With my recent success at using printed PDF patterns, I bought the April Rhodes Staple Dress pattern. I had seen this over on Camilla’s blog and loved the shape, and she had told me that it was a fairly easy make. Sounded great to me! I’ve had the dress below (sale special from New Look!) in my wardrobe for about 5 years and it’s still one of my favourites; the shape is just sooo comfy and flattering! I had high hopes for this one!
Continue reading ➞ The Tent-Like Staple Dress
After making 3 dresses in a week, I was itching to make another to see if I could push myself to 4! 🙂 I looked in my pattern stash and decided to go vintage as I hadn’t done a vintage make for quite a while. I ended up choosing the one that I thought would the quickest make; the New Look Maudella 6517. This one also counts towards my vintage pledge. I can’t find the pattern anywhere online for an actual release date but from looking at other pattern covers and illustrations I think it might be late 70s/ early 80s…which is now classed as vintage isn’t it? If anyone does know when this pattern was made, please let me know!
Continue reading ➞ Vintage Pledge 2015: Number 2 -The Vintage Cross-over Dress
One of my favourite garments out of the Love At First Stitch book is the Megan dress. It’s easy to make and it fits me without having to alter anything!
I made two Megans a few months ago, both from thicker fabrics though so they aren’t really suitable for the Summer weather. The first one I made was far too short as a dress so I wear it with skinny jeans. The second one is lovely but has a pucker on the zip and the skirt and bodice didn’t match up so it has an extra pleat. 
I had put a cotton Megan on my to make list and finally got around to making it last week. This was my third dress of the week too! When cutting the fabric, I decided that I would like a sleeveless version. I wasn’t quite sure if this would work so I made sure I had just enough fabric for sleeves just incase!
Even though I had traced & cut the Megan pattern before…I had lost it so had to re-trace & cut. This prompted me to label all my traced patterns and put all of them in a place where I know they are. During the tracing process, I also realised that I had traced one of the darts too narrow last time – I had followed the wrong line! This would have been why the skirt and bodice didn’t match! It was an ‘ah-haaa!’ moment!
Continue reading ➞ A different type of Megan
A couple of weeks ago, I made this top – the Simplicity 1810. I will be honest. I have only worn it once since making it and I wasn’t that pleased with it. I always feel that garments need to be worn out of the house (not just for photos either!) for me to get a good feel for them. Is it comfy? Would I wear it again? Do I need to make any changes? I went shopping in the black top and then nipped to the food market and I just found that it wasn’t right. I think the main thing was that it was too hot for 30°C heat with it being quite a tight woven fabric. The length was questioned again as I kept pulling at it all the time, and the neckline was too stiff due to the interfacing. Hhhmmpphh! I’m not throwing the towel in straight away though…I am going to shorten it and save it until the weather is cooler!
Anyway, less about the old…more about the new. I decided to make the longer sleeveless 1810 and chose a light fabric with a swirly border print. I do really like the construction of this pattern. There aren’t many steps and it comes together really quickly. I think it took me an afternoon to make but I had already cut it out the week before.
Continue reading ➞ Longer Than The Last One
When the challenges were announced for June, I told myself that I would only be entering the first week’s dress challenge as I didn’t own any other Indie patterns. Well…after completing the first challenge, I just couldn’t resist entering the separates challenge too!! I didn’t have the time to order paper pattern so I took the plunge with ordering a couple of pdf patterns for the first time.
I’ve never been great at matching separates, especially skirts, so I wanted to stay away from making another skirt that would just sit in my wardrobe. I quite fancied a pair of shorts in the hope that I would be able to wear them more.
I then talked myself out of taking part as the only fabrics I had in my stash were 3 yard lengths, which I had bought for dresses. I didn’t really want to be cutting into them for smaller items and they didn’t match at all so I couldn’t really make a top with one of the fabrics and shorts with another…they just wouldn’t have looked like an outfit at all! After spilling my dilemma to Camilla, she suggested that I made both items out of the SAME fabric (bought at $1.60 a yard from Joanns!) to have a jumpsuit effect!
So the search for patterns was back on and I headed over to Indiesew to browse their selection. I ended up choosing the Ella Top by Liola Patterns and the Hepburn Shorts by The Pattern Emporium.
Continue reading ➞ The Ella Hepburn Combo
I posted this pattern earlier in the week as one of my goals to make within June. Camilla suggested a sew along and Katy expressed that she would like to join in too! So, I’m opening it up to anyone else who might want to make this with us. 🙂
There aren’t going to be any set rules for this sew along but hopefully we will be able to publish blog posts at around the same time to share our experiences of making one of the garments. That’s right, you could make any of the views, though I will be making the dress in view B. As this is one of my June goals, I’m planning to blog about it the week beginning June 28th. If you are joining in, you could do your post around then but there are no rules so it can be later or earlier!
I’m hoping that anyone who would like to sew along with us is also on Facebook. I’ve made this private group so that we can post any updates or questions. I thought that this would be easier than doing lots of little blog posts!
Just let me know if you are going to join in so I can add you to the group or click the above link and request to join! 🙂
Don’t worry if you aren’t on Facebook though…You can still blog about your make!
threads + bobbins 