The Sally Dress

It has been a bit since I last blogged - I've been feeling like rubbish and so sewing has taken a back step unfortunately, while I nap on the sofa while zbl has her daytime sleep.  We've also had some unseasonably hot weather recently which has meant the sewing and computer area are like a sauna - not the place to be when you're feeling below par!

Anywho, enough blathering on about that, I'll be fine soon enough and Christmas is coming so my list of sewing has increased and I'd better get on to it!

In the mean time, here is the lovely dress I made to go with the fabulous Anna Cape by Big Little.

This is the Sally Dress. (Please excuse the individual pictures, our computer crashed recently (all my bookmarks - gone!) and all the software hasn't yet been installed by the fixer guy - ie tl) On another note - I took these pics a while back, and I swear she's grown another 2 or 3 cm since then!

Sew details:
Pattern: The Sally Dress by Very Shannon - I got this pattern as part of my Sewing Rabbit Pattern Membership - I made up a size 3T without sleeves.
Fabric: A lovely strawberry printed cotton from (surprise, surprise) Spotlight.
Other stuff: This is a lovely pattern to make up. You make up the bodice completely and there is a bit of that fabric origami required to get the shoulder seams to sit nicely, but the instructions are very clear on how to do this.  I think the pattern calls for 1.5m of fabric, and I had 1m, so I had to do a little bit of pattern laying origami myself and also reduce some of the bulk out of the skirt, but overall I think it looks lovely and nice and twirly - when zbl works that one out!
Because the bodice is fully lined there are no scratchy bits, which is important and the dress was really very popular and I was allowed to take pictures without having to show them all to the model for approval!!
I am hoping by having made a size 3, we might be able to wear this one for a couple of years, or at least a couple of seasons with layers.
I really enjoyed sewing this up, and have since made another one for a little friend who turned 2 - who also approves!

In other sewing activities - I made up one of these for my Mum, she loves it, altho it is huge (it is a OSFA) but she thinks it is super comfy so doesn't care :-)

So next thing on the list is a pair of hudson pants for myself, that I got through the most recent Pattern Parcel (worth signing up for their emails, as they do have some really good bunches of patterns) and a Christmas dress for zbl using this fabric - yes, amazingly I bought some fabric from somewhere other than Spotlight!

UPDATED next things - I'm participating in Ros's Sweet Pouch Swap - Christmas Edition which is very exciting, and also very nerve wracking - I have so many ideas for what I would like to do, but can I get them done in time, and will my swappie like them - only time will tell!

Long time no hear!

where the bleep are you? I hear myself asking myself (honestly the internal convos I have!). As I suspected I started this off with a hiss and a roar and then silence.... Sorry about that!

So what have I been up to for the last (refer to last post) 4 months!

Well lets see, Mum came to visit in November so we went fabric shopping (as you do).  We went to the usual (Spotlight), but also trekked over to the fabric store in Brunswick to cash in a percent off voucher I got in my the craft sessions goodie bag.  Oh my goodness that place is lovely and dangerous due to the loveliness!
Beautiful silks and merinos and cottons and voile's and lovely things that all wanted to jump in my bag! So indulge I did but not so much that we were on vegemite sandwiches for the rest of the week (phew!)

Here is a pic of the loveliness.

So what do we have in this delicious pile? Starting from the bottom there is a cotton sateen, that I'm thinking a wiksten tank, the next one is a lovely Marc Jacobs cotton lycra that will either be a couple of t-shirts for zbl or a wee dress for her.  The stripes is a nice piece of merino that I made into a t-shirt for tl for christmas - I took a pattern from one of his favourite t-shirts. I'm really pleased to say the t-shirt has been worn several times! The next three lovely pieces of fabric are silks, the mushroom one went in a christmas parcel for my sister, the aqua can go into the stash and the white and navy will be made into a top of some sort.  I'm looking forward to sewing these things altho I'm a bit nervous about the silks. I shall have to do some research.

So that was November, much thinking, not much doing other than having a fun time hanging out with my Mum :-).

December is always a busy month for me - I have so many ideas, and it is nice when most of them come together, like they seemed to this year!

We had our annual ham fest - any excuse for another ham and pav  - yum!

I also made some things too! I made a wiksten tank for my sister using some cotton fabric I bought at Spotlight. It was far easier to cut, iron and sew than the polyester I used for my muslin.  Incidentally, Mum liked the muslin version so much I made one for her too, it was still a pain to cut, iron and sew!

The next thing I made and finished at M&D's was this gorgeous wee dress for the daughter of a friend.

Sew details:
Pattern: The Louisa Dress
Fabric: This lovely fabric is a cotton drill from the usual suspect - Spotlight.  It was the perfect weight for this dress, it hung nicely and sewed up very easily.
Other stuff: I learnt so many new things in sewing this dress. I did my first invisible zip - which turned out pretty well I think - I'm looking forward to using my invisible zip foot to do the next one; I had to make my own piping as the local fabric store didn't have any (weird!); I also had to install the piping, which I have always avoided as it looked too hard - it is not the easiest thing to do, but the results look great, and the more you do the better it looks - if you were to look at the front pocket you would see that is where I started.
The pattern was very easy to follow and sew up, and Marte has excellent links to all the various tutorials for the different ways of popping in zips etc.

The last little thing I made for Christmas was zbl's christmas day outfit.

Sew details:
Pattern: I made her a wee romper using a pillowcase romper pattern - I can't remember which one tho!  I'm sure if you google pillowcase romper and there will be heaps to help you out.
Fabric: a quilting weight cotton with wee gingerbread men on it! It worked really well for the billowing.
Other stuff: this was a very quick sew, cutting out and sewing took less than an hour which is very speedy for me, especially given it required me to do shirring which I had never done before.
I should have popped some snaps on the bottom to make for easy nappy changing, however as this was finished at the last minute, so I just sewed up the bottom, and we undid the straps to get at what we needed to :-)
I should say the photo above was self styled - zbl added her own beads, and I think she might be a wee fashionista in the making - which is exciting, cos she can help me out when she gets bigger :-)

Right, this post is now huge, so I will stop here and post - hopefully the next post will be less than 4 months from now!