Christmas Party Pastille Dress

Crikey, this post has been a long while in the making!

I received the Colette sewing handbook last Christmas from my Grandma. It was an absolutely brilliant pressie as I learnt a lot reading through the pages, but the colour palette in the book, along with some of the rather fitted/ floaty sleeve-ness of the patterns made it a little difficult for me to visualise myself in any of them.

When I was thinking of making a dress for my works' Christmas party I thought it would be a good excuse to give these patterns a try, and the pastille on the front cover caught my eye. I liked the subtle sweetheart neckline (not the bow... too twee for me) and the sleeves which aren't a separate piece, something I hadn't done before. I knew such a fitted straight skirt would not be a good look on me, though I did swap out the skirt for a straight one in for my stars in their eyes dress. However, looking closely at the picture I could see that the skirt was a separate piece from the natural waist, so it would be an easy job attaching a skirt I liked.

I used the digital rose print fabric I picked up at the Birmingham blogger meet-up, and fully lined the bodice.


I decided to make a muslin of the bodice for safety, and found that something strange happened when I calculated the sizes. I had to cut out a size 6-8  shoulder/ bust but a 14 waist? I think I did a calculation wrong as when I tried this on it was all kinds of wrong, I then cut an 8 waist (in fact I trimmed it to a 12, then a 10 and then an 8!)

Even after I had done this the triangle darts did not work on my body (lucky this was a muslin!) I then pinned the darts closer to my body to fit as I wanted, and I ended up with a close fitting bodice, and half moon darts. Has anyone else ever ended up with rounded darts? Is this a thing?

I used the muslin as my lining, and made the following dress. I finally got round to taking pics of it last weekend! That's a whole 8 months ha ha ha.

I put on a bit of weight after Christmas , and the wedding, and holidays... so this dress became a little bit tight. You can still see in the back it could probably do with a teeny bit more ease, but I've lost most of this weight now so I'm not worrying about it.

I took these pics with my shiny new Pentax Q10, which is somewhere between an SLR and a standard digital. Having no knowledge of how to use the SLR (and no real inclination to learn) was infuriating, so Mr. T got my this for my birthday, it feels a lot more manageable. There are still a lot of settings, but I'm not feeling overfaced any more which is good.

I've taken another whole bunch of pics, so expect some more regular viewing for the next few weeks.

Holiday..!

Makes you feel so nice

There have been a flurry of holidays here, I spent a week in Donegal with Mr Ts family, relaxing, drinking too much red wine, walking about, kicking butt on the pitch and putt, getting burnt on cloudy days, standard british holiday goodness.

Also it was my birthday on Sunday! So I went camping, for the first time successfully getting a group of my friends on holiday together! (believe me this is a feat in itself). Here I got burnt again, played a viking game called kubb and narrowly avoided hurricane Bertha. Safe to say 26 is a good year so far.

And now we've just booked a holiday in amsterdam for next week! It's all holiday here. On that note, I'm going to be sewing with the above very soon... still don't know exactly what I'm going to do, but now I definitely know it has to be amsterdam worthy!

See you on the other side.

Sister feathers dress

As part of my continuing challenge myself to do things plan I've been making clothes for other people. I want to learn all the neat tricks for fitting, as well as getting myself out of my comfort zone of clothes for me. I have specific tastes in clothes, and though that's awesome for me it means I don't get much opportunity to make things that are a bit different. 

My sister has a whole set of completely different clothes/ comfort zone. Check out her pinterest board to see some of her style. So for her birthday I decided that I wanted to make her something special. 

You may have seen this fabric on Charity Shop Chic recently. I also picked this up at the Minerva meet-up recently, which was a fantastic day. I love seeing how people use and interpret fabrics in completely different ways, do you know of anyone else whose used this glorious fabric? Here I have used the fabric in a single layer for a floaty soft garment. The pattern is from Lekala, a rather unusual russian website where you input the measurements and they send you a bespoke dress pattern to print off. I wouldn't use it all the time, but they had a dress that I liked (sans collar) so gave it a go. The instructions were pretty hilarious, basically 1. attach sleeve 2. sew together ha ha.

I won't lie it was a bit of a bugger to sew. I mean sure it slips and slides around a lot which is the usual for this sort of fabric. But unfortunately the print is almost a sort of coating, so when I used my usual thin needle, it was catching threads and pulling. With it being such a dark colour when it pulled it was really obvious with a big white line. Therefore I swapped for a thin stretch needle. Because of the ballpoint, instead of piercing the fabric it slips to the side of the threads thus limiting the number of pulls.

No pattern matching here I'm afraid. Hopefully it will fit and my sis will treat us to a pic of it in all its glory. So nerve wracking sending something off and hoping for the best. Hope you like it sis! 

Refashion Skirt

Certain ones of these posts are from quite a while back, I have such a backlog of projects that I can't quite remember the ins and outs of the pieces I'm talking about :-S But the sun is shining these days so I'm getting pictures taken, which was my main issue before.

It's not like the darkness in the photos really puts me off, I'm definitely not the worlds best photographer so a little bit of light is probably not going to make a huge difference to what my skills can manage. It's just that when it's light I feel like I can achieve things, I can be bothered to get changed, and sweep the garden, and maybe even change shoes. I never can be bothered to put on make-up, but I never really wear make-up so that would be kind of weird. Though I did for my last make and enjoyed it, I guess it depends on the day.

So anyway, here is my next project! This was a refashion project, I bought the skirt in a shop in Stockbridge. It was full length and I typically didn't take a picture of it before I started. But here's a pic of the finished project!

Just to confuse you, I took these before I changed my hair. The waistband was a little small, but it used elastic so I knew I could make it bigger. I unpicked the waistband, evened it out into a rectangle rather than a triangle... not my sort of thing. I added a full lining of white muslin to give the skirt body as it is a very soft drapey fabric (not sure what it is but it's lovely).

I kept the original pleats in the skirt, and shortened the length considerably. It is now a perfect sunny day skirt for work with a shirt (like in this pic) or at the weekend with sandals. It turned out once I made all this that the waistband was a bit too big, son of a gun!! So I just stitched the back together pinching out 2cm either side at the back waistband. At some point ill replace the elastic and then it will probably fit fine. 

That's it! Signing out

Zig Zag Cami Dress

Next stop on the list of challenges, a shirt dress! I love wearing shirt dresses, I wear them all the time and so I thought I'd give a collar a go. Plus I promised Mr T a shirt (i must be mad) so I thought I could make myself a collar on a dress without anyone scrutinising, bit of a practise.

I used the Pauline Alice Cami shirt dress. I found the pattern pretty easy to use, but I think the fit needs a little bit of work. Look at the pattern matching across the front.. what? Feeling like a winner. Also I dyed my hair again, bit of a last minute decision, went to boots and figured I needed a change. I did the double dye by tying the bottom of the hair in pig tails and dyed up to where the pony tail started. It's not the most even dye but I like it.

So yeah, the fit. I think it may be time for a full bust adjustment... dun dun duuuh. This dress stretches across the front, and there's some gaping at the side of the bust. So yeah, next time I'll give an FBA a go.

Other issues are around the shoulder/ arm area. There is a little bit of bunching at the top of the shoulder. This is only my second time setting in a sleeve though so I think I just need a little practise. However, the shoulder line should be on the edge of the shoulder and is actually a little high, so I think the pattern needs extending out a cm or so.. plus even though I measured my arm against the pattern piece it is a little tight on the arm.

So a few changes to be made to the pattern but otherwise pretty happy.

Here's the back! I put loads of pleats into the top, I like the look of these smaller pleats, and I used the whole width of the fabric for as much extra skirt as possible. Plus pockets of course, I like the inseam pockets on the pattern, they are just the right size, and have used them again in my most recent make.

The collar went really well (even if I do say so myself), though I found the instructions on the pattern a bit difficult to follow as a first timer. I went to the website and looked at the sewalong for some guidance but again... didn't really get it. I therefore looked at the archer sewalong for a bit of help (figured two -alongs are better than one) and it was so much easier to follow. I'd definitely recommend it. 

So I love this dress! I love the fabric, and the brightness and the fact that if you get too close to it you get a headache ha ha. If you're making your own clothes, whats to stop you making something you really love, especially if it's super bright. Therefore I submit this as my Oonapalooza make for July. Read more about Oonapalooza and the wonderful woman who inspired it here.

And in her honour, here's a gif of me dancing around... with much more of an attempt at modelly face, in honour of Oona.

Dino Kelly

Dinosaur fabric! Skirts! Hoorah! This is my first rendition of the Kelly skirt, and it definitely won't be my last. I took a lot of time over this skirt, and added in a couple of extra details to make it more faancy.

The waistband has stretched out a little unfortunately (it's a light blue/ grey teeny cord). I think I might add a little elastic, to the back of the skirt. The main fabric of the skirt is unpholstery/ canvas Cath Kidston fabric. It was pretty thick, and it makes the skirt a-line stick out really well. I did flat-felled seams on the sides, to make the seams lie flat.

I made piping for the pocket, and covered my own buttons. I love this fabric, the colours are amazing! 

And it has super deep pockets!

Not much more to saw about this skirt pattern, the instructions are easy to follow, and I'll definitely be making more

Victory Juniper Trousers

Hello! Wow that was quite a long blogging break I had, wasn't it? Apologies, life got a bit mental around these parts, and other things had to take priority.

But I'm back in business, and the first thing I have to show you is my first pair of trousers! Those of you who know me can confirm, I haven't worn trousers since my first year of university (a surprisingly long time ago now). After eating too much dominoes and ben & jerrys ice cream, I put on some weight and the trousers I had looked like they were going to pop. Sure I could have bought new trousers, but this was the year the skinny jean arrived, and I've basically stayed away from trousers ever since. I don't suit skinny jeans, this may not come as a shock, but I feel like shops haven't worked out that they don't suit everyone so I'm putting it out there on the internet so maybe they'll notice... skinny jeans suit 1% of the countries females..!

So anyway, rant over. Ive decided to challenge myself more! How will I know if I can achieve a fly zip/ rain coat/ hot air balloon unless I try? So this is challenge number one, a pair of Colette Juniper's with a fly front zipper.

Look how grumpy I look! Ha ha, must have had the sun in my eyes, but this was a good picture of the trousers so whatever.

They're so gloriously wide! Like a pair of quiksilver jeans I had as a teenager. I brought them in at the knee a little to give an indication that there really are legs under there. But otherwise I stuck to the pattern, which I found pretty straight forward. I know that some in the blogosphere have had problems with Colette patterns but I seem to be of the size/ shape they are making the patterns for so these trousers fit really well. 

I am also wearing a Colette Sorbetto. I inverted the pleat on this and then let it kick out at the bottom, very comfy weekend wear all round.

I made these for sew for victory, hence the dig for victory theme of the shoot! The top has little spitfires on it, I got it from a swap at last years Birmingham meet up, which the lovely almond rock donated. See what she made with this material here. I did make these in time of the deadline! So proud...but didn't post in time. Ah well, deadlines were never my strong suit. 

Hope you've enjoyed some of the sunshine, (in between the massive downpours).