Graduation... ekk

So. I should explain, that I live about 3 months behind the rest of the world. I find it terribly difficult to keep up. I attribute this to my Auntie, who is exactly the same (Now it would just be weird to have my birthday present on the day - Its like having two birthdays!). Anyway, my friends and family are used to it now (everyone seems to like having Christmas on a rainy Tuesday in March!), but this is late… even for me.

My graduation dress. A wopping 10 months after the event. Its from Burda magazine issue 12/08, Dress 130 (the extra pattern one). I used no imagination whatsoever and copied the colours directly from the magazine. I made no actual changes to the design either. The only thing I did do was fiddle about with the back fastening, so that I didn’t have a patch of back on show – I lengthened the bottom of the under flap(?) and put a hook and eye on there too. I still have terrible trouble with the top flap(!?) gaping (more so than you can see in the picture), but really I don’t know what to do about that! Perhaps the button needs shifting over a few cm. Not sure.

Anyway, its very form fitting – I can’t help but wiggle when I wear it! And while tight, it’s not particularly constricting to wear. The top is white georgette (chiffon was too see through) and the skirt is sort of heavy weight almost waffle-ish material (i.e. it’s not smooth), although you could definitely make it more classy and decadent by using silk for the bodice. I lined it too, can’t remember if it told me to or not, but I did, as I do with most things. It’s a good staple dress if I have smart affairs to go to, such as graduating! And so, here’s one of me in a silly hat to prove I did it.

Sewbox competition

Basically Sewbox is a totally brilliant idea to help out the starter sewer! For my first sewing project I had to go to the sewing shop 3 times as I kept missing things I needed (zip, hook and eye, interfacing etc). I could have been saved the 3 lots of parking I had to pay for if I been given a Sewbox kit… because they do it all for you! You pick your nice fabric and your nice pattern and they do all the boring bits of finding zips that match. How ace!

In fact, my mum put together a similar thing for me for Christmas – a make your own pyjama kit. It was totally awesome, so I can completely recommend this sort of thing if you are wanting a sewing related gift!

AND they do Colette patterns in the UK! I have been swooning over Colette patterns for months now, but they aren’t so readily available over here. I’m still biding my time though on my purchase. I think the beignet skirt might be the one for me, or maybe Macaron. Or the coat! That coat is ace. Hmmm.

Anyway – there’s a competition on to win one of the kits! The Sencha blouse kit is deffo my first choice! Fingers crossed eh?

Ski Tuesday

Well, its been a while... same old excuses though, moving house and switching jobs! I'm now based full time in the capital and all is going well.

I have been sewing though, even if my reporting of it leaves a lot to be desired! First off the blocks, and in the spirit of the season, is some ski wear!

The occasion of my first ever skiing trip, was most definitely an opportunity for some new snuggly jumpers. Now its been a looong time since I wore fleece (my school uniform was made of a particularly hideous fleece and the scars are still healing) but as someone who is naturally chilly anyway, I knew I would be thankful for it when I was halfway up a French mountain. As I knew I wasn't going to be wearing them a huge amount, I bought some fairly cheap navy and cream polar fleeces and used the Burdastyle Lydia pattern that I already had.

I was able to cut them out and pin them pretty darn quickly due to the fleece's fluffy friction and near indistinguishable grain. But then, when I put needle to syntheic fluff, my moment of enlightenment came... It was marvelous. The fleece was bliss to sew, it sewed up quickly and neatly and you didn't have to faff about finishing any of the seams, because it doesn't fray. It stays where you put it and its sooo lovely and soft. In no time at all (well actually several hours, but comparative to other projects, pretty swift) I had two snuggly jumpers. I added a little flower to one and a discrete bow to the other. The only modification was on the neckline which I chopped down, and the use of fleecey binding rather than facing on the neckline.

Now I'm not saying I'm a convert, and I am certainly not planning to add any more fleece to my wardrobe in the near future, but I am almost ready to admit that I don't totally hate it! Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the skiing, but at least I've got plenty of lovely warm clothes now!

Working 9 till 5

I recently started a new job (after a year of student life between my last job and this) and so suddenly became in need of some super snappy office clothes. Sadly, new work doesn't pay immediately, so I needed something fast and cheap.

I trawled my BWOF (or Burdastyle as I believe it will soon be called) back copies and wrote down a list of about 2o pieces that would be suitable. I decided that my most pressing need was for skirts, and so I selected one that claimed to be only 1 and a half blobs of difficulty and was made up of only 3 pieces (speedy tracing and chopping... hurrah).

This was hastily followed by a quick hello to my local fabricland (fabric, lining and zip came to about £6 total... score!). A few muck ups (I didn't notice that the waistband measurements did not include seam allowance!) and pleats later, and tadaaah!

Burda Mag 04/09 113

It has plenty of give to allow for the copious amounts of office bending I do (OK that sounds dodgy - I mean I have to pick up lots of files from low shelves) and the ''kiss'' pleats make it a bit more interesting. I tried my hand at flat felled seams for the lining, and they worked a treat! I made no alterations to fit or style, and it was quick and easy to make.

All in all, pretty damn good!

You shall go to the ball

After several long weeks there has, all of a sudden, come a rush of activity in work, home and sewing. My poor machine has been languishing in my lengthy absence, and together we're getting all revved up about some new projects on the horizon! More to follow soon, but in the mean time, I've finally managed to get some photos together of my graduation ball dress!

After the pallava of making the damn thing fit, I realised that the only thing missing, was a wopping great big bow. So I added one, and felt much better about the whole situation.

Just to recap the changes made from the original BWOF 12/08 pattern were :
- Cutting the skirt off at the knee
- Raising the waist by about an inch
- Adding waist darts
- Adding a bust dart on the shoulder strap side
- Raising the shoulder
- Adding a big bow

If I was making it again, I think I'd just use the lining pattern for the bodice and not bother with the shoulder pleats included in the original pattern. They can't really be seen on the photos because they came out pretty badly and had to be covered by the big bow. I think if I'd done them properly they would have looked good, but it really wasn't very clear at all, and some how I managed to ruck them all up. They looked fine when they were flat, but when I put it on they looked pretty bad.

Generally this pattern was not a good fit for me, but I think after all the tweaking the dress came out looking pretty good, so I was happy in the end and had an awesome time at the ball. And both the dress and I made it into the survivors photo!

Good reads

I swung by the shops the other day and managed to pick up a bevvy of good reads! (Look how fantastic they look!!)


I only went in for a copy of Burda Mag and came out with the Chap as well (which technically was a prezzie for my dad, but I couldn't resist reading it a bit first). Then I came upon these 40s copies of Womans Weekly when looking for port glasses! One of them has an awesome pattern for some mittens (something I have been looking for for a while) and each copy has a lovely little insight into the meaning of a name!

I also picked up this dainty little dress pattern.

I loved the wopping pleats coming up from the sides (even if the 4 pattern ladies do have an air of Sex and the City about them!). However it is COMPLETELY the wrong size. Its way too big and petite!! But, I hope this will lead on to my first forray into pattern grading which is a little bit exciting!

The dresses

I now have only two days to complete my graduation dresses. Dress 1 for the ceremony, and Dress 2 for the ball.

Dress 1: Looking on course to be fine. I just need to readjust the lining (too tight), complete the back edges (still haven't quite worked out how yet) and hem it (no probs - nobs). Hopefully I'll look smashing in the photo with the daft hat.

Dress 2: Ah how thee mocks me. Serves me right for not properly looking at the fit when I botched together the lining. On friday I popped it on, to see what tweaks needed to be made, looked in the mirror and realised that actually, it would have looked more flattering on a sack of potatoes. It was too big EVERYWHERE. The waist was in the wrong place, the neckline hung too low (very not good on a one shoulder dress), it didn't go in enough at the waist, and I'd miss read the instructions on the pleats. After much tweaking, the taking in of all seams, and the addition of some new darts, its looking a little better, although sadly not in one piece.

If I were a proper, responsible sewer, I would have made a muslin weeks ago, and wouldn't be having last minute issues such as these. But I'm not, I'm a botch sewer. I cut corners, and leave it too late. I only pre-washed the fabric because the blue started coming off on everything, including the tablecloth and my face. I hadn't noticed until my mum pointed out that my cheek was really quite blue.

Here is the outside sunshiney cutting out process which turned me blue

I fear I may not have time to make handbags. Sad times.

The week that ran away

Ok a bit more than a week, but I’m sure I’ll be forgiven, as I have been moving house! Uni has finally finished and I’ve had to pack up and ship out of Guildford, back to the countryside.

Before the move, I spent a couple of days up in London for T’s birthday... which leads me nicely to my latest sewing completion! It's my first forray into menswear, and T’s birthday present. (Apologies, I forgot to get T to model it himself, so I had to take a few dashed pics after he’d toddled off to work)

I am immensely proud of it as I think it’s one of my best looking pieces yet. I used pattern 132 from BWOF 03/09, and the only change was to add a front bit where the buttons go. I topstitched all the seams, I put the little contrast stripe at the bottom of the side seams, everything!! And it took me flipping ages!!

Mostly my problems arose because of my rubbishness at sleeves. I re-sewed and topstitched them twice before I noticed they were on the wrong way around and had to take them off and swap them over. Also the fabric had a definite, but non-obvious-in-the-half-light right side, resulting in a few things being initially stitched with the wrong side out. Grr.

Anyway, he was presented with the finished project, and it fitted and looked lovely, so I’m pretty chuffed!

Purple flower dress

What a lovely weekend that was! Very, very beautiful sunshine all weekend! I was a bit dead though. I was brimming with pride as I got the news about my degree score on Friday (a 2:1 as I’d hoped) and it was the end of term so there was much celebrating to be done. I didn’t get to bed until 7am and T came to visit me at 1 so there wasn’t a great deal of sleeping, but I was very happy (especially when I realised that I’d managed to wear something homemade to the last 3 nights at uni) and it was so beautiful and sunny I had to go out in it!!

Sunday was quite relaxed too, as we went down to the river to take some photos. However we were idiots and forgot to take cameras. So we just had a picnic, went for a row down the river and read our books before going to a friend’s for a barbeque.

Anyway, as we were lametastic with cameras at the weekend, here are the photos from my last completed dress.

It’s New Look 6864, and is made from some purplely auberginey mystery fabric from a remnants bin. It was easy to sew (only took slow old me a couple of days), and the only changes I made were to take the hem up by about 4 inches (as I do with most dresses) and add a bust dart on the armhole to avoid some major gape.

I even made the pretty flower accessory to go with it. They instructed me to sew it on, but I just sewed it to a safety pin to make it optional. It’s a perfect party dress, as the flower and other accessories make it a bit more versatile.

The photos were taken a bit hurriedly, several weeks ago, before we dashed out for my birthday meal. The dress was a bit tighter by the time I got home!!