vintage, regardless of how old they are at any given time. At odds with the above, cars are officially ‘antique’ at just 45 (11 more months to go for me then), and ‘classic’ at 20.

Lotus Europa John Player Special JPS limited edition driven by then owner Edward Winter circa 1983 possibly at Poddington in a sprint trial.
My dad c1983 in his Lotus Europa, which would now be an antique had he not totalled it in 1984, and a family heirloom had he not sold what was left of it to fund flying lessons shortly before he died (in unrelated circumstances) in 2020. I’d love to know who has it now, to buy it back.

Clothing

For clothing specifically, it depends whom you ask. I suppose traders have a vested (pun intended) interest in maximising the critieria to allow them to sell more so it makes sense for them to include items as young as is credible, albeit tea-spittingly so. Other sources (e.g. Farm Antiques) says most antiques dealers consider 40 years to be vintage.

I have been contacting fashion and textile historians this morning for more authoritative clarity but have had no luck yet; I’ll update the blog when I can.

UPDATE: 10 February 2023

I’ve had a response from the V&A’s assistant curator in its Textiles & Fashion department Claire (no surname offered). She tells me: “Apologies in advance not to be of more assistance. As far as I’m aware it’s not a term we have a specific working definition for at the V&A.”

That’s actually helpful in itself and good enough for me: ‘vintage’ seems open to interpretation.

While spitting my tea was the appropriate initial reaction, I can wipe down my cutting mat and go back to enjoying a fresh cup. 🫖☕️

Vintage, classic, antique?
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Would you do your job free or for a discount?

Have you ever been asked to work for no/less money? How did you respond and how did you feel afterwards?

The Un-Wedding posted this on Instagram today, and it chimed with some recent conversations with fellow designer-dressmakers who have been asked for discounts, or even to work free in exchange for “exposure”.

I’m either not famous enough or too scary looking to have ever been asked to work for nothing by an influencer or celebrity, and the vast majority of people do recognise the value of what I do. (Actually, one influencer didn’t even tell me about her YouTube channel until after she’d booked me).

Who even does that?

However, on the odd occasion I’ve been asked for a discount, it’s been for wedding dress alterations. This tends to be the last thing to be paid for when planning a wedding, because alterations typically happen as close to the big day as possible so your body is the size and shape it will be on the day.

I’ve become a lot stricter – nay, assertive – about discounts, because every single time I’ve agreed, I’ve resented the customer, hated the work, and gnashed my teeth with every stitch. I’m not out to rip anyone off or obsessed with making as much money as possible; I’d have stayed in corporate PR if I were.

I’ve become more assertive about discounts. Sorry, not sorry.

I usually do put in a lot more work than agreed for the sheer fun of it, and on the odd occasion I’ve even waived my fee entirely just because I wanted to.

Top ‘reasons’ people have expected a discount

Below are the reasons I’ve been given for why I should agree to a discount and my response to each:

1. “We’ve overspent on everything else and run out of money.” (Three instances of this)

Think back to before you booked a single thing. Would you have called me – a stranger –  and asked me to buy, say, your cake, or pay for the extra flower arches? Because that’s effectively what you’re asking me to do now. 

2. “The alterations are costing more than half what I paid for the dress!”

Your dress was an absolute steal but is three sizes too big for you, eight inches too long and will need to have most of the lace removed, replaced and re-beaded by hand.

3. “If I pay that much, I will cry.” (Actually the same person as 2, above)

The work you need will take me around three days in my busiest month of the year when im already starting work at 5.30am and finishing around midnight, and if two of those days are unpaid, I will show you bloody crying.

4. Calling me after the fitting: “Can we round it down to £xxx if I give you cash?”

Err, oh. OK. I was caught off, in a flap and acquiesced. But why should cash necessitate a discount? It actually creates work for me because I have to make a trip to a real-life bank to pay it in. Plus I’m far too socialist to not declare any income on my tax return.

This particular person had also given me an unwashed dress to take in that she had worn clubbing and needed for her hen do (lots of fiddly work to the underarm section) and was condescending to her lovely sister in every appointment.

She also spent one fitting on the phone boasting about how much money she’d got another supplier to come down by. I agreed to the discount but hers was the only name I’ve ever made a mental note of to never work for again.

Same same but different

There are some inquiries that might sound or feel like asking for a discount but aren’t, so please don’t feel afraid to ask (and vendors, please don’t feel offended of you encounter them). Asking for a starting price or rough estimate isn’t rude and neither is surprise when finding out the cost.

Not many people have ever bought anything wedding-related before they plan their own so it’s not reasonable to expect anyone to know what things cost.

Manners for makers

A discount means a compromise on fabrics,  my time or both, and you can’t do that with couture. Moreover, I’m not willing to do any of those and still put my name to the result.

Even MORE-over, asking for a discount is rude. Either you value my work or you don’t.

Aah, that was cathartic. Therapy I didn’t know I needed.

Not actually me, but how I’m feeling now
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How to see fewer weight-loss ads when you’re engaged

Planning =/= shredding for the wedding

Fifteen years ago, I was excitedly, a little smugly and absolutely bloody FINALLY making my betrothal to my favourite human official: I changed my relationship status on Facebook to ‘Engaged’.

The effect was immediate. In addition to the flattering influx of likes, comments and messages of congratulations, the adverts in my newsfeed changed. Wedding dress boutiques, honeymoon destinations, venues, and, most noticeably, ways to lose weight. This diet, that meal replacement, hashtag ‘Shredding for the wedding’.

The algorithms that determine the ads you see on social media might be more sophisticated these days. When we changed our relationship statuses again to ‘Married’, I started getting ads for fertility treatments and nursery furniture; my husband to ‘Meet hot singles online in your area.’

However, these algorithms remain slave to market correlations, including that planning a wedding also often means wanting to lose weight. A highly unscientific poll I’m running on Instagram currently says two thirds of people saw more weight loss ads after they got engaged.

Reasons for deliberately changing your body are complex and personal so this isn’t a post about whether ads for weight loss treatments are right or wrong, nor whether anyone should or should not lose weight.

But the issue is close to my heart. Brides sometimes come to me because they dread – or have had – horrible experiences in bridal boutiques. In my own case, I have come through eating disorders so it would have been good to have not had to see these ads.

TIL how to stop weight loss ads on Instagram

So, I thought it would be useful to share a tip I learned today to avoid seeing weight-loss ads, on Instagram at least:

From the menu on your profile page, go to Settings > Ads > Ad Topics. If you’ve not done this before, it’s quite interesting to see what The Algorithm thinks you’re interested in based on your Meta (i.e. Instagram, Facebook, Messenger) activity. If your list was anything like mine, it should also reassure you that the social media companies actually know bugger all about you.

Tap on one you’re not interested in (my first one was Stargate 🤷‍♀️) and you’ll be given to options about it: ‘No preference’ and ‘Show less (sic) ads about this topic’. Even if its slovenly grammar makes you twitch as much as it did me, tap the second option and that should do the trick.

You can then also search all of the ad topics; the one you need is ‘Body Weight Control’. Choose the second option again and you should hopefully start seeing the adverts diminish, rather than your mental health.

The video below shows you all this in 30 seconds.

Please share with anyone who needs to know.

Special thanks to Alysia Cole Styling whose column in Rock n Roll Bride prompted me to find out how to do this.

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If you…

…(hopefully) recognise yourself in at least one of these:

If you trusted me to design and make your wedding dress, veil or part of your outfit this year;

Some of my 2022 brides, plus model bottom right for Rock n Roll Bride magazine’s ’90s nostalgia shoot


If you chose me to restyle or alter your dress;


If you collaborated with me on a styled shoot, design, blog or magazine feature;

Belladonna, from my collection in collaboration with The Pickety Witch


If you liked, shared or commented on my a post, story, or reel, or tagged me in yours;


If you recommended me to a friend, wrote a review or followed me;
If you saved my sanity when a pattern draft/embroidery machine/tax return threatened it (again);


If you sent me your wedding pictures showing you in something I made, or dropped me a message just to say you liked my work;


If you sold me a beautiful fabric, some sparkling beads, or the badass embroidery machine that cost six times more than my car;

No cup holder?


If you sent me a card, flowers, chocolates or pins with heads shaped like bats;


If you entertained/fed/tolerated my children so I could put the extra time into my work;

If you are either of my children and told me you loved me;


If you helped me set up, pack up, ferry my gear or cut the breeze at a wedding fair;


If you taught me a new sewing technique, design trick or social media idea;

Oh look, I just drew my state of mind.


If you made me laugh until it hurt, let me cry until I felt better or at any point made me a cup of tea,

Thank you. You filled my heart, you made my year.

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Why Embroidery Scissors are Shaped Like Storks

You know the little embroidery scissors that are shaped like a bird? I’m not sure I even registered that the bird is a stork, but this week I learned why.

A white woman's hand holding golden embroidery scissors shaped like a stork to cut a thread on some celtic knot embroidery
My embroidery stork scissors at work on a bespoke project this week

Midwives’ umbilical chord clamps used to be shaped like storks, for their association with delivering babies. It seems a clever marketing person noticed that midwives would often work on embroidery projects while waiting the hours and sometimes days for a labour to progress and expanded the range to embroidery scissors in the same shape.

Antique umbilical chord clamp shaped like a stork
An antique umbilical chord clamp

I’m pretty sure midwives today have a bit more to occupy their time, and the appeal of the novelty ornate scissors has spread beyond their original niche.

If you’d like to see the video I made about this, including the story of my youngest’s birth, and the Nutella I hadn’t realised was on my chin, you can find it on my TikTok here.