Me-Made-May 13 – week 4: The Portuguese edition!

This post covers the me made items packed in my suitcase between May 20th and 28th!

I’ve been in Portugal taking some relaxation time!

Back to reality with a bump. I landed in the UK Tuesday and I was back in work yesterday.

Although it’s a short work week for me I have plenty planned so thought I better get my me mades onto the blog sharpish!

Day 20: I flew in my green bias stripe top. Not pictured as it was 7am and I was a wee bit sleepy.

Day 21. This dress will now be called the “when are you due?” dress after a ludicrous man asked me this twice when I wore it out. To be fair I had just eaten three courses… but still! He then turned to the barman and said “That’s what we call a ‘gaffe’ in England”.

Day 23: This is the first dress I ever made. Its got terrible construction compared to recent makes but I love it. Lovely colours and mystical optical illusions going on to make my waist look so small.

Day 27: This is my nautical-inspired braided headband. I keep meaning to do a tutorial for this one. Its jaunty and I love it.

Day 28: my heading home outfit. Arrrgh I have to wear jeans again!!

Just five items and a few repeats here I’m afraid. Why the hell haven’t I made more sundresses?! If I had made a beach cover-up I’d be owning it this week. Only a few more days of May to go!!

I’ll leave you with some more holiday pics.

Luvverly Liberty

During my time in London I got a chance to go to the fabulous and famous Liberty of London.

My Aunt bought me a gift card at Christmas and I managed to wait until I could go in person and see all the wonderful items available up close!

The actual building is amazing. I love its grand Tudor facade in black and white. It was 1924 when this incredible icon was constructed from the timbers of two ships: HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan.

We approached from Argyll Street so we could see Liberty’s own flower shop at the entrance. It was a lovely spring day and plenty of lavender and roses were arranged at the doorway.

The haberdashery and fabric section contains plenty to keep you distracted for hours. I had a one hour time limit to select some fabric.

Liberty has a long history of artistic and inspiring collaborative projects on their Liberty Art Fabrics – from William Morris and Gabriel Dante Rossetti in the 19th century to Yves Saint Laurent and Dame Vivienne Westwood in the 20th.

Every season staff scour the archives for historic prints that could be reissued for a modern audience. Watch this video on some of the design processes that go into selecting a new season’s fabrics.
Or this one about the printing process at the Lancaster factory! I swear I was so distraught when I realised I’d been so close to the factory during my uni days. Maybe I could have applied for a part time job or something! Sigh…

Recent collaborations include renowned brands such as Nike, Dr. Martens, Hello Kitty, Barbour and Manolo Blahnik to name but a few. My favourite was the Converse collaboration.

I’m pleased to report I got two metres of lovely Melly paint splodge/splatter style tana lawn which I’ll be using for a happy smile-inducing dress!

Have you been to the Liberty store? Would you love to?

Me-Made-May 13 – week 3: Uh oh this isn’t going as well as I’d hoped

Why oh why are there five weeks in May! At least we’re at the half way point.

After a recent comment from Roisin I’ve upped my ridiculous expressions in my posing. It’s all for your entertainment.

I found this week hard because a) the weather was absolutely rubbish b) I have fallen out of love with some of my me-mades so they didn’t even make it out of the drawer when I looked and them and c) I’m in holiday prep mode so I have loads of 90% finished items I could have worn this week if I’d been more organised.

New Look 6808 with button-back alteration and cute birdcage fabric. This wrinkles like a mofo though!

New Look 6808 with contrast pink collar (when I wear this with my leopard print shoes I feel like I’m impersonating Anna from Paunnet)

Self-drafted green bias stripe dress. I made this before the top version from week 1!

This horrible old me-made top has fab colours but terrible construction. I think I’ll be binning this one. You can see from my sulky face that I hate it

Other than that I wore repeats which I won’t bore you with!

Free class day from Craftsy!

Have you taken advantage of today’s free class day courtesy of Craftsy?

I have!

This offer is available for new members and those who have only ever taken free classes. So what are you waiting for?!

http://www.craftsy.com/craftsyfreeclassday

Choose from a selection of classes on sewing, knitting, crochet, cake decoration and metalwork!

I chose the Sassy Librarian Blouse with Christine Haynes.

Help them reach their goal of 10,000 students enrolling in their first online class on Craftsy Free Class Day by spreading the word to your friends! If they reach their goal, they’ll be making a donation of $5,000 to DonorsChoose.org to fund classroom projects for teachers and schools without adequate funding.

Me-Made-May 13 – week 2: its all about the polka dots baby!!

We’re in week two and it’s time for my polka dot challenge!

I managed six days of me-made dots this week. It would have been seven if I’d conquered my half done Burda dress. Sigh….

Let’s check out the dots!!

Self-drafted Elsie knock off dress worn for a stroll around the canal on Bank Hol Monday.

Wearable Mathilde muslin (though I’m pretty sure the yoke stitches are going to snap soon because it’s too tight).

Prima Tea Dress; never blogged. It has very flattering under-bust gathering and a gored skirt. But I ran out of fabric for the sleeves and it looks silly without them so I always wear a cardigan!

Cowering from the rain in one of my earliest makes; self-drafted chiffon top with peter pan collar. I wear this all the time. Its going to fall apart soon.

My new morse code crepe Sortbetto (minus the pleat) with contrast bias binding. Not really digging this boxy style but it got some compliments so may keep wearing it.

Finally a lovely satin nl 6808. The fabric is from the Birmingham Meet Up so wearing this reminds me of that day. It’s super comfy and flattering and much loved.

And that is it for week 2! I’m already worried about week four but we’ll see how it goes.

Backstitch Giveaway: winner announcement!!

I’m so happy to be announcing this giveaway.

I was amazed at the number of entries,  53 in total! And there is a good variety of ways people are following.

It was selfish of me but I really wanted to know which platforms my blog is mostly being viewed on, and now I do!

Without further ado….. the random number generator calculated the winner was commenter number 4!

So our lucky winner is….
Sabs

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

Sabs is also known as Mini and Merky if you follow on social media.

She has some fantastic sewing skills so you should check out her blog. Her turquoise washi dress is gorgeous and makes me eager for summer to get here.
Plus she has the cutest pair of cats! I love their little faces!

If you didn’t win then not to worry, there will be more giveaways in the near future! And I’m really glad you entered.

The Sweetheart Dress (oh don’t get all soppy on me)

Last week I showed you a dress I hadn’t blogged about but it went down quite well so I here are the details.

I wanted to make the Colette Truffle bodice into my go-to dress bodice block as it was so close to being perfect on my Christmas party dress.

I made a rub off pattern from a lace dress I love and then combined this with the Truffle pattern to make what should have been a perfect fit. It’s sooo close to perfect but not quite as the neck gapes a little, though it seems to suit Beryl.

I also drafted an A-line gathered skirt by using the hem and drop measurements from the lace dress and after eyeballing the amount of waist gathering figured out the waist length I’d need. I like A-line gathered skirts more than dirndl because a lot of waist gathering makes me look too wide there. Plus you still get a good twirly skirt from them!

The fabric was from Fletcher’s Fabrics in York and was a birthday present from Mr AR. It’s a popular quilting cotton which has been in stock for years and comes in a variety of colourways.

I did my new trick of encasing the zip with bias tape and I lined the bodice in cream poly lining but didn’t line the skirt… that was my major mistake.

Unlined cotton dresses stick to your tights and I hate this. But I convinced myself otherwise! Now this dress rides up when I wear it. Even when I wear a half slip for goodness sake! I live the dress so I think I’ll retroactively fit a lining. I just need to mull over how….

**Please remember**

You have one day left to enter the giveaway.

Entries must be received by Midnight BST Friday 10th May!

Me-Made-May 13 – week 1

Well hello!
May is upon us. And for everyone in Europe we had a bank holiday to kick  things off too!

I managed four out of five days in me-mades this week. I had agreed with myself a goal of six out of seven days in each week but hey, this was a short week!

Day 1: green bias stripe top from self drafted pattern. Not blogged because its the same fabric and pattern as my bias stripe dress!

Day 2: sweetheart print truffle bodice with self drafted gathered a-line skirt. More about that later.

Day 3: one of the first ever things I made, my georgette star print top using New Look 6962.

Day 4: strappy top made from the skirt of a topshop sundress using Butterick 5653.

I had an awesome weekend. I saw my little brother on Saturday and went to Abakhans where I bought chevron print fabric for an unbelievably good price. Saw friends and ate good food on Sunday. And larked about around the canal and docks before having a bbq yesterday! Plus I watched three good films and snuck in a smidge of sewing!!

Hope you had a fantastic weekend too!

V8469 review

The eagle-eyed of you will have spotted an unfamiliar dress in my blogger meet up post.

In honour of the day I decided to dress up! I wore V8469. This is from their Very Easy Vogue range and I have to say it was pretty darn easy.

I used a polyester I’ve had in my stash for ages. I love the delicate petal shapes in such lovely colours.

It’s OF COURSE from Jack’s Fabric… yes I am addicted to that stall. It was £1 a metre, back before they put their prices up by a dizzying 50p.

Doesnt the line art look frumpy?!
I made a muslin in size 16 a few months ago but then doubted my fabric choice. Fast forward to last week and when I tried it on it was far too big. I retraced at size 14 (smallest on my pattern) and figured I’d adjust further on the real thing if needed.

I’m super pleased how it turned out. And I got compliments off my family, a very stylish Auntie of mine (who used to buy for Selfridges) and some lovely fellow sewing bloggers at the meetup.

A semi-fitted dress with a lined bodice, midriff pieces and ties, and back zipper closure with optional sleeves and top-stitching details.

It used all two metres of my fabric (mostly because of the ties) and a 22 inch zip. I used medium weight fusible interfacing and a pale blue polyester lining that was as close to the blue in the petals that I could find in my stash.

Negatives:

I think unfortunately given my fabric, plus all my faffing with the waistband I contributed to a troubling impact on the fusible interfacing. It’s started to come loose. I can feel it bubbling a little. It’s not visible but you can tell when you run over the dress with your hands. Doh.

And I really wanted to make a tulip sleeve. I used a tutorial off the internet which don’t get me wrong, made total sense and I was following it all the way, but the curve of my sleeve just looked stupid. I tried it three times on scrap cotton before giving up and cutting the regular sleeve. Sulk.

The other thing that got me a bit miffed is that they said I had to make the ties different lengths. I didn’t believe this at all but I followed the pattern. Stupid. I should have totally made them the same length! My bows look all lopsided now.

Positives
I think this style really suits me and the fabric is perfect for the dress. I feel a little like a 50s housewife but in a good way. A chic way. The dress turned out much classier than I thought it would. I imagined it as a day dress when I was cutting it.

Plus the fit is pretty amazing I’m pleased to say!

AND I’m pretty damn smug about something I tried with the sleeve insertion.

The sleeve is just a very small cap that just attaches at the top (not under the arm). I was thinking very intently about how they wanted me to disguise the raw sleeve edge between the lining and outer fabric. It just was too faffy and involved slip stitching for goodness sake.

So instead I basted the sleeve to the outer fabric then sandwiched it into the shoulder by folding it up tightly and squashing it in place. Then I sewing the lining over the top nice and taught. Finally I used a chopstick I coaxed out the lining out through the shoulders as per the instructions but I also coaxed out the sleeve too! Voila a perfectly sandwiched sleeve between the layers!

Would I make it again? And what would I do differently?

Yeah will totally make this again! I have a wool and a gingham version in mind on my Dresses Inspiration pinterest board. I think different fabric will give me that day time look I’m after.

Next time I’ll use an invisible zip though. It seems the better my buttonholes get the worse my zips get! Plus I still haven’t tried out my invisible zipper foot.

Oh and if you’re a follower on instagram or twitter you’ll have seen I’m taking part in Me-Made-May.

Seemed fitting to step it up a year. Although I wear my self-made clothes nearly every other day I want to aim for 6 days a week.

Also, after laughing at the amazing amount of self-made polka dot items in my wardrobe I want to coordinate a FULL WEEK OF POLKA DOTS.

Oh yes, my work colleagues won’t know what hit them.