Free delivery on UK orders over £50*

Your cart

Your cart is empty

A beautifully designed workbook for makers!

Maker’s Workbook is a sewing journal which contains space to record the details of  25 sewing projects, get on top of your stash, and plan your future makes.

The A5 size workbook made of sturdy kraft card, it’s spiral bound so it comfortably lies flat on your workspace. Record all your sewing projects
A contents page made by you as you record your dressmaking projects! The workbook contains enough space for 25 projects.

This is where the action happens! Enough headers to gently guide you into making useful notes as you go along. Imagine your joy when you come to make your 2nd version (or 50th for that matter) of a garment and finding you don’t have to make all the same mistakes again. This useful sewing notebook helps you keep all the handy information together in one place.

And room for a little fabric swatch! What more could you want? 🙂

Design your future dressmaking projects, squared paper and a set of female body forms will help keep your doodles for ‘next time..’ all in one place.

Plan your next sewing project, make a record of the sewing patterns you have at home and log what fabric and haberdashery they require. Take your Maker’s Workbook with you and you’re all set for unexpectedly spying the perfect fabric on your travels, checking the pattern requirements (and not going home half a metre short!)

Of course there’s also room to list out your stashed fabrics and their sizes, keeping track of what’s in those boxes might stop duplications (no promises!)

Sewing reference, a quick run through of correct sewing machine needle for your fabric and a handy a metric to yard conversion!

A beautifully designed workbook for makers!

General tips and points to remember…

  • The terms jersey, knitted and stretchy fabric can get used interchangeably, not just here but generally as you look around online you’ll see these terms being used to refer to similar things.
  • This fabric can be made from a variety of fibres such as cotton, viscose, modal, polyester, wool and bamboo. Usually they will also have a percentage of a stretchy fibre such as elastane or spandex.
  • The thickness or weight of them can be described in grams per square meter but as this number is hard to put into context and isn’t always available more subjective terms can be used to describe them such as light weight, medium weight etc
  • They can also be referred to with special more technical names such as ponte roma, double knit, single knit, sweatshirting and loop back. I’ll cover the most common ones below in more detail
  • I've tried to keep things are relevant as possible for the home dressmaker. These is lots of other more detailed and technical information out there but I hope this summery helps you understand more about this great fabric and how to sew it into your handmade wardrobe.

How to work out the amount and type of stretch

They stretch in different ways by different amounts. Some fabrics have a two way stretch and will stretch between the selvedges. Some have a 4 way stretch and will stretch lengthwise as well as between the selvedges. Use a swimsuit as a way to remember - it’s a 4 way stretch as it must stretch the length of your body as well as the width of your body.

The percentage of stretch refers to how much the fabric physically stretches, NOT the percentage of stretchy fibre (spandex or elastase) that is in them. Sewing patterns will typically as for a minimum percentage of stretch the fabric must have.

Why is percentage stretch important?

Sewing patterns designed for this type of fabric are typically designed with negative ease. This means that the garment you make will be smaller than your actual body measurement so that it stretches and fits around you. That’s why it's really important to use the right amount of stretch, otherwise you won’t be able to get the garment on/off or move in it!

How to use your Stretch Percentage Measurer

If you’re using a pattern which is designed for jersey fabrics then it will probably tell you the stretch percentage that the fabric you use needs to have. This is different from the stretch content, which is how much elastane or lycra is in the fabric.

Step One

Hold a 10cm section of your fabric, stretch it as far as it will comfortably stretch, without over stretching

Step Two

Every centimetre over 10 will correspond to 10% of stretching. So if your test piece stretches to 14cm, then the fabric has 40% stretch.