Brilliant Halloween Workshop!

October 25, 2026 Bianca Silva

Hello, hello!

The weather feels like it has taken a sharp turn! It has been freezing outside lately and our heating has gone off this week too! 🥶

It’s jacket, scarf and boots weather though which I love to get dressed in. I much prefer getting dressed in layers for the cold than I do for summer.

I don’t know about you but I’m not one of those people that has a winter wardrobe and a summer one and it gets packed away depending on the season.

I have the same clothes out in my cupboard all year and I try to mix and match to get the most of them.

Yes, some garments are only for winter, but not that many that would make me want to pack it in a box for months.

So, this week in college we did some layplanning.

With our final skirt draft complete, it was time to lay it out on different fabrics to see how best to cut them out.

We were put into groups of 4 to see which group would be able to use the least amount of fabric to cut the skirt out.

Now I am a little competitive when it comes to things like this, so I pushed my group to get the best results! 😂

We used a check, striped, suedette and plain fabric to lay our pieces out and we measured to the millimeter!

We had to take into consideration the grainline, the nap and matching prints across the front and back yoke of the skirt.

We also needed to measure the width of the fabric, if it could be cut on a single layer or folded, and if the pattern pieces needed to face the same direction or could they be top and tailed.

We were 3 groups and each group won one of the fabric layouts. And we could have won the 4th fabric, but we lost literally by 3 millimeters! I think they cheated! 😂

This last class before half term next week marked the end of the skirt brief we were working on, but we got homework for the week off! 😶🌫️

We got a printout of lots of different styles of skirts so we could identify the style and any other characteristics we could see from the pictures, like the fabric.

We also need to put together our own sketchbook or powerpoint in which we have cutouts of more skirts and add a description to each.

Then a year long project we have is to make another presentation (powerpoint, sketchbook, moodboard style,..) where we research in depth about natural and synthetic fibres.

I really want to try and get a little bit done each week on this one so I don’t leave it for the last minute because 8 fibres were specified to research on. Fingers crossed I manage! 🤞

Christmas Dinner

I will be “closing” the bookings within the next few days so I can give a final number to the restaurant and then we (or I) can start planning what to wear! 😂 💃🏼

If you can join us, please RSVP with the link below so I know we have reached our limit for our reservation.

There are quite a few of us already going, plus it’s an excuse to make/wear something festive and enjoy a lovely meal with each other.

RSVP here!

Stitches of the Week

BeeSilva - New Pattern

A little more progress has been made on my new pattern!💃

I can’t remember what my last update to you was, but I have a completed front and back cover, a completed page 1, a half done page 2 and half done gusset.

I am making the gusset a little deep because my thought process is that when the organiser is filled with notions, it will be bulky. If you want to keep some fabric for a project in it too, you’re going to need some extra space as well.

What’s left to do is finish page 2, in which I’m only missing the back side of it, and do the gussets for both the cover and interior pages.

This is going to include a zip opening for the outside, bound pages for the inside and I think I’m attaching them together with snaps or something similar.

The end is not that far away, but I need to make another sample to see if all measurements match and if my instructions make sense.

Then it needs to be transferred to a Canva document, proof read again (more like multiple times), and the pattern digitised.

All pattern pieces are rectangles and I provide all measurements for them in the pattern, but I think it’s good to offer the option to print them too.

I know I prefer to work with pattern pieces, so others probably do too.

For fabric, I had started with a fat quarter pack, but I’ve used it all up and have had to use extra fabric for the gusset.

Materials: Cotton, vinyl, mesh, foam stabiliser, batting and lots of zips.

Size: Big enough to fit an A4 booklet in.

BeeSilva - Halloween Adult and Child Workshop

We had a really fun and successful day at the first adult and child workshop!

All the children carefully planned out their main panels with iron-on patches and ric-rac and they did an amazing job!

They got the patches in the perfect spots and fused them into place. Some of the patches needed a lot of heat because they were quite fluffy, but they all looked really cute!

Lots of different coloured ric-rac was used and not just in your Halloween colours - silver and pink too.

The bags are completely reversible so for the other side, the children chose their favourite Halloween print from the selection I had.

They also chose which colour handles they wanted and one child chose one in each colour! So creative!

In the middle of all this, the adults were simply assistants in the making of their bags helping pin everything together and using the iron. 😂

Thank you so much for coming to the workshop and making the first one such a success! ♥️

June Tailor - Insulated Lunchbox Tote

This project was sent to me by Sewing Street for my live demonstration!💃

I got 2 of these kits and fabrics for both. One of them was for me to make a sample and the other is for my live demo.

The sample has now been completed and I love the fabrics that they sent.

Polka dots and bright colours!

The kit comes with a pre-prepared zip that already has binding sewn to it, so all you need to do is sew the fabric binding to the bag panel.

It makes life so much easier if you’re scared of sewing zips.

The lunchbag turned out a lot bigger than what I had imagined, even though the finished measurements were provided, it still didn’t sink in.

And I actually haven’t measured it to see if it came out the right size.

The plan is to give this one to one of my daughter’s and make another for the other so we don’t have drama.

I’m actually not sure if I get to keep any of it, or if I need to give it all back when we’re finished but I will soon find out.

I’ll be demoing this project live on the 17th November at 7am!

Materials: The June Tailor kit comes with insulated batting, zippity-do-done zip, straps and instructions. Fabric provided by Sewing Street.

Size: 10 x 6 x 7 inches

The Drama: I unpicked my quilting on one of the panels 3 times because I wasn’t happy with how it was sitting!

The Win: A simple make made more exciting with the fun fabrics!

Jaime Dorfman (Jaime Creates) - Bright Like a Diamond Cardigan from Fast and Fabulous Knits book

This is going a little bit slower than what I anticipated!

It didn’t help that I drove to college this week and last instead of getting the tram, because that’s where I normally spend about 1hr30 knitting.

But I did get my weekly 20 minute knitting session during my daughter’s karate class.
The back that I messed up is now fixed and the shoulder seams are sewn together too.

I’ve now started one of the sleeves and it’s coming out nicely but I’m questioning all of this bulk. 😅

Obviously I know I’m working with chunky yarn, but I don’t think I’ve ever made myself something that felt quite this chunky.

I don’t think it will fit into any of my jackets either.

This aside, I think it’s looking really nice - the stitch design and the colour!

I am missing my socks though. 😅

Yarn: So Crafty Chunky Yarn in Green

Size: XS and added 8 rows to the bodice for more length.

Needle Size: 9mm needles. I should have gone a size bigger I think.

The Win: Mistakes were fixed.

The Drama: Is it too bulky? 🤔