Tag Archives: Jones

Hello world!

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So this is my first blog post, I have so much to tell you I don’t know where to start.
Well let’s begin at the beginning. My Mother taught me to sew when I was a little girl. I remember her sitting at the dining room table with her Singer machine on a folded up table cloth. I would sit beside her as she explained what to do. I remember her making me a ballet dress in white with a pink sash and school uniform summer dresses in regulation cotton prints, when I was older she made me a bomber jacket in green corduroy and later still she made me woollen and cotton skirts to help eek out my student allowance.
At the age of 10 I decided I wanted a toy sewing machine of my own, my friend had one and I wanted one the same. Mum sensibly thought that I was probably old enough to own my own machine so for Christmas in that year I got a Jones family CS, a beautiful hand cranked cast iron machine, black with gold lettering. I think it was made around 1910 and is still going strong. It sews straight seams only (backwards and forwards!),is incredibly reliable and I love it to bits.
In my early-twenties I bought my first house and decided I needed a new sewing machine to make curtains and a cover for my newly acquired sofa. So I went to Debenhams in Ipswich and bought a fairly basic Toyota machine which has the added benefit of being able to do zig-zag stitches, button holes and handle stretch fabric. I tried to make a couple of dresses. The first was a success sewing wise but being a pale blue, shirt dress made me look a bit like a checkout girl in Woolies. The second was a much more ambitious wrap dress in a fine cream (what was I thinking of?) wool. It became fairly obvious early on in the project that my ambition had outstripped my skill and that was the end of my sewing career; or so I thought.
Role forward ahem years and I decided to take up sewing again. Mark, the lovely painter and decorator was bought in paint the attic and to build me a sewing space. I had both my machines serviced and I was away!
I won’t say it’s all gone swimmingly, far from it, but I am enjoying myself. I am probably the world’s slowest sewer and being a bit of a perfectionist I can always point out the errors in my garments. Having said that I am getting better and will continue to improve with practice. I’ve had loads of lovely encouragement from friends and from the sewing blogging community. I’ve also found masses of good online resources which help me improve my techniques.
During future posts I will share with you some of the garments I have made. I hope you will come back to join me for this,
Jane