Sew your own advent calendar workshop

Create your own advent calendar that can be used year after year and fill it with the treats you really want!

In this workshop we will cover a variety of techniques, including creating box pleats with a pleating board, sewing with wadding for a quilted effect, sewing piping for a decorative border, and attaching quilting tabs so that your creation can be hung easily every December 1st. Many of these skills can also be used in quilting so this is a great way to dip your toe!

While nibbling on mince pies and drinking some lovely warm drinks (all included) you will make a great decorative centrepiece for your festive home with 24 pockets that you can fill with anything from chocolate coins to Lego, to gin! Whatever takes your fancy 😉

Available dates:

Sunday November 12th 10.30am - 5pm

Saturday November 25th 10.30am - 5pm

Location: Nim Burgin Studio, 27 Murray Street, M7 2DX

Kits are available for just £15 and include:

• Front and back panels (quilting cotton)
• Pocket fabric (quilting cotton)
• Gold wooden hand-painted advent numbers
• 2 meters gold piping
• felt for hanging tabs
• wadding

Advent calendar kit

You will need to bring with you:

• Sewing machine (limited number available if needed)
• Basic sewing kit (scissors, pins, green and red thread)
• Packed lunch.
• The kit detailed above (If you prefer to create your own kit please contact me for the dimensions needed.)

Workshop cost: £50 including festive refreshments throughout the day.

Please email nim@nimburgin.com to book your place and notify if you require a kit.

All workshops are kept small which ensures you get a really good level of personal tuition. Please note that there is a minimum attendance required for these workshops to go ahead. 

Tunic top sewing workshop

Learn to sew this versatile wardrobe staple, creating the pattern from your own measurements. This tunic has short sleeves, a bias-bound neckline, a flattering central pleat, and 2 big patch pockets, or in-seam side pockets. You will take home a finished made-to-measure tunic, as well as your pattern so you can make many more at home!

Available dates: 

Friday 29th Sept 10am-5pm

Sunday 8th October 10am-5pm

Location: Nim Burgin Studio, 27 Murray Street, M7 2DX

Workshop cost: £50 including refreshments throughout

Please send an email to nim@nimburgin.com to book your place.

Workshop sizes are kept small to ensure a high level of personal tuition.

You will need to bring:

• Sewing machine (small number available if needed)
• Basic sewing kit (thread, pins, scissors, etc)
• 1 meter of fabric 150cm wide OR 2 meters of fabric 115cm wide (non stretch)
• fabric for pockets (non stretch)
• 1 meter bias binding to match your fabric

Please note, there is a minimum attendance required for this workshop to go ahead.

Turning John Cleese into The Grim Reaper

Now that it is being broadcast on TV, I can finally reveal that I recently completed a commission for the one-and-only John Cleese! I was thrilled to have the chance to dress this comedy legend as the most gothic of characters: The Grim Reaper.

 His stylist provided me with fabric and trimmings and a tight deadline of 2 days! The requirement was a robe that looked luxurious, and had a train - quite a length for a man of 6 foot 5. 

I created a partially interfaced hood to ensure it draped over his head naturally, but didn't flop down over his face. The edges of the hood and centre-front opening were trimmed with a twisted black braid, and a decorative frog clasp was attached at the throat. The actual cloak was done up with about 25 hooks and eyes all running down the front and hidden.

The belt seen in the screen-shot was added on-set. You can see the cloak in action in the full commercial below. 

If in doubt, make it bigger and add more sparkle

I am always thrilled to hear that the truly divine Jonathan Mayor wants to talk to me about a design, so was there like a shot when, back in June he sent me a message asking to chat about something "fabulously Roman-esque" for his part in the Manchester Pride Parade.

Original sketch

Jonathan wanted to incorporate some red sequinned fabric into his dress, and true to form, wanted an absolute show stopper. "Think big, and then think bigger." With a reference image of Celine Dion in a Stephane Rolland gown for sleeve inspiration we sat down together and drew up a design with a huge, full skirt and kimono drop sleeves with massive shoulders. During his on-stage performances, Jonathan is very expressive with his arms so there needed to be lots of room to move.

As the dress was destined to be big and heavy, Jonathan chose a breathable silk fabric for the bodice part, lined with cotton, with a faux silk habutai for the billowing inserts and faux silk dupion sleeves. 

Sewing with sequinned fabric is always somewhat of an experience, and creating the size and shape of the sleeves was quite a challenge involving a large amount of crinoline and coils of boning all hand-stitched in.

Sparkly heart-shaped buttons were added all the way down the front, and the chest area was left intentionally empty to accommodate Jonathan's wide variety of spectacular jewellery. He also wanted the sleeves to not come higher than shoulder height to avoid crowding his head/headpiece.

To create even more fullness to the skirt part of the dress, a ready-made hooped petticoat was bought online, which also helps to ensure it doesn't get wrapped in his legs when moving around.

Seeing Jonathan parading down Deansgate for Manchester's Pride Parade leading the rugby Spartans, I was incredibly proud too! I can't wait for Jonathan's next vision! 

Back detail

Featured in the Manchester Evening News 

 

Hustling the bustle

The Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre's Costume Hire Department recently commissioned me to create this Victorian style corseted bustle dress in green duchesse satin. It is based on a costume that had been on their rails for 17 years was a very popular plus-sized pattern.

The dustle and draped apron front of this dress take up a lot of fabric, and the Victorians really liked all their trimmings and decorative touches and this dress is full of them. There is a velvet trim bordered with fringe as well as ribbon, and several feature buttons. The corseted bodice has satin covered piping at the seams and edges, and the sleeves have lace inserts and more buttons.

The lace-up back to the bodice means that it can be worn by people of a wide variety of sizes, which is very useful for Costume Hire as you never know who you'll be dressing.

The Costume Hire Department were thrilled with this revamped version of a favourite and have put in an order for another one in purple already!

Never outdress the bride... but get close!

This is Sue, and she wanted a stunning dress for her best friend's wedding in Manchester. I have to say, getting a bespoke dress for these kind of events is THE best way to not only get a gorgeous dress that fits perfectly and is comfortable for a long day, but to also make sure you never have to deal with the often-dreaded scenario of someone else wearing the exact same thing!

Work in progress

We started by looking at vintage-style dress patterns. Sue (like many ladies) wanted sleeves and a tea-length hem. She chose a Vintage Vogue style with a faux wrap bodice which gives a gorgeous neckline, and short sleeves that I lengthened for her.

I created a mock-up of the bodice part of the dress so that I could make all the adjustments needed to ensure a perfect fit, and Sue choose this beautiful cotton fabric with printed gold highlights.

And doesn't she look divine? Swamped with compliments on the day, she now has a unique and personalised frock in her wardrobe on hand for any event.

Gingham drapery

It's festival season, and my client wanted me to create her something drapey and easy to wear that is also unique and eye-catching.

I love working with gingham - it's such a fun weave and looks so bold and shows off the drapes in this shirt perfectly.

It's wrap-style means it's held together with just two buttons (the third is decorative!) so can be worn untied for a floaty, loose look. When it is tied it adds even more interest as the gingham weave shows off the drape and tied bow beautifully.

Having the yoke only connected to the shirt and the shoulders makes it perfect for hot weather too, and stops the shirt feeling like it swamps you :)

This client had also won one of my Instagram competitions for a free bento bag so I was able to make it a matching bag! Quite a coordinated festival outfit!

Making a favourite coat

A lovely lady called Lisa approached me recently with a cashmere/wool mix coat that she wanted a brand new carbon copy of. It had been bought at a charity shop 20 years ago, and despite looking good for it's age, it definitely had seen better days. 

The first challenge was finding exactly the right fabric to make it out of. The cashmere in the original gives a lovely softness that a pure wool just wouldn't give, though we also needed to bear in mind the weight and warmth. There are a huge range of coatings available out there and we went through a lot of swatches before she went for a luxurious navy cashmere/wool/poly mix, with a rich lavender crepe-backed satin lining.

I created a pattern from the original coat without having to take the original part, so she still gets to keep the old one too! I really enjoy how smart a well tailored winter coat looks, and Lisa is thrilled to have a brand new coat in a style she has been enjoying for 20 years already. Here's to another 20 years at least! 

Ruby's birthday frock

I was approached by Ruby to create her vision to knock 'em dead on the dancefloor for her 18th birthday. You only get one of those, so we sat down together and talked over her initial sketch to
work out the perfect design.

Ruby had already bought some red duchess satin and some gold oriental brocade from the local fabric shop, so I was able to get straight on with creating the perfect pattern.

The finished dress has thigh splits either side of the brocade panel, which is self-lined, and the flared sleeves are trimmed with a thin strip of the brocade also.

I had to be very careful when drafting the neckline, (there's a fine line between plunge and indecent!) and with some carefully placed darts in the bodice we made sure that there would be no scandalous 'wardrobe malfunctions'.

The finished dress really reflected Ruby's personality - bright and run and ready for a night of birthday fun, and there was definitely to be no mistaking who the birthday girl was!

Cherry blossom on latex

Experiments with painting latex continue here at the Nim Burgin Studio, with this being the latest result. This is a peplum to be worn over a dress or skirt in 0.4mm jade latex, painted with hand-blended colours to create a gorgeous cherry blossom pattern weaving all across. Watch this space for more developments!

An unflappable Flapper dress

Every other Saturday I head over to the Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre Costume Hire Department to volunteer my time helping people choose the perfect theatrical outfit, and to work on plus-size costumes to expand their existing stock. It was a Saturday such as this, and I had arranged to meet my parents for lunch afterwards when I managed to pour my breakfast all down my front! (Yes, I know - can't take me anywhere!)

Luckily, while I popped my dress in the wash, I tried on a dress from our rails that I'd not tried on before - a red & black 1920's number made by another volunteer. I was really impressed with the fit and the flare in the skirt of the dress and insisted on borrowing the pattern immediately!

The original had been made in a crepe though I was uncertain if I would make mine from the same, and as I needed to have a browse of some sparkly trims for a separate customer's commission anyway, I headed to the Indian and Asian fabric shops. 

As I was only really experimenting with the pattern, I didn't want to spend a great deal on the fabric, but I lucked out with what I found. One of the shops was selling a set of fabrics for making a complete outfit - trousers in plain, tunic in patterned, and sheer fabric for a scarf - all colour co-ordinated and only £5 for a 7 yard bundle! I'll be going there again.

It's quite a light fabric, so my overlocker was needed for every seam to prevent a fraying nightmare. The pattern itself was nicely written out - though I had to be careful with my labelling so as not to get confused by all the skirt gores - good old post-its! 

The red & black version was sleeveless, but with the sheer scarf fabric in my bundle I thought it'd be nice to make the bishop sleeves view that were included in the pattern. I think it makes it a bit more wearable too.

Finally, I couldn't bear not to add a bit of glitter after all the bling-hunting I'd been doing for my sparkly client, so I added just a little trim to the dropped forward shoulder seam above the gathers.

It twirls fantastically on the dance floor and even matches my hair!

LBD in a day!

This Sunday I woke up raring to start work on a beautiful vintage-style commission mock-up, only to discover I picked up the wrong pattern from library! Not wanting to waste 'the zone' my eye rested upon the pattern sat on my desk. It had been a toss-up between this and the shirt dress when I was contemplating what to make over the Easter break. The nautical dress had won out because I had specific fabric in mind for this one, but now seemed a good time to plunge into the Butterick B5794.

I decided to go for the knee-length, straight hem version with the flounce sleeves and cross-over bodice.The pattern has the option to do the dress with a very gentle high-low hem, but I'm fairly sure that would just have come out looking like an uneven hem! Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not a fan.

I haven't done a huge amount of work with stretchy knit fabrics as I find them harder to control than woven fabric, but you only learn by trying don't you? As a result, there's not a lot of stretch fabrics in my stash to choose from that isn't almost suimsuit fabric. In the end I went with a plain black stretch short-nap velour.  Overall it wasn't too much of a problem. I had to stitch slowly to avoid any slipped stitches, but it certainly wasn't the worst fabric to do this with.

The pattern was nicely designed and easy to put together - I was done within the day and even managed to cook a roast chicken dinner in-between!

The plus size lady on the packet was quite amply proportioned in the chest-area if you catch my drift, so I modified the pattern a little to accommodate my less fulsome bust.

The pattern suggests you either double-stitch or overlock most of the seams. I chose to double-stitch because the fabric really didn't fray, but overlocking would have worked well too.

The sleeves are a lovely shape, and there's plenty of room in the armscye, which is a pleasant change from a lot of non plus-size patterns!

I'm chuffed to bits with the resulting dress - it's comfortable and looks great!

Set sail on a summer breeze

There is a whiff of summer in the air - the weather hasn't fully committed as yet, but over the Easter holidays I decided to try and be (optimistically) prepared! The bank holidays seemed like a perfect time to indulge myself and stitch one of those projects that have been in the 'would like to do' pile for longer than I care to consider :)

Burda 7775 & nautical print dress cotton.

While the Burda 7775 does not contain anything overly tricky or fiddly, it is definitely more complex than my first glance had taken account for. Burda patterns are not exactly generous with their instructions and instead of notches, they give points that need to be tailor tacked then numbered which is much more time-consuming! (I didn't bother with most of them except for those around the collar, and just referred to the pattern pieces as I went along.) Also, ALL the seams are top-stitched, so sewing time is nearly doubled.

The doughnut is a pin-cushion - not a mid-cutting snack!

I began to realise that this was going to be a bit more than the quick one-day sew as soon as I unfolded the pattern and saw how many pieces were actually involved! As I'm 6 foot tall, I added an extra 2" to the hemline. I opted not to make the matching belt or belt loops as mine is not a figure that appreciates a dropped waist. I toyed with the idea of cutting the top and skirt panels as one piece to avoid any definition at the low-waist at all, but the busyness of the fabric pattern meant it would be quite forgiving in this respect, and I always like my first make of a pattern to be as true to original designer's intention as possible before I start to experiment with my own adaptions. I find I learn more that way.

Sewing gauge to the rescue!

Part of the pattern prep is to mark your own button placements on both the bodice and skirt front panels (unless you're making the size 10, which they have kindly done for you). This was my sewing gauge's time to shine! Without it I would surely have gotten tetchy quite quickly.

Button hole placement for sizes other than 10 were not marked on the pattern, and the instructions to place your own looked like they made sense upon first reading, but I found that it took a while to get placements I was sure of. 

Assembling the collar was nice and easy, though I did complicate it for myself a little by adding piping. (I felt like the busy pattern needed breaking up a little.) Luckily I had some white piping that I had made left over from a previous project a while ago, hurrah for hoarding! I used a medium-thick iron-on interfacing, and didn't skip any of the steps involving rolling the collar and basting - my experience with coats has taught me how valuable these steps are.

A cording foot for your sewing machine is so useful for details like this.

The pockets on this pattern are an adorable (if time-consuming) addition to this dress. While too small to hold much more than a lip-balm, the pleats make them cute, and a perfect spot to add a couple of cute buttons that would be overwhelming if used for the main opening of the dress. 

Of course I chose anchor buttons for this detail!

Again, I used piping to make the design detail stand out, and my overlocker was essential for the pocket edges - trying to finish all the raw edges on this unlined dress without it would have made it even more time-consuming! I also added white rik-rak trim to the sleeve bands, because who doesn't love a bit of kitsch rik-rak?

Buttons for days!

The choice of buttons for the centre front was much more difficult. I was very torn between choosing buttons that stood out (such as white, or red), or making them almost invisible against the main fabric. I also wanted to somehow stick with my nautical theme without making the 'novelty' aspect overbearing. In the end I was drawn to some wooden buttons which were neither outrageous nor subtle, and had (in my mind at least) some tenuous connection to boats. I'm really pleased with how they looked in the end, but again - 15 buttonholes and buttons are frustrating slow to do when you're so close to the finish line (as you can tell, I can be a smidge impatient!)

Under-arm extension to sleeves and rik-rak.

My final tweak to the pattern was to give myself a little more room in the sleeves. The dress is a little snug all over but as I'm trying to lose weight at the moment, this was desirable. The sleeves were a bit uncomfortably tight though, so I opened up the underarm sleeve seam and inserted some elastic. It's invisible when worn, and means I can go for a long-armed swing-out on the Lindy-Hop dancefloor without worrying about popped stitches.

The design of the dress means that the collar stands quite high and wide on the neck, which feels odd at first, but is quite feminine and flattering as it exposes more neck and collar-bone. It didn't sit well under my close-collared coat though - I'll be bearing that in mind for its next outing. 

A wide and prominent collar.

I made a quick belt from wide red elastic for this dress, to draw attention to my waist and to draw it in should I wear this with a corset in future. Also it seems like a handy thing to own. Overall I'm really  pleased with how it has come out and although I spent more time on it than I had planned, I would make it again, and it's always good to make something for my own wardrobe.

Piping and rik-rak details.

The finished article on an (almost) sunny day!

Bento bag sewing workshop

Learn to make a Japanese Bento Bag in just one evening! This is an accessible project for anyone with basic sewing knowledge or above. You can bring your own fabric or a small selection will be available to use.

This endlessly modifiable elegant design is a project that you will want to make in a hundred different ways. In this class you'll learn to make a lined version with a handle.

Originally designed to tie as a wrap for a Japanese bento lunch, you can add handles, make it huge or tiny, lined or unlined, add closures such as ribbons or buttons, or leave open for a tote or storage. It's so versatile!

Available dates:

Thursday 20th April 6-9pm

Thursday 27th April 6-9pm

Location: Nim Burgin Studion, 27 Murray Street, M7 2DX

Workshop cost: £18  Refreshments and home-made veggie sushi will be provided 

Workshop sizes are kept small to ensure a good level of personal tuition.

You will need to bring:

• Sewing machine (limited number available if needed)
• Basic sewing kit (pins, scissors, thread, etc)

Please note, there is a minimum attendance required for these workshops to go ahead.