Sewing Space Tours...Lucy's Factory Studio!

Hello! Lexy here with another Sewing Space Tour for your viewing pleasure! Come and have a snoop around a quirky and colourful sewing space, with a big heart - here's Lucy to give us the guided tour...

Hello, I’m Lucy! I live in Staffordshire and get crafty at my studio in a converted pottery in Stoke-on-Trent, and I blog at Smile and Make. I’m an all-round crafter and I enjoy sewing and making anything I can try my hand at, but my current obsession is dressmaking.

Sewing is a real therapy for me - I lost my wonderful husband Michael to a brain tumour in February this year, and sewing has helped to provide a focus and an escape at a time when my world has been turned upside down.

The Cat's Pyjamas

My Instagram followers can take full credit for the title of this post after I showed them a work-in-progress peek the other day - thanks guys! 

This is my second version of the Closet Case Files Carolyn pyjamas. I made my first pair in a snuggly stripe double gauze, with long sleeves and full length trouser legs. The pattern also includes this short sleeve, short shorts version, which I thought would be really cute for the Summer sewn in this lovely lightweight kitty print cotton lawn.

Five Tools for Drafting, Tracing and Adjusting Sewing Patterns

Whether you’re hand drafting a sewing pattern from scratch, tracing off an existing pattern to preserve it, or making fitting or design alterations to a sewing pattern, it’s useful to have a stash of tools to help you do the job. Today I thought I’d share my most-used tools to use for the job… apart from a pencil, of course! I’d love to hear your favourites too in the comments :)

A Lemons Clemence Skirt – And How to Line It

It seems like an eternity away now, but at the start of the Summer I went on holiday to the Italian Amalfi coast – the land of ginormous lemons, lemon trees everywhere, and basically everything made with lemons. So I decided now was the time to dust off this lovely cotton voile that had been waiting patiently in my fabric stash for the right occasion.

Five Tips to Prolong the Life of Your Clothes

Lexy here, and I've been mulling over how to make my beautiful, handmade clothes last as long as possible. After all, who wants to spend that long searching for the perfect pattern and fabric combo, sewing it up with love, just for it to fall apart in the wash?