Is Gingham too Girly?

Full-Skirted Dress

from the

Great British Sewing Bee's

Sew Your Own Wardrobe

So I was given a copy of the Great British Sewing Bee's second book a little while ago. Sadly it's undeservedly sat on my shelf as I have been busy completing my first year as newly qualified teacher. I'm currently recovering from some pretty major hip surgery and I am finally feeling ready to pick up my scissors and pins and get sewing.....and oh how I have missed it!

What was great about this book was the hard copy of the pattern was included. However, two patterns were on each sheet, this meant you had to trace and cut out your own pattern to avoid damaging the other. This is time consuming and boring but actually makes the book cost affective if you have the time to trace, cut and use more than one pattern. 

Once the pattern pieces were ready, I decided to copy the gingham look that the book showed. I'm slightly weary about gingham... as a school teacher I see lots and lots of pale blue gingham school dresses but I also really like the print and a girl cant wear florals 7 days a week!

The dress was simple to make, having not sewn for a while and on some heavy duty pain killers (this was sewing 3 weeks post surgery, it came together nicely. 

Pretty sleeves 

Favourite thing: I love the little cap sleeves they are fluttery and flattering. 

Look closely and you can see where the biased binding has shrunk.

Lesson for next time: When I washed the dress the biased binding, which I used to hem the skirt, shrunk slightly. It's not really noticeable and I will continue to wear it. However, I have now begun washing all my fabric before using it (I realise I should have started doing this along time ago).

Rocking those crutches!

Laura Ashley: The Romantic Heroine

The Royal Crescent

I have just moved to Bath and having come from the middle of nowhere, I am keen to get out and experience as much of the city as humanly possible. So I was happily browsing the web for exciting things to get up to, when I came across this Laura Ashley Exhibition at the Bath Fashion Museum. As a lover of all this garishly floral and hyper-feminine, I had to hot foot it down there!

It was everything I had imagined, lots of colour, lots of flowers, but I think the think I most enjoyed was the company. As, although I went on my own, the exhibition (set in the gorgeous Assembly Rooms) was full of woman in their 50's saying "I had one just like that!" and "Oh do you remember those leg of mutton sleeves?". This created a hugely nostalgic atmosphere.

Another thing that I had never considered was the notion that Laura Ashley's designs harp back to the romantic period of literature. Many of the dresses where inspired by heroines Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowed or Jane Austin's Pride a Prejudice.

 

These designs came at a period of severe economic gloom (1970's) where programs such as Upstairs Downstairs were hugely popular and women were keen to emulate their literary heroines as a form of escapism. This reminds me of 2013, where we have our own economic struggles and millions of people are waiting on the edge of their seats to see how Lady Mary reacts to the tragic death of Mathew Crawley in Downton Abbey, next weekend! Could this mean that we are in for another wave of 'Victorian demurs'? I hope so, I quite fancy swanning around in a big floral dress!

 

Breton Pencil Skirt

Having had major hip surgery in January this year, I found I had a lot of time on my hands but not much energy or brain power to embark on complicated dressmaking adventures! I also found myself online A LOT....happily I stumbled upon this brilliant DIY Striped Skirt Tutorial by Life is Beautiful on Pinterest.

I think the trickiest part of this project was sourcing the right weight of jersey knit as it needed to be fairly stable with only 20% stretch. In the end I brought this simple striped Breton fabric for £2 per metre on Amazon. I only needed one metre making it a pretty economical project!

It's such a simple skirt to make, so my post-op brain could handle it and as I was still on crutches, there wasn't too much need for moving about (another big plus!).

Check my bow out!

I finished it in a morning but I felt I wanted to add something else, so I just made a quick bow for the back, using contrasting vertical stripes to create a 1950's pinup feel!

I love this skirt!!

Seedy Granola

I will never be one of those people who eats the same thing for breakfast everyday...No! When it comes to breakfast (and lunch, and supper!!) variety is the spice of life!

 

We had porridge oats left over from the colder months that I wanted to use up. So mixing it with some lovely seeds seemed the way to go!

 

Here's how I made it...

Ingredients:

450g Jumbo Porridge Oats
2tbs Poppy seeds
2tbs Linseeds
2tbs Pumpkinseeds

2tbs Whole Hazelnuts

2tbs Sunflower Oil

4tbs Maple Syrup

 Pop the oven on at 150 degrees before covering a tray in porridge oats scattering the poppy seeds, linseeds, hazelnuts on top. Pour the sunflower oil and maple syrup all over and give it all a good mix!

Place it in the oven for about 20 minutes....but keep checking and mixing it! It can burn really easily (I sadly speak from experience).

 

It’s ready when it looks light golden brown and has a crunchy texture.

 

 

Enjoy for breakfast with lovely summer fruits and natural yogurt...Yum!

It also makes a lovely present if you pop it into a cellophane bag and tie it up with pretty stripy string!



A Pretty Present!



My Liberty Print Dress

Floral Fanatic!

OK, I'll admit it.... I have an addiction to floral fabric!
My favourite is Liberty lawn, and I can easily spend hours traipsing up and down the floral explosion that are the fabric shelves of Liberty's beautiful haberdashery. As a country bumpkin, who doesn't visit London that often, I always make a bee-line for the world's most beautiful department store!

.....This all sounds lovely, however sadly Liberty Lawn is about £22 per meter and my sensible gene kicks in so I struggle to actually buy the fabric (one day!!).
Though last January, I visited Liberty during the sale and there was an awesome selection of beautiful remnants for £10 per metre.

I brought 1 meter of the classic peacock print fabric as well as 3 metres of the beautiful fabric I used to make this dress- lucky me!!

Classic Hera Print

I wanted to use this fabric to make a dress for an upcoming wedding and I decided on the New Look Workroom 6070.

 

I loved the fact it's quite fitted with and the pleats are super flattering!

This was actually the first dress that I ever made and the first time I put an invisable zip in. Needless to say, it took a long time, as when you're just starting out, learning all the new processes takes an aweful lot of concentration! It took me about two months to finish, with hundreds of cups of tea and a couple of panic calls to Granny ("what on earth is stay stitching??!).

Particularly tricky bits included the gathered sleeves and the pleating. But I always find that  if you leave it alone for half an hour before attacking it again always makes much more sense!

Here we are...

View from the front

View from the back.

... with those tricky gathered sleeves

 Rouching and pleats!

Make your own: Aztec Pelmet Skirt

I am loving pelmet skirts at the moment as I think they are the perfect length for summer and are super flattering. I brought one from Topshop earlier in the year for £34.00 and I was looking at the shape and thought it would be ridiculously easy to recreate. With the added bonus of picking your own fabric, therefore making it for a fraction of the price, I was really excited to give it a go!

Topshop Pelmet Skirt £34.00

I used the McCalls 3830 pattern, shape E, to create the basic pelmet shape (which I brought last summer...bonus!). It's a really simple pattern to follow and great for your first dress making adventure as it only has five pieces to construct.

McCalls 3830

I did meet a couple of challenges along the way...

Challenge 1: Sourcing heavy weight fabric

Does anyone else have this problem? Fabric shops are full of lightweight cottons, which are great for tops and dresses but I definitely needed something thicker for my pelmet skirt. I would really love some suggestions of where to find heavy weight fabric!?

Saying that I am lucky to live within 30 minutes of this amazing fabric warehouse in Sturminster Newton, Dorset. Hansons (http://www.hansonsfabrics.co.uk/), is packed to the rafters with every fabric under the sun!! I found this really bright Peruvian striped fabric that was £8.99 per meter and a chunky metal zip (£2.99).

Armed with my meter of fabric, I cut my pattern out, making sure that the stripes would match when put together, leading nicely onto my second challenge.

Challenge 2: Matching the stripes perfectly

This sounds really easy... but took me a couple of attempts as you had to get the tension right as you sewed otherwise it just looked a bit wonky.

All done and for only £11.98, beat that Topshop!

My Dotty Peter Pan Dress!

I have been experimenting with dress making for a while now and I have got to the point where I want to start challening myself by adapting patterns to suit my figure or put an original spin on current trends!

I have quite a love affair with Peter Pan collars so my pattern adapting 'To Do List' (is there such a thing!?) has included this for a while.
I chose a simple dress pattern; the New Look Workroom 6049 (available here http://www.simplicitynewlook.com/new-look-patterns/dresses/6049/ ) as I felt it had quite a sixties feel and would suit the addition of a collar!

Before stitching, I got some simple tips from Lisa Comfort at Sew Over It (http://sewoverit.co.uk/blog/ ...scroll down a bit for the collar tips). I would definitely recommend you having a look before starting this, she is fab!

Tracing the neckline facings

How I did it:
I used the neckline facings of the dress to trace the basic shape of a collar onto pattern paper before drawing on the classic Peter Pan shape.

Cutting out the collar

Using this template I cut out two collar shapes in white cotton and one in some heavy duty collar interfacing (seriously starchy...you could use something slightly more light weight!). Iron the interfacing onto one of the cotton pieces before sewing. Right sides together, stitch around the collar edge, leaving the top open. Turn the collar the right way round and Hey Presto, a super cool collar! Simply Stitch into the dress whilst you sewing your facing on and press with a super hot iron for a crisp look.




Front

Back

Next to try...Scallop Edging....I'm excited!!