Brother Sewing UK

There are many ways you can make your own fabric on the Brother XV/Dream Machine and this is just one of them – using the Needlefelting attachment to embellish and even create your own fabric. Before I get into the detail of how you use this attachment, let me just put two common fears to rest! 1. Will it clog up my lovely machine with dust and lint? Absolutely not! As you can hopefully see in these pictures, all lint and dust produced during needlefelting is caught in the little box attached to the needlefelting plate, sitting snugly in the bobbin race (the bobbin case having been removed). The second picture shows the bobbin area after a couple of projects. Not a scrap of dust or lint to be seen! In fact, I would venture to suggest there is even LESS debris and dust than after a good session or two of machine embroidery. All you need to do is to clean out the bobbin area in the usual way – just as you would if you were doing machine embroidery. 2. Those needles look...

Hello again! I’m notoriously terrible at leaving seasonal makes to the last minute so I thought that arranging to write a blog post about this advent calendar would help me finish it on time. Full disclosure: I still need to do a little hand-stitching, but it will definitely be ready to fill with tasty treats come December… I had admired these advent calendar panels last Christmas, but I wasn’t sure that my sewing skills were up to the task. This year, with another 12 months of sewing experience and a fancy new machine under my belt, I fancied tackling something new! I’d love to have a go at quilting, and I thought that this would be a great introduction to some quilting techniques. I couldn’t resist this thoroughly charming panel by Makower, which I got from Escape and Create . This project is quite preparation-heavy. I started by cutting out the pockets with a rotary cutter, ruler and self-healing mat. The instructions didn’t say to finish the edges of the pockets, but ...

I was incredibly excited about the Mayfair Dress  when it was released by Nina Lee  over a year ago and I snapped up a paper copy soon after release. For years I had this favourite style of French Connection dress that saw me through many summers; flattering, comfortable and seemingly suited for any occasion.   I owned versions in various prints, colours and lengths but may favourite by far was a maxi length version. The previous summer I'd been wearing it with too many holes to repair, hoping that the little purple, black and dusky pink print disguised them. It had been on its last legs for a while and sadly French Connection stopped making them a while before. I couldn't bear to throw it out so I couldn't believe my eyes when I spotted the Mayfair and realised it was almost an exact match – I could make my own replacement! Why, you may ask, has it taken me so long to make one? I had a really hard time finding fabric that was going to live up to my expectations...

Black Lace Watson Bra The garment I've got to share with you today has been a long time coming! Bra sewing has been on every one of my project lists for years now as well as goal-setting challenges like #makenine on Instagram . Sadly, other garments seemed to continually jump ahead in the queue, pushing back any plans to make Lingerie. I think my delay was partly due to the fact that this is a project out of my comfort zone, and when sewing time is limited and I'm tired, it always seems easier to sew something that feels familiar and that I can complete satisfactorily without too much thought. As well as this, I was initially really put off by the thought of gathering all the different supplies I needed for this project. The list seemed mammoth in size, and with numerous elastics, fabric, lining, hooks, eyes, straps and sliders on the list, I never felt like I had quite all the right matching bits and pieces for a bra. However, in the end I decided my first bra wa...

This not-so-scary monster is perfect for kids to cuddle up with during this time of year, and with Halloween just around the corner, it is a very easy, spooky sewing project that your children will love getting involved with! Kids will really enjoy being part of the process, helping to pick out the fabric colours, sit on your knee and help guide the fabric as you sew, and what we find especially is that they love to help stuff their new toy. For younger children, it’s a nice idea to make the monster rattle by popping a rice-filled container into the stomach of the monster. And for babies and small children, you can easily replace the button eyes with felt circles to make it completely safe to play with. For this project we used the Innov-is 20 machine by Brother. Just like the many other Brother machines we’ve tried, tested and loved, the Innov-is 20 is a pleasure to use and we couldn’t recommend it more. For this fang-tastic project you will need: 25cm sq of purple fleec...