do you mind if i knit

£1 ALL.

See that?! £1 ALLLLLLLLL !!!!!!!!!!

£1 for nine balls of vintage Patons Beehive 3-ply yarn!

In a popping red that isn't too popping in real life, but has just enough pop to make me happy.

We went to a village fete on Sunday, and I started by taking photos.

There was a lot to look at, colourful inflatable fair attractions (for children to slide down or jump on), stalls selling candyfloss, lots of colour and busyness! I planned to continue clicking away with my camera.

That was until we reached the car boot sale and I found the £1 All bag of wool.

My hound like bargain sniffer, (it's an official part of my brain, I doubt I'm the only one afflicted with this), went into over-drive after that, I think I was practically salivating.

Maybe I should have been on a leash.

I did notice out of the corner of my eye, that Hugo was standing back looking slightly bemused, and knew better than to say anything like "haven't you got enough yarn?"

I went on to buy two cones of yarn for £1, three embroidered tablecloths for £5, and a nice necklace for £3.

I left feeling like I'd had a very big meal, and was all bloated up with bags full of bargain goodies.

Another thing I did this weekend just gone, was visit the market stall of someone I know called Hannah. She's in the process of starting up a shop that she intends to grow, from a market stall, to a shop in bricks and mortar, and she's called it "Sew Pretty". She's not yet selling her wares on-line.

Saturday morning dawned lovely and sunny, and I felt very excited at sauntering down to Hannah's stall.

I bought the fabric, threads, elastic and button from Hannah's stall a couple of weeks ago to make the turquoise Miz Mozelle Dress. Everything to make the dresss came to £12, so you can see her prices are affordable. And the selection of fabrics is wonderful. Shall we have a little look?

Hannah is full of energy and ideas, and so talking sewing with her is like watching a sponge soak up water, with me as the sponge.

Hannah's son has set up a company called Crow and Dunnage, printing t-shirts, and soon to expand to bags. You can design your own t-shirts and they will screenprint them. It would be great if they started printing fabrics for garment making, maybe that will be in their plans for the future. The link to their site is here.

And yes (!) I did buy some fabric from Hannah! This 2.3 metres screenprinted fabric was in her bargain box for £12, and I've got a pattern in mind for it......... will reveal that when I come to use the fabric.

The yellow polka dot fabric above is from Hannah too, £8 for three metres, and I plan to make another Miz Mozelle dress with it.

The stripy blue and white fabric above is a metre of curtain fabric, the plan is to make another Starboard Skirt with it.

The red gingham dress I last reported on in this post, has now acquired a waistband.

I've got some sort of mental block concerning this dress, you could call it "attitude". I'm like a sulky teenager reluctantly finishing a job I have started. I worked on it for a few hours on Saturday afternoon. The skirt section is ready to be attached. I should just get on with it.

The reason I'm not doing that, is that I've been concentrating on my sculptures.

You might enjoy this little anecdote.  I was making butterflies that are to be part of a commission I'm working on, and couldn't understand where one of the pieces had gone. It seemed to have just vanished, and I put it down to that mystical vanishing thing that happens to things like needles and pins, and other little bits and pieces. Well, the whole evening, during supper and afterwards, I was slightly perplexed as to the missing piece. It was only as I was washing my hands in the bathroom, and glanced at the mirror, that I noticed a butterfly tangled up in my hair.

I had been around Hugo all evening, had supper with him and spoken to him, and I presume he looked at me when he spoke to me. At no point had he observed the butterfly in my hair, (I'm not in the habit of wearing decorative things in my hair, so it wasn't a case of him thinking it was normal, and so not necessary to remark on).

What's this called? "Invisible Wife Syndrome"?

And my knitted dress? I'm starting to sew the side seams up. I'm praying it fits. Maybe my Friday post will have good news, or bad news, about that.

I'm off to get on with things that have to be got on with. Have a good week! Vanessa xxx

 

The Starboard Skirt!

Oh my! I've found such a GREAT pattern!

I tell you, the skirt I'm wearing in this post, (which I made last Sunday evening), is just about as brilliant as it gets in terms of ease of design and making, with a wonderful result.

I've had this Ikea curtain fabric for many years, I don't remember what I bought a metre of this material for, but it's fate that it came to be perfect for this skirt, it was just waiting to be made into this skirt.

When laid out flat, this fabric had huge red circles on it, goodness only knows what I thought I was going to make with it. I think it's worked out well for this garment.

The tutorial to make The Starboard Skirt is from the blog Simple Simon and Company, and the instructions are in two parts.

If you want to make the skirt for your little girl, or you want to make it for yourself and have a figure of a girl (no hips or waist basically), then you will be fine following the FIRST tutorial here.

If you have curves, you will find that if you follow the first tutorial, your skirt ends up being more of a straight skirt (rather than the more flattering A-line shape), and it might end up being a bit too tight around the waist, hips and posterior. That is what happened with the first skirt I made, and it didn't fit terribly well.

There's the first skirt I made, in the polka dot fabric, above.

I think I might be able to get away with wearing it with a tunic over the top, something that doesn't show the pinched in waist.

The red and taupe abstract shapes skirt I feature in this blog post, was made using instructions from a later blog post here, combined with the instructions from the first tutorial.

Part of the reason I fell in love with The Starboard Skirt, was the gorgeous fabrics used in the first tutorial. I love the simple and bold designs. I love them so much, I actually want to copy those skirts and use the exact same fabrics.

If you are in the United States, it's easy enough, you can order the Yellow Chevron print on-line here. And the red striped print can be bought on-line here. This company don't ship internationally. I e-mailed them asking them if they would make an exception, I was so obsessed by getting hold of some of this fabric (after a futile search trying to find these patterns here in the UK). The fabric shop said no, they don't ship internationally.

So, not one to give up that easily, I wrote them another e-mail asking where the fabrics were from, so I could trace them by finding out their make, which isn't listed on the website of this company. They kindly gave me the name of the place they bought the fabric from! And joy of joys, the fabric is available to buy on-line here, and they ship internationally.

It has occured to me (but I've just ignored the thought completely, as I'm obsessed about owning these two fabrics), that my quest is slightly ridiculous, as I only need a metre of each fabric, and I am also not meant to be spending lots of money on fabric. The material itself is not massively expensive, it's the shipping cost that hurts.

Anyway, this is a great pattern for anyone to make, beginner or experienced sewer. I can see myself making a few, it's difficult to resist a pattern that takes a few hours to work into a finished garment.

And my knitting? I haven't given up on knitting, absolutely not, never.

I'm still working on the Debbie Bliss dress pattern.

I worked on my dress for almost the whole journey on my trip to London last Tuesday, which felt very luxurious. That's the wonderful thing about traveling by train, it makes fabulous uniterrupted knitting time.

Getting up at five am, and  returning home at 10 pm, made it a long day though.

I'm not too far off finishing the dress, as I've reached the left-hand side section, where you start to decrease for the neckline.

I did one more cable pattern repeat than specified in the pattern, before I started to decrease at the neckline, as I had a sneaking suspicion it would be too low otherwise. The models are ususlly tall and slim, and on the model in the picture for the pattern, the neckline is going towards being a bit low. So as I'm 5 foot 2, I wouldn't be surprised if the neckline in the pattern was too low on my stature. I don't feel comfortable showing cleavage.

The weather is meant to be good this weekend, but I've got to do some work, putting things off doesn't get things done, funny that..........

Have a lovely weekend, take care, and cheerio! Vanessa xxx

 

 

The Miz Mozelle Dress!

I love this dress I made! It's sooooo slimming, honestly, with this dress I now have a waist I'm quite pleased with, it's amazing, and part of me has to wonder if I'm seeing things.

Here we have "The Miz Mozelle Dress", a sewing pattern from Jamie Christina.

You can buy the pattern from her site in the States on this page.

Or if you live in the UK, an online website called Backstitch sells the pattern here.

It's a relatively new pattern, I understand, so the flickr page for Jamie Christina patterns only has one person showing her Miz Mozelle Dress, (There are the photos of the model wearing the dress in the group, but I'm not counting those). I'll add my photos to the group too.

Florence of blog Flossie Teacakes is the only person who has put her Miz Mozelle dress in the flickr pool, when I last looked, and her dress is GORGEOUS, you can see Florence's post about it here.

Florence has also done a very interesting and informative post about the toile, (a practise piece in cheap fabric to check the garment is the right size), she made for her Miz Mozelle dress here. Florence and I are similar heights (small), so I followed her tips for making this dress, (which she talks about in her toile post), namely reducing the size of the keyhole. Infact, I was so confident about Florence's excellent advice, I didn't make a toile, I just dived straight in to making the dress.

I've not made a toile yet of any of my dresses yet, it's a new concept to me.

I'm beginning to suspect that making a toile is the equivalent of doing a guage swatch before knitting or crocheting a garment. An important thing to do if you want your garment to fit as well as it possibly can, plus, very important to make with cheap fabric, if you are planning to use expensive fabric and don't want an expensive pigs ear hanging off your body.

I thought that Florence's demonstration in her toile post spoke volumes. If she hadn't of made the toile, she would have had an expensive and a little unflattering creation. Having made the toile, and spotted the problem areas, she ended up with a beautiful dress that looks fantastic on her.

I showed you the fabric above, when I last mentioned sewing something, but ended up not using that fabric for the Miz Mozelle dress, as you may have noticed already. Even though the fabric was £5 a metre in the Liberty sale, in my mind it's still in the category of it's full price, which is more costly and therefor more luxurious. So to be treated with reverence, and not used to make something I hope will turn out alright.

So that's where the turquoise cotton at £2.50 a metre came in. Cutting that up didn't give me the palpitations using the more expensive fabric would. In a way, you could say I've made a very detailed toile, that I am going to wear.

That's the thing about doing a toile that bothers me, the idea of making a garment twice, even though the toile is meant to be very basic. Still, like making a guage swatch, I do understand it's probably for the best.

Anyway, I love this pattern. It's very clear and easy to follow, it's got the big thumbs up from me.

The only thing I would change about this pattern next time I make it is this.

On the Jamie Christina website, she says that if you're not using the specified stretchy fabric, but something like a cotton instead, that you should go up a size when making the top half of the dress. I did this because I used cotton rather than stretchy fabric, and I feel the top half of my dress is a little too big, I think it would have been perfect if I'd done the same size as the skirt, and not gone up a size for the top half.

Also, there is a little bit of a puffy effect around the waist, I think I'll reduce the amount of fabric on the sides slightly, and make the top half slightly shorter next time I make this dress. Hopefully that should reduce the puffiness a little. I do want some puffiness, because that helps to create the illusion of a waist, I just don't want so much puffiness.

But as I say, I love this pattern, I love it!

 

Hugo climbed a ladder to take these photos, hence the photo of Douglas and his waggy tail from above, in the mosaic. Wasn't that nice of Hugo to balance on a ladder and take these photos for me!

Hugo is very generous with putting himself in an uncomfortable position for the sake of others.

Here he is above, in his Dry Suit, doing his bit at the annual Lifeboat Gala, to raise funds for the RNLI, Hugo is a volunteer. (Hugo is the one in the foreground, not the young man with his head poking through the hole).

He was selected to do the "throw a wet sponge at a volunteer who has his head stuck through a hole" attraction.

He loved it.

You may well ask, did I pay to throw sponges at my husband?

I most certainly did!

£1 got me six throws.

I missed Hugo's head on all throws except the last, it was most embarrassing.

As I was throwing sponges, unfortunately I couldn't take photos, such a shame.

Unlike Douglas in the earlier mosaic, who was waiting anxiously for Hugo to get down from the ladder, (from which Hugo was photographing me wearing my dress), Ellie, (above), was sitting, oblivious to everything other than her own pleasure at catching the last rays of sun of the day.

Well, I'm writing this on Monday, to publish on Tuesday, rather than missing out on Tuesday's blog post.

I'll be on the train to London to see Walker Books on Tuesday, to go over the work I've done on the book I'm doing with them. It's the dreaded five hours there, and five hours back on the train. Unlike my last journey to see Walker Books, I shall make sure I don't forget my knitting pattern.

Hugo's making a Paella! I LOVE Paella. It's almost ready, so I need to dash.

I hope you've been inspired to make a Miz Mozelle dress, and end up joining Florence and I in the flickr group.

Cheerio! Vanessa xxxxxx

 

Apparently sewing clothes is the new knitting.

Gosh I'm cream crackered today, I have no idea what's got into me. It might be my blocked up ear, which has made me deaf in that ear, so I feel like my senses are incomplete, and it's made me all lethargic. You ever have this?

Douglas, (above), has been in a funny mood today too, very clingy. I sat on the sofa, and he was up in a flash, on my lap, and stuck to me like a piece of chewing gum.

"Sewing clothes is the new knitting". I can't remember where I read that, but it made me stop and think. I'm sure I'm seeing more people making their own clothes in blogland.

I can't remember the last time I went shopping for clothes in a full priced clothes shop, one that wasn't a charity clothes shop.

I lost interest in shopping for clothes a few years ago, I found that clothes were either not to my taste, or they were too expensive for me. So for a while now I have been wearing the clothes I already own, with the odd purchase from a charity shop or in the sale of an on-line shop.

Then I started to come across bloggers who were making their own clothes, and it was a bit of a revelation for me, because they were making just the sort of clothes I would like to wear, but you can't find easily in shops.

I started to get interested in what clothes people are making. It's been a slow drip-drip of gathering a little knowledge about dressmaking, and I've only touched the tip of the iceberg, but it's enough to have got me going, starting with the book "Chic and Simple Sewing" by Christine Haynes (which gave me the confidence to sew dresses).

And that leads me to the subject of the cost of making your own clothes, versus the cost of buying from full-priced clothes shops. Is it me, or are clothes in a lot of shops really quite expensive these days? Or has my view been distorted by buying from charity shops? I managed to buy the fabric, elastic, thread, button, and bias binding to make a dress last weekend, all for £12. I thought that was pretty reasonable. It didn't include the cost of the pattern, but if I use the pattern a few times (which I plan to), and continue buying my fabric at £2.50 a metre from the Saturday market, (that was 100% cotton), I think that making my clothes will be cheaper than buying clothes new.

There's the time involved, it does take time, that's for sure, but there's a tremendous sense of achievement when things are finished. And of course there will be times when I buy more expensive fabric, that's for sure too.

I really, really, like the idea of making my own clothes.

If I have the time.

Very Purple Person makes her own underwear. See it here.

I'm not sure I'll ever get round to making fancy underwear, but you never know.

Knitting and crochet will always be my first love. They're portable, which is a bonus.

And there's nothing quite like sinking into a bit of comfy knitting/crochet is there?

I don't know if my foray into sewing is a passing fancy. Only time will tell.

In my next blog post, I do have a finished dress to show you, one that I've made myself. I'll keep that for next Tuesday.

Have a good weekend. Cheerio! Vanessa xxx

 

Exciting news! Roll up, roll up! Chick alert!

Hooray! Chick births over on blog Purple Podded Peas! If you like small fluffy chicks and big fat beautiful black Hens that's the place to be visiting.

I last reported in this blog post back on June 1st, that there were eggs being incubated in the world of Purple Podded Peas. Well, it's been a bit touch and go apparently, I think Celia was worried that they weren't going to hatch at one point. But they've finally hatched, and you can see a lovely little film clip in this blog post, showing mother and nine children tweet tweeting away over their breakfast. One little chick tries the tea towel out for gourmet possibilities.

It's been a strange old week here in my corner of the UK. Thunderclaps and torrential rain one minute, the next moment, bright clear skies and sun. We've been timing our moments. The moments we step out of doors. Apart from a little dog walking, I've been cooped up indoors most of the week, and found myself getting a bit of cabin fever. Staring hard at the garden whilst the rain pours and pours, and then pours some more.

The light goes too. You know how heavy the down pour is going to be by how many lights you have to turn on indoors.

It was duting one of these dark moments of being incarcerated in the house, watching the weather resignedly, that I found myself traipsing around some of the house photographing things.

Knitting bags in the living room. Hmmm, not terribly exciting, but it does lead me neatly to the progress of my knitted dress.

You know, I don't think mannequins are terribly representative of the human form, not mine anyway, I'm much less smooth than my mannequin. But pinning the back of my Debbie Bliss dress to the mannequin does give you an idea of what it could look like on a nice smooth figure.

I'm worried about the band that joins the skirt to the top half, I don't think it's long enough. I pinned the bit of the front half I'm working on, to the mannequin, and I really had to stretch the band to meet with the back half. I shall ponder that little problem when I finally come to join the back to the front.

I did take a photo of the front half pinned on, but it looks too rude to show you. You work from the band downwards first, then you pick up your stitches for the top half and knit upwards. I'm only at the stage where I'm knitting the skirt section, so there's no top half. The picture of it on the mannequin looks like the mannequin is topless, it's a bit alarming.

I'm coming to the conclusion that the medium size I'm knitting is too small. Usually Debbie Bliss patterns turn out larger than expected, so I'm surprised this seems to be the opposite case with my knitted dress.

And my other dress? The sewn one? I don't know, do I admit this?.......................... I think I don't really like the pattern. It came free with a magazine, and I thought it would be nice in the red gingham.

No. what it is, is I really like the top half, but I really don't like the skirt on the dress. And I don't like the waistband.

I'm meant to be making pattern B.

I can't get it out of my head that the dress is a bit too 'neat' for me. It's perhaps a 'smart event' dress. For someone else.

My confidence as a new sewer is in the balance a bit here, which might seem a bit over-the-top but that's just the way it is. The dress has a half finished waistband, and is currently lying in a dejected little heap on the table. I did experiment with a bit of shirring. The idea was to have a shirred waistband to soften the midrif a bit, but I chickened out after shirring a few rows on a long length of fabric. There's a wonderful friendly tutorial by Flossie Teacakes here. Don't you think the name Flossie teacakes is wonderful for a blog?

The only thing I can think of is to try and re-design the bottom half of the dress, which does seem ludicrously ambitious for someone with my limited skills. What do you think about creating an a-line skirt that starts from where I left off in the picture above? Will it look totally crap? Can I be bothered in my current 'about to give up' mood? Advice welcomed gratefully.

So aren't I the jolly one today!

I'm just going to give you one more link before I tootle off.

If you are a watcher of programmes like Grand Designs, you may well find the house building going on over at rose hip, in this blog post here, fascinating. I love Grand Designs, and any programme that involves making a nest, house building, housey stuff. Just one little warning, you may well get a little sidetracked by the beautiful pillowcases with their gorgeous crochet edgings that rose hip makes.

Have a good weekend! Vanessa xxx

Hugo says "how will you know when it's arrived if it's invisible?"

 Hello! Did you have a good weekend? I hope so! Ours was a weekend full of unusual sociability for us, Hugo and I usually spend our weekends doing our own thing, just the two of us, but this weekend just gone, was busy.

Saturday we had friends round for lunch, and we were able to sit outside in the garden to eat. The first time this year!

Sunday we had Auntie Anne, (who looks after the dogs a lot), round to watch the Men's Final at Wimbledon. We drank Pimms and ate chocolate brownies made by Hugo, and got very vocal about the match. We were rooting for Nadal. Poor Nadal. I hate to see such a superb player beaten, but he was outplayed by the better man on the day.

We went to the beach to walk the dogs, and it was warm enough to go bare-foot on the sand, which felt very luxurious.

Tabiboo has a top tip for getting sand off little feet and back into shoes, in her blog post here.

We luxuriated in the sun with a cup of coffee and the weekend papers, and watched the world go by. And there was lots of great dog spotting!

I didn't make the dress in the picture above.

I found it in a charity shop. Never worn. It cost £6.

I was so pleased with the dress I got Hugo to take photos of me wearing it on the beach, to show it to you.

When you find something you love, a certain triumphal feeling follows, don't you find? You want to show your find, and be told "ooohhhh yes, what a bargain, lucky you!"

I showed it to someone, and she said, "it's very you Vanessa".

I'll admit, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it makes me happy! It's always the little things.

I am making another dress.

I've had this red gingham fabric hanging around for years, and I could just picture it made up into the pattern I'm using.

I got the pattern free with this month's 'Sew' magazine.

I'm making the dress with the long arms, (dress B), but I'm not sewing on any applique like that featured in the pattern's waist area, on my dress, I'm keeping it simple.

The title of this post relates to this dress. I've had to order an 'invisible zip' on-line, and Hugo said to me, "how will you know when it's arrived?"

"What do you mean?"

"The zip, it's invisible, so how will you know when it's arrived in the post?"

I've got a few links for you since doing the post about my 'Lisette Portfolio dress', above. If you want to make one, and you feel like having some guidance with the pattern, there's a sew a-long composed by Gwenny Penny over five tutorials you can follow:

Day 1 here.

Day 2 here.

Day 3 here.

Day 4 here.

Day 5 here.

There's a sew lisette website that you might find useful here.

And there's a great SewLisette group on flickr which you can find here. The flickr group is a great place to look at other people's versions of all the Lisette patterns from Simplicity, and get inspiration.

Isn't that great that the Lisette patterns have such a wide range of support and coverage? There's something really nice about making the same dress along with lots of other people all over the world, each with their own version.

And lastly, just before I go, here's a little note to myself of another pattern I quite like, this dress from Burdastyle here. You can see other people's versions of it on the BurdaStyle website here.

I don't think I've forgotten anything....................... oh yes! My knitted dress! I've finished the back, and am now on the front skirt section, but I forgot to take photos of it today, I'll try and remember for my Friday post.

Cheerio! Love Vanessa xxx

P.s. If there's one link you go to today it has to be this link to Jane Brocket's post here, honestly, it's a thing of beauty and amazement!

Simplicity Lisette 'Portfolio Dress', pattern no.2245 - finito!

Hello! Isn't Andy Murray doing well! So far....................... Fingers crossed hey!

I do love my little orange pumps, even though they do rub, are very thin soled, and rather uncomfortable - that is the lot of feet which want to be adorned with prettiness! The dress aside, I can't keep my eyes off those little orange shoes. They only ever got worn where I can take them off, ridiculous isn't it! So my grey spotted dress is finished. What a palaver this one was! Everything was fine until it came to the yoke, which ended up being made THREE times.

Picture proof of two discarded yokes, above.

The greatly positive thing about this yoke shenanigans is that I feel quietly confident at sewing yokes now, which have a reputation for not being the easiest of things to sew. Practise makes perfect. I've certainly practised, though I wouldn't say I'm perfect.

I think the first dress I made (above) involved some beginners luck. That dress just seemed to sail along without many problems. But the yoke on this dress! What a kerfuffle. It was the iron-on interfacing, (which I used in my last dress successfully), it wrinkled up once I'd finished the dress, and looked dreadful. The final version of the yoke has no interfacing at all, I just left it out. I've ordered some sew-in interfacing, I don't trust the iron-on stuff any more.

Now I have to show you the little wooden contraption above. The unassuming length of wood sticking out of a block of wood was made for me by Hugo. It's to help me hem my dress accurately.  I stand beside it, Hugo marks the point on the wood at which I want the hem length, and then he goes round on his knees, pinning the hem according to the mark!

I bet there aren't too many men who would pin their partner's hems for them, or make a wooden contraption to help with the hemming! Isn't that wonderful of Hugo to do those things for me!

Shall we have a last little look at my dress then?

I had a really nice compliment from a lady about my dress yesterday, totally out-of-the-blue. When I said I'd made it, she was suitably amazed, how great is that!

Just to let you know the details of this dress: The pattern is from Simplicity, it's "Lisette 'Portfoloio Dress', pattern no 2245". I made it using about 2 and 3/4 metres of  "La Petitie Ecole by French General" for Moda, in "dots grey". I made the size 14.

I bought my fabric from a local shop selling quilting fabrics, but after a little search, I found an on-line shop selling the same fabric here. Ray-Stitch sell a lovely red version of the same polka dot fabric here.

I really, really, really like this pattern, I'd make it again, especially now I'm a dab hand at the yoke on this dress. It's so comfortable to wear, is just loose enough, but not too loose, and I like the pocket detailing, it makes it a bit different.

One of the side-effects of my new interest in dressmaking is my curiosity about what other people are making, and what patterns and fabrics are out there. The world of sewing is yet another plane of crafty consciousness, and of course there's been the inevitable "I have to make that pattern"!

One example of this is a pattern that appears to be well known in the U.S. world of sewing, and it's a pattern by Simplicity, from their Built By Wendy range of patterns, called "Built by Wendy number 3835", which I first saw made up on the blog Harmony and Rosie, in this post. It's such a beautiful and simple design, but it's out of print. When I last searched I could not find a single copy for sale, not a single copy. What a shame. I found myself hungrily, or even ravenously, searching for this pattern which I had to have. And discovered that there are a few other people hunting just as hungrily.

I like this dress too. Also made by Harmony and Rosie.

There are quite a few patterns I really rather like. I've made a little list...................

BurdaStyle Peasant Blouse pattern here.

BurdaStyle Peasant Style Dress here.

BurdaStyle Tie Front Blouse pattern here.

BurdaStyle Long Sleeved Embroidered Dress pattern here.

An AMAZING website called Fancy Moon selling an extraordinary range of fabrics, the link is here.

My little list could become a big list, maybe even a huge list.

And now what shall I do? Well, I've got some red gingham cotton that I've had for years. And I bought a sewing magazine the other day which had a free pattern, I like it enough to make it.

But I'll show you that another time, when I get going on it. My knitted dress is slowly increasing too. That's for another time too.

Well, see you on Friday. have a good week. Ta-ra! Love Vanessa xxx

 

A bit of the tired-oh.

Hello! I'm lagging here, but I had to pop in and say a hello-ho and a rum-de-dum- tra-la.

This is the sort of thing that is good to say when you feel really very tired-oh, feet-dragging-oh, really-feel-like sinking-onto-the-sofa-and-watching-a good-movie-oh. With a cup of tea of course, and a complete lack of guilt too (that's harder isn't it!).

Must have been the travelling on Tuesday that's caught up with me. I couldn't blog last Tuesday as I normally would, because I was making the five hour train journey from home to Walker Books for a meeting, (I've got a page on their website here), and then travelling back five hours again to get home the same day. I was up at five in the morning, felt surprisingly spritely, got on the train, got out my knitting, and realised I had forgotten my knitting pattern. There was a moment of sheer incomprehension that I could do such a thing. I hadn't taken a book with me. But I had taken extra balls of wool, so I set about copying what I had already knitted, as the front and the back of the dress are the same in the skirt section. Hugo kindly scanned the pattern and e-mailed it to my art editor at Walker, so at least I had the pattern for the journey home. The knitting I'd done on the train to London was slightly wrong unfortunately, but never mind.

The dress I'm making is almost finished! Just the hem and a couple of buttons to sew on. Hopefully I'll have photos to show you of the finished dress, in next Tuesday's post.

I bought this copy of "The Craft of Dressmaking" by Anne Ladbury, published back in 1977, in a local second hand book shop. I feel I want to get my basic skills in dressmaking up to scratch. Even though I've made two dresses, I want to make sure I'm doing it right, and think I could probably improve on what I've done so far.

That must be Anne Ladbury, the author, on the cover of the book. I think she looks rather cool, and I love the dresses hanging up behind her, they're similar to the styles I'm interested in making. Fashion does go round and round in circles doesn't it?

Just before I go, I have to mention today's "Desert Island Discs" on Radio 4. Len Goodman of t.v. programme "Strictly Come Dancing" was the guest today, and if you've got a spare 45 minutes to sit down with your knitting, crochet, sewing or whatevering, and listen to his interview, it's well worth it, he's very entertaining. I'm very taken with his terminology for attracting females whilst out on the town: "crumpeting".

You can now listen to everyone who's been interviewed on Desert Island Discs, right back to the 1940's, by exploring the archive here. You can listen to it on i-player or as a podcast, isn't that marvellous!

Right, I'm off to make a cup of tea.

I just thought I'd type in Jack Nicholson's name, but he hasn't been interviewed on Desert Island Discs. He'd make a great interviewee, I shall never forget him flirting outrageously with his Jenni Murray on Woman's Hour a few years ago. It was wonderful to listen to, you could hear Jenni practically melting! Such a shame you can't listen to it like you can with Desert Island Discs.

Have a good weekend! Love Vanessa xxx

The Baby Doll Dress is finished!

Hello! Hello! Hello! I am excited, YES! I am very excited, my first dress is finished, I'm wearing at this moment, this exact moment, and I'm pleased as punch! I sewed it over the afternoons of Saturday and Sunday of last weekend, and I still can't quite believe I've done it!

I'm so used to my knitted garments taking a while to complete, the sewing of this dress felt like a very intense experience, so I'm feeling like I'm coming down from a period of great excitement, (even though I have plenty of other exciting things on the go). It must be something to do with it being a new hobby.

Gosh, sewing could cost you a bomb in fabric couldn't it? I mean, if you got passionate and obsessed by sewing like I am with knitting, where you had to do a bit every day to get your fix................ well, you'd whizz through projects. I know that this pattern was a quick and easy pattern as sewing standards go, but still.....................

I know what I want to sew next, another dress, it's the fabric that's the problem, the cost of it. The nice stuff, that really nice stuff is £12 metre. If I need 2.5 to 3 metres, then there's lining material, (if I use that), on top. It all adds up. I've been going googly eyed searching the web for reasonably priced fabrics I like, I've been finding it hard to choose!

So! The details! This pattern is "The Baby Doll Dress" (not the baby doll blouse, there's a separate pattern for that), from the book "Chic And Simple Sewing" by Christine Haynes. She has a website here.

Christine, the author of this pattern, helped me sew my dress brilliantly, her written instructions are clear and to the point, and she's started me off on my sewing path feeling confident that I can sew to my heart's delight!

The main body of the dress uses Chambray Cotton in a pale pink, whilst the patterned area uses Amy Butler for Rowan fabric, I've been trying to find the exact design, but it must be an old one, because I can't find it.

The pattern above is also from "Chic and Simple Sewing" by Christine Haynes, I like it a lot. I've got a few other patterns that are contenders for my next dress too, but that will have to be in another blog post, sorry folks.

Righty-ho, I'm off to do whatever it is I'm meant to be doing! See you on Friday! Love Vanessa xxx