Be Excellent To Each Other

They did some odd storylines in Byker Grove didn't they?

I suppose Grange Hill did the "realistic, youth orientated" plots, so Byker had to go a bit outside the lines to be relevant.

I remember "Is Duncan an armed robber?" "The nice Tai Chi teacher is an evil cult leader" and of course "Duncan gets blinded in the stupidest manner possible" - everyone at school thought he fucking deserved it.

Yep

Noddy - he kissed Gary in the cinema, to Gary’s surprise (‘Noddy, yer sick mun!!’), and was one of the first times I rememberca kids’ show tackling sexuality, homophobia and a whole raft of issues. It was a great show because of the topics it introduced.

Gary! That was the ruffian I was thinking of earlier.

Tch, it was PJ who was blinded. CANT YOU TELL THEM APART, MAN?

Weirdly, despite Ant and Dec looking completely different I can't for the life of me tell which one is which. Ever.

I also can't remember which was PJ and Duncan. So I tend to fill memories with a weird gestalt Mr Anton Deck who played Mr PJ Duncan.

Dec is the wee one. He has DECreased in size. Ant has a significANT forehead.

I made that up just for you, by the way x

Mimonics

Ant is on the left.

Blimey, not been here in a while! Hello folks, hope everyone is ok
Sorry if anyone has tried to contact me or anything lately, I realised I wasn't in the best place mentally so essentially stopped using the internet for a long time (apart from necessary bill paying etc..., even gave up email), took a sabbatical from work and kinda went back to school-ish to do something completely different... I've got a diploma and everything

Anyway, things are back on track now, so I expect i'll be around here a bit for the forseeable future. I need to be back online as the money is running out, so I need to go back to work

In case you were wondering what my diploma is in, I can make this sort of thing now:

Sweet! Tailor. Just Tinker, solider and spy to go!

Welcome back, Troops!

Great to have you back, Troops! Make me a suit!

Trooper! Lovely to see you and SO GLAD YOU’RE HERE!!

You know, about half an hour ago I tried to post a picture of some sewing I did in the DIY thread but it wouldn’t load. After seeing this I’m definitely not going to bother! What amazing skills! Beautiful pieces! And a massive, massive well done on the diploma. And, again, great to see you back xxxx

Welcome back, Trooper

Ta all, good to be back.

Meems, please don't let me stop you posting your stuff! I assure you mine looks better in picture than it does in person I still have a long, long way to go. Turns out tailoring is quite hard, who knew...

We can talk padstitching, slipstitching, toiles and selvedges now, it's all very exciting. I've just bought a 1959 Singer 306m sewing machine which I pick up on Friday, which i'm very much looking forward to.

edit: this one in fact, look how pretty it is!

Troooooooopaaaaaah!

Welcome back!
Great tailoring there!

Great to have you back, Trooper. You've been sorely missed.

Yo! Trooper! Nice to see you again.

I was going to ask if you had the integrated table! Hngghhhh! Soooo pretty! They are such workhorses, too. I only made a couple of toddler painting smocks (Russell and I had a little boy... he’s just turned two and a half!) but it has French seams, which seemed a bit overkill for something that is destined to be covered in paint and glitter, but kind of laughable an achievement when someone rocks up with actual tailoring!

Oh, I also got out of IT, Trooper. I'm now a freelance writer! Well, sort of. It's not quite paying the bills yet but I'm getting there.

I feel so much happier in all other respects though! I hope your career change does you just as much good.

£80 I paid for all that! Hopefully it actually works

I wouldn't say a French seam is overkill, especially if you don't have an overlocker to hand. Saves you having to neaten the seams up on the inside, and being able to do a good close French seam without catching any material in it is a very tricky thing, I'm nowhere close to mastering it!

It wasn't all tailoring though, first I needed to learn how to sew before the tailoring kicked in, so I made a fair number of other things like these, which i'm pretty proud of too!
Next thing on the list is a greatcoat or frock coat

Good for you dude! Hope it is going well for you.

I'm much happier too, however mine was just a temporary shift, i'll be back in the IT game soon enough to get the bills paid. The tailoring is just a hobby.
I have plans to branch out into something kinda related to the Tailoring stuff in addition to carrying on with IT, but that is a little way off yet and I don't want to jinx it by talking about it too much just yet Need to get cash in the bank to start it up though.

I made LOADS of bags when learning to sew, but I’ve not done much sewing for a few years, so the smocks were just to get me used to my machine again. I do have an overlocker, but I didn’t run these seams on it. They are the simplest little garment ever.

Now that I’m back at the machine though my next project is a trench coat! I’m going to modify it a little, though. I’m going to make it in a grey cotton drill, and change the gunflap into a cloud. Then I’m going to appliqué a few raindrops down the front from the cloud and paper piece the pocket and pocket flap from 6 colours to make a rainbow, and cover each of the buttons in a different colour of the fabric to match. I’m going to have to find somewhere for a sun... perhaps across the back shoulders.

The base pattern is really cute!

Trooper! Make a sewing site! It’s all your hobbies and interests! Computers and sewing. It’s going to be awesome. Ravelry but for sewing. I’m excited already.

Those are cute, did you hand sew the letters on? My embroidery is shocking, we had access to an embroidery machine in class which was awesome though.

One thing you might know, where is the best place to buy fabric online? I'm looking for overcoat wool and my local shops don't have anything with that kinda weight to it.

Great to have you back Troops!!

Great skills too. Come to Lesta! We have loads of fabric shops.

I live really close to a ridiculously big fabric shop, so the only time I’ve bought coat weight wool has been from there, but have a look at Minerva Craft online and look for coat wool, heavy wool or boiled wool. They can send samples if you call. I’ve never bought fabric from them but have bought other things and they are great.

And yes, I hand embroidered the letters, just for cuteness purposes.

Troops! Welcome back.

Ta, i'll take a look. Ideally I need to find a local market that does remnants, but until then online it is!

I've bought a frock coat pattern that i'm planning to modify a bit, as I don't fancy making my own pattern from scratch. I did that for the jacket in pictures and it doesn't quite fit right, i'm not sure my work partner got my measurements as precise as necessary Nothing to do with my block creating or sewing, obviously...

I'm not that far from Leicester (I'm in Northampton these days), I might pop up at some point. I'll give you guys a shout if I do

Remnant Kings are another place to check out online with good prices, though I think their stock just comes in and out randomly so you have to be looking at the right time.

We need a forum trip to Aberkhan.

You know who else you're not far from?

The shoe museum?

Welcome back troops, we missed you.

That would be fab.

Yeah, I was pretty upset to find out it had closed too!

Lovely to see you back, Trooper, always a force of excellence on the forum.
I'm intrigued by your website - what's with all the trainers?

Hi Trooper!

Welcome back Trooper That's some sharp looking sartorials you've got going on there

Well, isn't that a thing. Looks like somebody has squatted my domain while I was offline, or maybe I didn't pay to have it renew?

Yup, I didn't renew that one, ah well!

How's the MX-5 going?

Hey Trooper - good to have you back. Wondered where you'd gone

That got sold a long time ago I only have one car these days, a Subaru Outback 3.0Rn. It's worth very little, quick, terrible for the environment and costs a fortune in petrol, so pretty much the perfect car.

I have a 2002 Mercedes CLK320 now so know how you feel.

While you've been gone, Hearthly has changed his car 47 times. I believe he's eying up the 48th.