Jumping on a trend

I jumped on the maxi skirt trend (I jumped on the maxi dress trend some time ago but have only blogged one of them so far)!

I decided to jump completely wing it (which isn't my normal style) and just bought a length of fabric (rayon challis I think), cut it in half, sewed it together at the side seams (the selvage), gathered it, then attached it to a length of wide elastic which I had fitted to my waist and then did a wide, blind-stitched hem.

Very comfortable, very easy, very cool and airy and very twirly!!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy mother's day to my mum!!

My parents have just left after visiting for just over three weeks. Much as I love my own space, I'm actually missing having them here and it's feeling a little quiet at the moment. Here's looking forward to seeing mum in a few months time (and my sister!).

Kony 2012

This is nothing to do with sewing but an important thing to share with everyone (thanks for sharing Liz...)

KONY 2012 from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.

Curiouser and curiouser - a Christmas dress from wonderland

Amongst all my other sewing that I decided to undertake for Christmas (I think I counted that I made 12 items in total in the month of December!!), I also decided that I fancied making us girls Christmas dresses each.

This is the first one of the three - the one I made for my sister. It was made using fabric from spoonflower using Vogue 1161.

With a shrug for the cold tyneside weather:



Without the shrug:



From the back:



Showing the waistband and the seaming detail around the hips:



My amazing (wink) pattern matching at the centre front seam (look how both sides of Alice's face match!!!):



Things I did differently to the pattern:
Lengthened it by about 3 inches.

Things I would do differently if I were to do this again:
- Not screw up the back!! I screwed up the shape of the back bottom piece when I lengthened the dress by 3 inches. The back isn't terrible now but it certainly could be a lot better but I didn't have any spare fabric - very annoying!
- Slightly increase the size of the bottom half of the dress so that it is a little more comfortable.

Things I like about this:
- It's very flattering to her shape (IMHO).
- I love the fabric - my sister likes things that are a little quirky but that still look good - I think this fits the bill.

I'll post about the other dresses in due course...

Christmas Haul

[Arghh, This is my third time writing this post after my 'BlogPress' app lost it twice already!!]

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

I have spent the holidays back with my family in the UK eating too much, being too lazy and generally having a very relaxing time! I also did very well with Christmas presents from everyone this year, in particular with sewing presents which I thought I would give a quick rundown of.

Fabulous, Potential-Filled Fabric: This is the obligatory shot of all my gifted fabric:

Quite a haul hey!

So, to run through each of them:

This selection was given to me by my parents:

The first fabric here is a multi-colored jersey fabric (I think - I'm not exactly sure of the content of any of them) which I have already decided to use for Vogue 1258:

The second fabric is a velvet burn-out knit fabric - here are some close-up so that you can see more what I mean:


This may end up being a cardigan or something similar but I'm going to have to think about this one for a while.

The third fabric is a black and gold mesh like knit which flowers made up out of the fabric and sewn all over the surface (difficult to describe). This one will definitely require some thought so I'm not sure yet what that will end up being (I like a good challenge!).

This was from my grand parents - it is a tiger print velvet with a little bit of stretch:

I am still deciding on this one but I think I may make it into a coat that is a little like Kate Moss' here:

These four are from my brother and his wife:

Two are some of tweedy and one of these has embroidery all over it:

One is a blue/grey/black fabric:

Which i will probably make up into Vogue 8631 - the pictures don't look great on the vogue website but if you google the pattern, you'll see a number of good examples.

And then the fourth one is a pinky-red brocade:


Lastly, I heard about a mill called Linton Tweeds relatively close to my parents' house which was the original supplier for the famous Chanel jackets and still supplies them as well as Jason Wu, Victoria Beckham and other big names and they sell to the public - I had to go! The shop wasnt quite what i expected -very small and not what you would expect decor wise for somewhere that sells fabric to famous design houses but the staff were great and the fabric was amazing! Everything is a one-off - ends of fabric bolts custom designed by various design houses. So of course, I then had to buy some fabric:

I will use the purpley-pink one for a jacket (I was told that this one was commissioned by a large and well-known fashion house!!), the pink wool crepe for a dress to go with the jacket and the grey and multicolored one for a skirt.

On top of all of this fabric, I got these patterns:


And these great sewing books:


I'm a happy girl!

Fame at last!

I am famous! Suzanne from Beau Baby has given me a shout-out on her blog -my first one (as far as I am aware)!

It all started when Suzanne accurately pointed out the dearth of good sewing patterns for men and then went on to describe the hoodie she really wanted to make for her husband. Luckily with a little searching, I found something that seemed to match what she was describing so I sent her the link and now she's going to make that up!

Good luck Suzanne and I can't wait to see the final result!!

A final goodbye to the warm weather...

Well happy weekend to everyone! For the first time in about six months I felt a little cold this weekend - I almost didn't know how to handle it!

It seemed fitting then that I gave one of my summery dresses another wearing on thursday which turned out to be the last warm day probably of this year before breaking out my autumn/winter clothes. This was a dress I made just before I flew home to the UK earlier in the summer (in fact I finished it the night before I flew). I had decided that I wanted another maxi dress (I made three over the summer - two of which I haven't shown you yet but which I wore lots!!) and that I wanted to use a border print on it. This caused some problems as the border was on the selvedge and the fabric had a fair amount of stretch in the cross grain and so had a tendency to "grow" in length during the day. I used Simplicity 3503 but then fiddled around with it quite a bit so that the top half looks a little different (I also chose to leave out the pockets).

This dress can be dressed up (I wore it all glammed up on a night out in the UK) or dressed down which is how I wore it on Thursday (ignore the crazy expressions - I took these photos after getting in late from the theatre).




Sans belt:




I wore it to go and see Evita at the North Carolina Theatre after I was kindly invited by my good friends Steve, Jill and Jessie. NB even though the reviews are mixed about Evita in general I loved it and would definitely recommend it. I will definitely be going to the theatre sometime soon!

Lastly I shall leave you with two pictures:
1. A shot from my next project which is now nearly finished - what do you think it will end up being??



2. I'm too soft - my cats love my newly dried laundry and if I turn my back for a second they're there and I then can't face moving them.


(BTW I discovered tonight that they love ryvita and cant get enough of it which is pretty weird for cats!)