Welcome to Michelle Aitken Designs.

Early this morning I returned home to a wet and cold Melbourne after two weeks in the sunny Mediteranean with my husband Jim and youngest child Kevin.

We were blessed with a wonderful holiday cruising from Barcelona to Venice and there was inspiration everwhere I looked.  With hundreds of photos to remind me of the creative thoughts I was having while traveling I hope to get to work straight away designing some more quilts and embroidery designs.  While in Venice we spent a day traveling out to Murano and Burano, two islands about 1 hr from Saint Marks square.  Murano is famous for it's wonderful hand blown glass (some of which I now own!) and Burano for its embroidery and lace.  I especially enjoyed Burano and found watching the local women making lace so inspiring.

Before leaving for our holiday I became a Custom Pattern Consultant with Fit Me Patterns.  This wonderful service is based in the USA, and offers home sewers the opportunity to have their dressmaking patterns sized exactly to their measurements!  Imagine how much more fun it is to sew knowing that when you open that Pattern it will fit you!  I've been using this service for around 6 months now and am so delighted with it that I wanted to be able to share it with everyone.

For a one time fee of $US49 you go online to www.fitmepatterns.com and set up an account.  You will then be given a link to download the measurement form.  This is where I come in, you can go ahead and measure yourself and submit the measurements OR you can get me to take them for you!  Isn't that great?  There are 44 different critical measurements, and it is impossible to do this yourself so you will be able to book a time for me to measure you correctly.  My measuring service will cost you a one time fee of $AUD65.  You can book for a measurement via the Retail Shop, Michelle's Sewing Basket which is in Ringwood, an Eastern Suburb of Melbourne, phone 03 9870 0011, or by email sales@rjmeng.com.au.  If you live too far away to do this in person, but you have a good skype connection we can do it by skype.  You will need to have someone with you who will work to my direction to measure you.  The Skype service is the same charge, and either way it will take between 1 and 1 1/2 hrs to accurately complete the measurement service for you.  Once you are measured and your account is all set up you will be able to order online when ever you like.  The clever people at Fit Me will draft your pattern and send it out to you, full sized and ready to go.  All their patterns can be seen on their website, and you will see that most are based on Simplicity, New Look or Butterick standard patterns.  I've also had a sneak preview of several new patterns that are just being finalized right now and boy they are great!  So great that I am already thinking of what fabric to use to make them up for myself.

Of course if you live in Australia you will know that from our end of the world it is extremely difficult to get wonderful quality dressmaking fabric.  I'm always happy to refer people to Australian Businesses, but they are so few and far between, The Cloth Shop in Ivanhoe, Melbourne and Tessuti in inner city Melbourne (and on line here:  http://www.tessuti.com.au/online-shop) are fabulous.  I regularly use a US fabric shop, Denver Fabrics (http://www.denverfabrics.com) go online and check out their Discount Fabrics for great Remenant pieces.

For more information on my Custom Measuring Serice go to Custom Measuring on the left of your screen.

I was chatting to Suzanne from Fit Me Patterns this morning and had a wonderful idea of digitizing some embroideries that would suit some of the patterns.  There is a darling dress that I wanted to embroider the neck line of, and a jacket that will be terrific to embroider also.  In the coming months I expect to have some finished designs available for you to download, as well as lessons and DVD's teaching you how to do this for yourself.  Watch for more information in, say, June!

I know that for many people learning on their own can be less stimulating than learning in a group.  Groups provide an opportunity to share ideas, and to listen to questions other students are asking.  I am excited to announce that I am going to be conducting classes by Live Webinar once more.  I have scheduled several Webinares and you will be able to purchase and book into these right here click on the product list to the left of your screen for more information.

Live creatively.

Michelle