Exciting Surrey Sews news! | Latest sewing makes & plans | Me Made May reflections

Hi everyone! Sorry I’ve been a bit quiet lately, life has been busy.

For details of Surrey Sews ‘SewFizzTeaCated’ Afternoon Tea please make sure you follow @surreysews on Instagram – tickets are being released on 1st June. It’s going to be a really fun afternoon, we’d love to see you there!

Today I’m sharing my makes and plans:

Simplicity 9826

Lydia Naomi Meadow Overalls https://www.lydianaomi.com/shop-patterns/meadow-overalls-pdf-pattern-5p472

New Look 6707

Thank you so much for watching, if you’ve enjoyed this video please do give me a like and consider subscribing. I hope to see you here again soon! Tania x

[Music] hello my name’s Tanya and this is my channel just let me so thank you very much for joining me today I hope you are well wherever you are apologies I haven’t been along um around rather for a few weeks life been pretty busy I mentioned in my last Vlog that I’ve just started a new job um working full-time I haven’t worked full-time since I had children so it’s been a bit of an adjustment but the good news is it’s going well working with some really really lovely people I only have to go into the office a couple of times a week as well which is lovely it just makes that work life balance a little bit better easier to juggle as well so that’s going well so thank you very much for coming along today if you are new welcome I hope you enjoy your video this video sorry and if you do please do consider subscribing it would be lovely to have you along I will start off by saying what I’m wearing and this is not a Meade make this is just um a New Look jumper that I actually got in the sale recently um did not think I would be wearing a jumper uh the last week in May but it is currently raining outside it’s miserable and I feel like I’m coming down with a cold so that is the British summer for you isn’t it just never know what you’re going to get last week it was beautiful sunshine this week it’s raining and it’s miserable so there we go what have I been up to since I was last here well um I mentioned in my last Vlog that I was planning a surprise trip up to Scotland to see my sister and my daughter and I went along and it was a fantastic surprise um it wasn’t quite the reaction I was expecting from my sister um I thought she would you know be sort of overjoyed and happy but she was literally Gob smacked when she opened the door she just was like what what are you doing here why why are you here which is quite funny and then when I said oh there’s another surprise in the car for you when she saw my daughter then she was really excited oh my goodness you’re here too but it was just a brilliant weekend it was so so lovely to see her and it makes you realize that life is just too short too precious to not take those opportunities when you can to to be with your family and and your friends so trip was a big success um another thing and a very exciting thing I have to share with you is um I am part of a group called s sews s is in the south of England if you’re not um based in the UK and we have a little sewing group and we are putting together an afternoon tea event so a bit like sort of like the the frocktails events but we’re doing ours in the afternoon so there’ll be tea Fizz cakes sandwiches all that sort of yummy stuff we’re going to be doing um a catwalk there’ll be raffle prizes goodie bag bags all that sort of thing and I am helping to organize that event and we are going to be releasing tickets for that event on the 1st of June so if you are interested in coming along to our afternoon tea it will be based in woking which is in Su really easy to get to it’s a Mainline fast line into London as well loads of hotels and car parks nearby so if you are interested in coming along make sure you follow SAR so I will put the hashtag along the bottom Saros is on Instagram so follow us and all the details of how to book your ticket will be released on the 1st of June we’ve got limited availability of 100 tickets so don’t wait if you want to come along 1 of June be there to come along and get your ticket we’ve also made it as affordable as we possibly can so the tickets aren’t going to be too expensive and um we are also going to be running a challenge so if you can’t get to um our afternoon tea we are going to be doing an online seing challenge as well and details of that will be released a little bit nearer the time so we’re hoping as many people as possible can get involved in the event in some way or another so first of June that is your date to watch out for right sewing what have I been sewing now I have to admit I really haven’t been able to do much sewing at all since I started my new job and I kind of knew that that was going to be the case while I’m trying to find my feet and work out a pattern that works for me for my family how tired I’m going to be and everything I knew I wouldn’t be getting much sewing done and what I’ve been working on is a pair of trousers a pair of work trousers and I thought I would get these sewn up before I started my new job but I didn’t I cut out the pattern and the fabric and unfortunately I didn’t get around to actually sewing them up and I think it would have been much better to have a nice quick easy project to work on while I started my new job because in the evening I’m just so tired I don’t really want to be scratching my head over anything too complicated so it took me a few evenings to get as far as I have which is actually it’s not too far not too bad rather I have done a lot more than I thought I would but they’re not finished so I can’t show you them on or anything but I can show you as far as I have got and I have inserted the fly um which went in quite easily actually um I’ve done the pockets and the pleats at the front and they’ve got a dart at the back and then I’ve sewn up the side and the inner leg seams the pattern that I am using for these is a simplicity pattern that I have shared on this blog before it’s a Simplicity pattern Simplicity s98 26 and it’s one of those great patterns that comes with lots of different things to make up an outfit so these are the trousers that you can have as cropped or long length there’s a little camiso and then there’s a little cardigan as well that you can have so complete outfit so I like this kind of patterns um the nice thing about this new pattern is that they include a QR code for how to do your zip fly insertion which then leads you to a YouTube video video of um is it Britney Jones Britney S Jones doing um a sewalong of how to do it and I really really like videos to learn from a very visual learner and so that’s great it’s not like perfect instructions there still were points where I didn’t quite get what she meant but it was much better than written instructions in particular big four written instructions so I think that might be a new thing that they’re introducing in Big Four is to have that QR code which I really appreciated I would say that they are very very long I’m 5’4 and I’m going to have to chop off at least four or five inches for them um finished garments it doesn’t say on the actual pattern packet but it probably does say on one of the pieces um and they are very very wide as well so looking at the pattern doesn’t seem like they’re that long but when you try them on they are very long so those are the trousers that I have been working on and I’m still working on I need to insert the carriers and the waistband and then hem them and hopefully that’ll be done so they are made in made up in a nice um Navy poly crep quite a heavy weight that I got from gold hwk Road the other thing I have been working on um and I have to say I have been working on these for quite a while is the Lydia Naomi Meadow overalls she released these I think about two years ago and I bought the pattern as soon as it was released because I just fell in love with it I had it printed and I cut out all my Fabric and then it just sat in one of my project wallets all that time and I think the issue was was um I didn’t get around to cutting it out until a little bit later on in the summer so by that point I thought a there’s not much Point making them up now because Summer’s nearly over and then the following summer I’m not sure why I didn’t make them up that summer I thought uh can’t really be bothered or wasn’t that taken with them and then now I’m thinking right got to get them made up so I have now part of the issue as well with these is I made them up in a gray linen and as a sort of wearable TWR which was probably a little bit silly of me because they’re quite an involved make I didn’t know that until I started making them but there’s a lot of patent pieces and it is quite a fiddly make um even though it doesn’t seem it and that paired with the gray linen it’s it’s not really gray is not really like my nicest color particularly for a pair of overalls um so this is them I’m not going to try them on because they’re not finished completely um I haven’t hemmed them and also as they look now they really don’t look very nice at all just in the gray but what my plan is and I’ve already started doing it now is to embroider the front of them so I’ve started doing these little yellow flowers here I’m going to do a couple of other colors and I want the embroidery to go all down the side there as well so it will break up some of that gray and they should hopefully look quite pretty um some of the design features what I really like is at the side so you’ve got the ties there and then your arm comes through there the side bit has got elastic in it which really cinches it in and just sort of um means you don’t flash anything if they are a bit gapy so they’re nice and secure there um it’s got pockets I just went for for the side pockets so just Side Pockets there you can also include massive patch Pockets at the side and this is why they’re called the meadow overalls because she imagines you walking through the Meadows picking flowers and putting the flowers in these big Pockets here which I don’t think I would ever get round to doing I don’t really wafted through Meadows these days so I left those off but nice big Pockets there and you’ve got two options for the ties you can either have them fitted and then there is a zip in the center front or you can have them as the sort of loops and then you tie them up at the front which is the version I went for I think that’s a bit more versatile of how tight you need them less fitting involved for that you can have the F length version or a sort of Romper the Romper length as well so I’ve gone for the Fuller length um so what else can I say about this now I felt a little bit disappointed with the instructions on this pattern because I really enjoy Lydia Nom’s YouTube channel she does these brilliant sort of marathon sewing sessions where she’ll sew up like loads of her own patterns in a really short space of time and she’s so funny she’s um very professional she went to design school and you know she’s she’s a pattern maker isn’t she so she she really knows her stuff but I felt quite disappointed with the instructions because um there are three different formats that you can get your instructions in I printed mine off with fabuloso and I went for the booklet and the booklet seems like a little bit of a wasted resource to me because there’s not a single picture no illustration in there at all it’s just really dense text which for me was just too much you know not even big four do it like this if you want pictures she includes a QR code and you can scan that and that will take you to pictures and there is also a YouTube so along as well so I found it quite tricky um neither one of those three options was clear enough for me that may just be me just not really understanding it very clearly the way my brain works but I did have to piece it together between the three formats you know I was jumping between the pictures and then the YouTube and then the written she leaves off a few times I’ve written it on my my uh booklet envelope um several times she doesn’t mention specifically if you’re doing like right side to right side or wrong side to wrong side which you can work out if you’ve got some sewing experience but I think she should really be explicit on that that particularly with the pictures that she uses the fabric looked similar right side and wrong side so it was a bit harder to tell what she was doing um but yeah I’ve written on here use the photo instructions and YouTube sew along the instruction bookl is hard to understand yeah and you have to look closely at the photos then which is a shame as I said because she’s such a fantastic um SE and YouTuber I think perhaps if she just done a little bit more on the um patent testing and had a bit more honest feedback from patent testers maybe that could have been I andow I don’t know but anyway I may well give them another shot in a in a nicer fabric I’ll see see how I feel so those are the Lydia Naomi Meadow overalls um next thing I am going to start sewing on and I have cut out my pattern sorry my fabric is a new look pattern that I have also talked about in my last Vlog and it’s this one the new look n677 and I’m making the big collar with the frill in a Navy gingham that I talked about in my last video and I’ll try and Link that up here if I remember to so in a Navy gingham um I think it’s like a poly cotton maybe so I’ve got that cut out and I’m looking forward to getting on with that cuz I think it’s a bit of a simpler sew so hopefully won’t take me too long and we be a good one to crack on with in the evening when I get home and I’m just too tired to do anything else next thing I want to talk to you about is my Meade May Reflections now I haven’t really been actively participating in Meade May on Instagram or on YouTube either this year I just found it quite hard to I don’t know to remind myself to take pictures or to even have the energy to take pictures of my outfits and someday I’m not wearing anything particularly interesting or I might wear the same outfit two days running so I just don’t really do that anymore perhaps next year I will but what I’ve been doing instead is just keeping a sort of mental log of things that I am wearing and how I feel about these things that I’m wearing and I mentioned in my last Vlog that I have been feeling some of the things I have in my wardrobe I’ve had them for quite a long time and I wear them out of a sort of sense of obligation that oh I made this so I should wear it but it doesn’t really reflect my style anymore and I don’t really like wearing it but I wear it because I feel like I should so I think there’s that sort of um can’t remember the name of the lady um Marie condo is it who says things should spark joy in you so I’ve taken those things out of my wardrobe that don’t spark joy and I’m going to look at repurposing them or rehoming them somehow so I can sort of draw a line under it and also take stock from it that I’m not really into sort of big florally colorful patterns at the moment I’m preferring more plain Fabrics at the moment things that can be a bit more versatile that I can wear with lots of different combinations to get the most out of my wardrobe and what I did at the weekend was I actually got down I probably tempted Fate by doing this I got down my summer wardrobe um and switched over my Autumn winter clothes I say tempted F cuz it’s now miserable outside and I haven’t really got that much warm clothing to wear anymore because I put it all away and but what I did find when I was doing that and taking out my summer clothes interestingly a lot of my summer clothes I have had for a very long time some of them have been handed down to me for my mom some of them I’ve just hung on to and I was trying to think why that is because some of those clothes I’m not really that fussed by I don’t really enjoy wearing them that much and I think the reason might be because I’ve got in my mind British summer is so short and we don’t really go away on holidays abroad that often I think I don’t really feel like it’s worth the effort of making summer clothes if they’re not really going to get that much wear if that makes sense so I just reuse the same clothes year after year which isn’t really a bad thing in terms of sustainability but it just means that I’m not really that excited by my summer wardrobe so I’m going to have a think about that and what I can do to try and get some pieces into my wardrobe that I really love making I have definitely got things in my wardrobe for summer that I love wearing and I’ve been wearing for good few years and those are there’s a pair of kots that is vintage style pattern I have talked about in this Vlog before um and some short sleeve blouses another vintage fogue blouse v-neck blouse that I wear a lot as well so there definitely are things in my wardrobe that I love wearing but there are some things that I think it’s time to say goodbye to definitely another thing I was thinking when I was doing my summer wardrobe was um I’m not really that Keen on making dresses and I said this again in my last Vlog and I was having a good old think about why that is and what I can do to change that if I want to get some nice dresses into my wardrobe and I think the thing for me I talked about wardrobe malfunctions and I was thinking if I could get hold of some like little black cycling shorts and wear those underneath I’ve seen people wearing them where they sort of very obviously peek out from under short dresses sort of like it you know it’s intentional it’s on purpose and I thought that that would be brilliant then I wouldn’t worry that if my skirt was going to fly up that I was going to be flashing the world because I’ve got some shorts on to cover myself also having two young children you never know when they’re going to get into a little cheeky mode and just yank your skirt up or do something like that so if I’ve got some cycling shorts that might that might solve that problem so I’m going to give that a go and see if that that helps so that is for today um as I said I think moving forward I’m going to be doing some quicker simpler makes and maybe some easy dresses like I said to try and get a dress into my wardrobe and just some nice little summer blouses perhaps as well um and take it from there see how see how that works out in my new routine but I hope you are well whatever you are up to um I’d love to hear what you’ve been sewing are you in summer mode if you are in the northern hemisphere if you are in the South hemisphere are you now sort of Autumn winter sewing and what have you what have you gotten your plans I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s video as well if you have enjoyed it please do give me a thumbs up and consider subscribing it would be really lovely to have you along for my future Vlogs so I will see you next time take care bye [Music] oh