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!!

Aaaand breathe

The past few days have been pretty mental, lots of catching up with people before the end of term and we all go our separate ways. I’ve barely had time to pick up a needle, let alone construct an actual garment!

I have so much to sew and so little time! Graduation is looming and neither of my dresses (one for the ceremony and one for the ball) are even close finished, and I have several birthday sewing projects to get done as well. I really need to get cracking!! I managed to do a bit of pattern work today but that's about it!

I did pick up some pretty things on my trip to Woking yesterday though. The shoes are Clarks and sooper comfy (and in the sale) and the dress was a TK Maxx bargain (that shop is just like a great big jumble sale!).

I also managed to snag a very decorative jacket from a charity shop, but that needs new buttons before it can be worn. I don’t know if it’s the novelty of them (as I’ve never visited them before), but Woking’s charity shops seemed to have a bit more about them. I found tons of absolutely gorgeous crockery (if only I had a kitchen to put them in) and they just generally seemed less picked over. I’d like to go back again, but I don’t know if I’ll get the chance before I leave!

Curls!

Last night, I tried out my newly made hair rollers (thanks to nuiwida23’s fab tutorial on Burdastyle). I carried out a test run last week and they seemed to do the trick brilliantly, so I moussed up and went for it. Even put my pretty new scarf on them to protect them!!

However, my excitement got the better of me. I so wanted pretty curls for the ‘cocktail party’ (much more dirty pint than sophisticated soiree) I was due to attend, but after a loooong day at Thorpe Park, I really didn’t leave enough time. My hair wasn’t sufficiently dry, and I hadn’t left enough time for any natural drying, so I took the rollers out and they just flopped. Very lame. Thankfully I whipped out my curling tongs and they saved the day. I will persevere though, as I think it was operator error rather than the fault of the rollers!!

I also wore my recently created purple dress, which I am very much in love with, but I’ll post more about that later!!

With respect to Thorpe Park, I totally recommend the new ‘SAW’ ride; even with a 2 hour queue in the sunshine (and the resulting sunburn) it was BRILLIANT!

Lets start at the very beginning

Well I’ve finally managed to get my act together and create a blog. Hopefully I’ll now be able to remember all the ideas and inspirations that crop up, which I love and then instantly forget!

If you’ve stumbled across me, then feel free to say hello, and hopefully pick up some interesting tid-bits!

And because blogs are always more fun with pictures, here's a pic of me when I was a littlun. Don't I look darn cool?