Jeans re-fashion and a Stripey dress

Good Morning! Posts are getting few and far between, some days I feel like I've lost my sewing mojo and others I realise that I am just to tired to get in to it. But, over the weekend I think I've managed to get it back and I managed to finish off 4 cushion covers, re-fashion a pair of jeans, hem a dress that's been in the making for some time and fully complete my first Maternity dress - yes the reason I've been so exhausted!

I started this dress prior to finding out about my pregnancy and before my waist had started to expand. I should have seen it coming, I'd made a couple peplum tops, one out of my favourite vogue pattern and the finished product felt just a little too snug. I thought it was due to the stiff fabric. Then I started to make this dress using the bodice from Vogue 8815, which from the previous result I decided to make the seam allowances a little smaller and reduced to 10mm. It still didn't feel right and I looked rather dumpy in it. In hindsight I would have thrown it in the UFO box to complete at a later date! I still need to complete the lining, but I'm not really all that interested in it now I can't wear it!!

Look at that, I even under-stitched the arm holes, you have no idea how proud I was of those! I will put the dress away and return to it next year, with the intention of wearing it next summer.

I also had a go at re-fashioning an old pair of Etam jeans. I'd previously seen a post from Andrea where she'd re-fashioned jeans from being boot cut to skinny. I've been itching to try this on these jeans for some time now and seeing as I also wanted to turn them in to maternity jeans I thought I might as well give it a go.

I was really pleased with the boot cut to skinny adaptation, however, I do not like the little triangles of jersey I inserted at the side seams to adapt them for use in maternity. I think I went a little too far down the leg, so unless I wear long tops they are a little too obvious. I'm also not quite big enough for them so a belt would be required. I think I'll have to go back to my sewing desk with these and have a re-think!

I've also completed a maternity dress, but I want to model that one so watch this space...

The Crazy Cat Lady Dress

Good Afternoon! I hope you had a wonderful Easter. I know I did. I got to finish off a dress, start a new one and I got to see family too. How wonderful is that?

I've been trying to post this for a few days now, but unfortunately, the Blogger app on my phone no longer works. I've tried uninstalling and re-installing, I've soft reset my phone and it still wants to pop up with errors about the app stopping so I've given up. I didn't really use it for actually posting actual content anyway, that would be crazy as these new fangle touch screen jobbies aren't very nice to use to type lots of words out on. What I did use it for was a quick way to upload the photos to my blog, prior to adding the words. I suppose it was kinda a lazy thing to do anyway. So here's to a renewed relationship with Flickr!

So, I finished my Crazy Cat Lady dress just in time to wear for our dinner party with Barry's Brother, partner and ickle baby on Sunday. I certainly did feel like a domestic goddess with my hand made dress and the dinner that I cooked up from the Hairy Biker's diet cookbook. (I made their beef in red wine and I thought it was rather delish!)

I do have a little bit of a confession to make.... I am a big fat copy cat! Yup, I saw a dress that Sarah from a million dresses had made and I just had to have one of my own! Sarah's Christine Haynes version can be found here.

This is another Elisalex from By Hand London. I just love the low back, I feel so classy wearing it!

I used Andover fabric from their Catnap collection by Lizzy House. I think it's possibly one of my favourite fabrics. For quilting cotton it's surprisingly soft and I just can't resist anything to do with cats!

I am giving my cat these treats, I swear it - I'm not that much of a crazy cat lady! I love how the treat packet almost co-ordinates with my dress though...

Prince Charming and the Washi dress

Rae's Washi dress has been done soooo many times, but with so many wonderful results. You just have to see the gallery on her website to see how popular this pattern is and now I know myself.

I've had the pattern in my stash for some time now, I must admit that it was one of those impulse buys, tempted by the fabric used on the cover of the pattern. That Washi tape is just too cute. I don't normally opt for empire line anything, it doesn't really suit my body shape.

However, I really love this dress now that I have it. The fabric (Tula Pink - Prince Charming) was another impulse buy, it had been reduced to just under £2 a fat quarter and the pattern is truly wonderful. It's so wonderful I'd go as far as to say it would be wasted on a quilt as you'd miss the story!

I did make a little, well actually quite massive mistake. I have a habit of putting markings that are on the edge of the fabric in by snipping a little mark on the edge. This patterns calls for many pieces to be cut on the fold and I managed to cut two little holes in the back centre of the dress :'( <--- very sad face. I've tried to fix it the best that I can, but when you look really close you can just see it. I still wore it to work on Monday!!

The pattern and instructions make the dress so easy to make. I flew through it in only a few hours. The lack of zipper saved loads of time. I'd never tried shirring before, so some of the time was taking up with practice and experimentation with shirring. This turned out to be a lot easier that I first thought.

I love the little cutout on the neckline, it makes the dress look a little younger. However, somewhere in my attaching the lining I have done something that makes the left corner tug out a little, so on all of these photo's it looks as though the cutout is wonky. Maybe I didn't use enough interfacing?

Anyway, despite my little mistakes I think it turned out really nice, even my fussy boyfriend said that I looked nice and instead of changing into my PJ's when I got home I should stay in the dress.

Vintage unprinted pattern - Butterick 9269

So when I received this pattern from eBay I thought there had been some mistake and that I'd been sent someone's tracings instead of the actual pattern pieces. Until I noticed that on my other vintage patterns they stated 'Printed Pattern' and this one did not. Shock and horror. What on earth do I do with this?? Well first of all I Googled it just to be sure and yes it appears that original patterns had no printing. 

I got down to tracing it and I didn't even notice that it had no printing. The perforations were a little tricky in places to see, but it was no problem at all.

This dress was an absolute breeze to make. In fact I actually made it last week and I didn't spend all that long over it

The pictures haven't come out as well as I wanted them to, but the bodice has kimono sleeves and a boat shaped neckline. I had a fair bit of re-drafting to do on the bodice because of the shoulders. In my first attempt I took almost 2 inches off the neckline, front the center, tapering it in a triangle shape down to the waist. This fit perfectly, however I forgot to amend the neckline and it was a very shallow odd looking v-shape. On my second draft I re-drew the neckline, (with a little help from my French curve) which fixed the problem. I then had to make adjustments to the skirt as I didn't have enough fabric and I also thought it would be way too big, or at least it would be for my comfort. So I also took 4 inches off the side of each skirt piece, which you cut double of.

I used some bias tape from Boyes to finish the hem. The hem looks so much sharper doing it this way rather than my usual attempt at blind stitching. I plan to wear this dress at a baby shower that I'm going to this week, which is why I'm not in the dress on the pictures.

Then, this week, I have managed to make a dress for a little person who is due to be born:

I'm not really so sure about this dress. I've never made a baby dress before and this one was free from a downloadable PDF that I found online. Don't get me wrong, it's a really cute dress pattern, but I think I made a poor fabric choice and the ribbon makes it look a bit gothic! However, it was made from scraps I had left over from another dress, so if the Mother doesn't like it she could always use it on a doll or as a duster ha ha!

Michael Kors inspired

Well this should have been easy! I used Burda pattern 7970, which is my first ever Burda. When I measured the pieces it seemed as though all I needed to adjust was the nape to waist length. I really should have measured the shoulders, which could now do with almost an inch of shortening.

I also had to greatly reduce the waist, this dress looked like a paper bag on me on the first go! I made it in size 14, I was umming and ahhhring which size to make, I should have used the Size 12 for all but the hips, which would have given a much better fit without having to make so many after adjustments.

I was quite lucky with the darts, with them being under my arm I knew they would be hidden, but the stripes almost match up.

It was a very easy pattern, it took maybe 4hrs to make and even then I was taking my time over it as I also managed to make a carrot and coriander soup from scratch within the 4hrs.

I didn't want to put this on today as it's so warm, so here's some pics of it on a hanger:

College project finished

College finished, but I still hadn't completed my dress. We probably spent to much time chatting! But seriously, when you have a class of people all fighting for the attention of one tutor, there were moments of standing around.

I finished the dress today, I'd left some hand stitching so I could get the rest of the complicated items done whilst I was at college.

This is definitely the best dress that I have made, however since starting college I've lost a bit of weight so it's a little more roomy than it should be, but I still think it looks pretty.

It's starting to look like a dress!

I had a rather productive night last night. I managed to re-sew the sleeve, attach the bodice lining and do the pleats on the skirt & skirt lining.

The pleats were a bit of a nightmare. I must have pinned and re-pinned several times. It was not obvious (to me) from the instructions how to do them. In the end, I ended up looking on Google images at other peoples interpretations! I still might change them, I'm not 100% on them.

Pleats, tailor's tacks and baste

Bodice and lining - looks rough!