Sarah’s Sewing Space

Welcome to Sarah’s Sewing Space! I am new to both blogging and sewing knit fabrics. My goal of this blog is to help other beginner sewists gain the confidence to start making their own clothes.

I am a Canadian and a mother of two young girls. As I am writing this post my eldest daughter is 2 1/2 years old and my youngest is 6 months old. I get my love of sewing from my mom. My mom has worked at 2 local quilt shops, both working the retail side as well as teaching beginner courses. My mom used to make my sister and my Halloween costumes every year. We had a fun tradition of going to Fabricland, picking out a pattern and the fabric then helping my mom put it together. It was always woven fabrics as my mom didn’t like working with knits.

I made a few things for my nieces over the years, things like small quilts, a nursery set, tote bags, that sort of thing, but it was always under the watchful eye of my mother. Until April.

Back in April I was pregnant with my youngest daughter. I was looking forward to warmer weather, but knew that when I was pregnant with my eldest I couldn’t find maternity shorts in a length I liked. They were either capris or short shorts. What I was looking for was more of a bicycle length. One day I was on Facebook and saw one of those suggested group posts based on groups that people on my friends list were in. The group was called Patterns for Pirates PDF Pattern Group or P4P for short.

I decided to check out their website and looked in the Free section only to discover that they had a free leggings pattern with a free maternity add on. I decided to download the pattern, because “why not?” it was free! In the pattern instructions there was a link to a video of how to put the leggings together. It looked so easy! I figured I could do it. I bought the fabric, took it up to my parents’ house and with my mom standing over my shoulder I made my first knit fabric project/ first piece of every day clothes for myself! From that day on I was hooked!

I started making my own maternity and nursing clothes and clothes for my girls and as gifts. I have definitely caught the bug. I am now a confident beginner and don’t need my mom to look over my shoulder anymore but I still have to ask one of the sewing groups on Facebook that I’m in for help every now and then, or watch videos on You Tube.

For me, sewing is my “Me Time” my way to unwind from the challenges of motherhood. My 2 1/2 year old is a sweetheart, but currently going through the terrible twos and my 6 month old has had some medical issues since she was born, and has been in and out of the hospital. She is a sweet and smiley baby when she isn’t screaming her head off because she’s uncomfortable or in pain, or hungry but doesn’t want to eat. The poor girl has acid reflux, food allergies and has been diagnosed as being failure to thrive. We just can’t get her gaining weight properly, but we are hopeful that now that we have identified that she has allergies that she will start improving.

Due to her size I still have to wake her up in the middle of the night to feed her, but I’m not particularly good at waking up when my alarm goes off (don’t want to wake my husband or toddler by putting my alarm too far away) so I often stay up and sew until it is time to get my daughter up and feed her (assuming I’m awake enough). The gives me some time to destress and get something productive and fun done.

My goal with this blog is to introduce you to some of my favourite beginner patterns, useful tips and some great Canadian fabric suppliers.

I hope you enjoy my blog and that I can inspire you to start creating!