The last dress of summer

I love this fabric! I fell in love with it in Goldhawk Road at the Epic Blogger Meet up in April. Of course I have no idea of the name of the shop but it sells a lot of Liberty fabric, as well as precut packages of lawn in 3 metre cuts. The quality is lovely - the selvage confirms it is Freedom Fabrics.  I think it was £20 for 3 metres.

I was concerned I might need to line this as the fabric is so lightweight but it's really opaque. Perfect summer dress material! It's very smooth and silky - lovely to wear.

I finally used my Simplicity 2444 pattern which I got free in Sew magazine earlier this year. It took this long to get to the front of the sewing queue! And haven't other bloggers made some gorgeous versions of this pattern? Roisin has to be the 2444 queen - 7 versions (love her latest Passage over Piedmont version)! Rehanon used the bodice to great effect on her Simplex. Char from TRexes and Tiaras has made about 8! It's a popular pattern!

I love the double diagonal waist darts on this pattern. Would be great to make it in a less busy fabric so you can see them better. I was worried about doing an FBA with no bust dart but I rotated one dart up to the bust, made the adjustment and rotated it back again. Worked like  charm - thanks Twitter (as usual).

I did my usual length adjustments - 2.5" on the bodice and 2" on the skirt.  All the seams were finished on my overlocker, making it pretty speedy to put together. I was tempted to skip the facings in favour of bias tape, but Roisin advised against it. As she is the queen I went with her advice! The armhole facings are just strips of fabric anyway so probably easier to use those than to make bias!

Not sure why (and it's not hugely obvious in the pics) but I have a bit of gaping at the front neckline. Any ideas what might be causing it?  Looking at the pics I could probably stand to have a bit taken out at the waist too.

Pictures were taken in Henley - on - Thames after a full day of wear (hence the creases). But the backdrop is too pretty to pass up for want of an iron! And as it feels like summer is over now, this is definitely the last summer dress I'll be blogging for a while! 

I'm planning autumn sewing now and will be posting my plans shortly. Have you seen the Fall Essentials Sew Along that Sarah at Rhinestones and Telephones is hosting? It's a great idea so I am going to be working along with that. First stop -  wintery Anna dress! And the By Hand London ladies are hosting a sewalong too. I do love a good sewalong!

The Beach Blazer

I'm totally the last sewist to get on board the By Hand London train, and I have no idea why I waited so long!

I wasn't sure about the Victoria Blazer until I started seeing all the gorgeous versions popping up on my blogroll.  Rachel, Roisin, Clare, Lizzy and Rehanon's in particular.

And then  Rachel posted a pic of this jacket:



Source:  ASOS


Isn't it gorgeous?  And a dead ringer for Victoria.

I dragged the lovely Alison all around Goldhawk Road looking for the perfect nautical print cotton.  But it was not to be - none to be found anywhere (and if you've been there, I know it sounds impossible for there to be a type of fabric they don't sell, but it's true!).  However, I didn't want to give up completely on my nautical dream, so I nabbed a lovely navy batik cotton with some red cotton for lining.

You can just about see the lining here - the other shot made me look like a flasher!

It's a great pattern that went together so smoothly and quickly -I think this took about 3 evenings to put together including handstitching the hem. The trickiest bit is probably the famous neck dart but just follow the clear instructions and all will be well! The recent sewalong had more pictures of the process if you are unsure.

I didn't need to make a muslin as i had the benefit of trying on Clare of Sew Dixie Lou's fab version so i knew a straight UK size 12 would fit. I decided to lengthen the sleeves slightly as they hit right on the elbow and so were a bit tight when I bent my arm. I added about 2" and also sewed with a smaller seam allowance for a bit more ease.

I called it the Beach Victoria partly because of the location for the pictures (Lyme Regis on the border of Dorset and Devon if you are imterested), but also because the batik pattern makes me think of shells.

Pop that collar!

I've worn it loads already and i love how it makes jeans and a tee look smart and a pencil skirt such cooler.

Now I've seen Nicole's amazing tuxedo version I may have to make another (how cool is this woman?)!

And not forgetting a back shot for Nessa:

Please excuse the hair - it was seriously windy!

 And finally a moody staring-into-the-middle-distance shot:

The British seaside with sun?  What are the chances?

 

Yet another Amazing Sewing Meet post

Photo by Digpal Singh

Yes, I know, you've read about this a million times! (or probably 45 given that 45 lovely sewing ladies were there!).  I met some fabulous ladies, some I had met before and some for the first time, but all fun, friendly and wearing the most beautiful handmade clothes!  The V&A, Goldhawk Rd and the Cedar Village Bakery Lebanese Restaurant didn't know what had hit them (especially the restaurant as they were expecting more like half that number!  But they coped admirably!).

Me, the adorable Clare from SewDixieLou and the very lovely Handmade Jane (Photo by Digpal Singh)

I recognised at least 2 or 3 people from reading about their dresses on blogs before the meet - I knew Sally from Charity Shop Chic from the back as a result of her fabulous mad Men dress!

Thanks so much to Rachel and Janene for organising and to all the lovely people who made it such a great day.  And Minerva Crafts and Abakhan for providing the goody bags - what a treat!

I had made a shopping plan before getting to Goldhawk Rd and I am happy to say I stuck to it!

Two gorgeous lawns (the blue tulips and the green) for summer dresses.  I was planning a Hazel with a bigger skirt but I'm not convinced is the fabric has enough body, so I'm going to use the tulip print for Simplicity 2444 (sleeveless with no collar):

and see how it behaves.  If I love it maybe I'll make another with the green!  The blue boat print viscose (£3.50/m - couldn't believe it!) is for a rub off of a much loved and worn top I already own.

I also got a couple of plains:

The (rather crumpled sorry!  I have prewashed but not ironed!) turquoise linen is for this Burda dress:

(the other version of the dress in the mag is actually much nicer - this looks pretty bland and worky!  But I'm hoping for something Laurel-esque).  And the blue twill (actually much more of a royal blue but looks quite purple in the pic) is for a Megan Nielsen Kelly skirt with either red or white buttons.
And I did really well in the swap.  There were loads of patterns in my size:

I know one is from Stevie (I think the front left - let me know if you gave in any of the others!).  Lots of people seemed to be trying not to pick up any patterns, hence why I did so well!  But I was a lot more restrained on fabric.  I try not to buy fabric just because I like it - I usually have a project in mind for it.

I got about 1m of each of the blue rose print cotton (maybe a lawn?  lovely and soft anyway!), the red spotty cotton, and I think 1.5m of the green (it's not really that turquoise!) twill.  And I grabbed a couple of spools of thread and zips and some pink ribbons to placate the small person at not having gone via a toy shop as she requested!

What a fab day!  My faith in sewists (and my blogroll) are much fuller for it!