Me Made May - week 3 round up

A bit behind schedule on posting here, life, in the form of redecorating, has intervened.  There has been topsy-turvyness in these parts for the last couple of weeks, but things are pretty much back to normal now and all the boxing up, packing up and moving around of STUFF was so worth the end result.

It has meant no sewing though, and not much knitting either, but I have been able to do a bit here and there.  Now to catch up on Me Made May.  Week 3 is the only week this month that I actually went to work every day - June will be a bit of a shock to the system, since I only did one full week in April as well, a girl could very easily get used to part-time hours...

So, Monday's outfit was my Up, Up and Away dress with a fuchsia pink cardigan from H&M, dark brown tights and chocolate brown El Naturalista shoes.

12th May outfit

On Tuesday I wore my Dotty Anna with a navy cardigan from Woolovers, navy tights and Orla Kiely by Clarks shoes - I love these shoes ;-) I hope she does another collection.

13th May outfit

Wednesday was a very. good. day. because the sun was out so I could ditch the tights YAY!  I had thought about having a week of wearing bird print dresses every day, but decided that was probably a bit too much of a good thing, so the first one of the week made its appearance today - my Bluebird dress, worn with a bright blue Woolovers cardi and navy Birkenstocks - the season of painted toenails is here at last!

14th May outfit

On Thursday I wore my Measuring Up dress - the ideal dress for Me Made May don't you think ;-) - with a pink Woolovers cardigan and pink Birks.

15th May outfit

For the last day of the working week it was back to birds again.  My Cath Kidston Garden Birds furnishing fabric mash-up dress (Elisalex and NL 6824), with a blue cardi from H&M and navy Birks.  I think I may have to bias-bind the skirt seams of this dress, because having washed it a couple of times they have frayed a bit.  I usually pink seams to finish them, but these I zigzagged because I thought if I pinked them and they frayed there wouldn't be much seam allowance left to do something different.  The bodice should be fine because the seams are all encased.  Something to bear in mind on future furnishing fabric garments.

16th May outfit

Well, that's a week's worth of outfits caught up.  Last week's and next week's combos I will put in one post at the end of next week - I only worked three days last week and next week will be four days with the bank holiday tomorrow, so they can all go in one post.

The decorating work meant that I had to miss the NYLON2014 bloggers' meet up last Saturday which I had been really looking forward to.  I did think I might be able to make the afternoon shopping part of the day, but as it turned out, it was not to be.  So I shall be living vicariously through the posts of the bloggers who did go and hope that I'll be able to go to another meet up in London at some point.  And I don't really need to buy any more fabric at the moment... although my sister has bought some fab fabrics from Goldhawk Road recently which have set me thinking that one or two more purchases wouldn't hurt...  I wonder whether the fact that the Tories have been kicked out of Ham & Fulham council in the elections last week might mean a reprieve for the Goldhawk Road shops.  I really hope so.

Well, that's it for this post, I have a sleeve to finish knitting (oh what joy).

Another polka dot dress - Sew Dolly Clackett no 5

The last of the five dresses I entered into the Dolly Clackett sew along is this one - a Butterick reprint of one of their 1960 patterns.  This is the second dress I've made from this pattern and this version has a gathered skirt because I only bought 2 metres of this fabric and to cut the circle skirt of the pattern would have needed more.  Not sure what else I can say about it really - bought the fabric at Ally Pally last autumn, sewed up quickly, looks bigger on Myrtle than it is on me, although I think it could do with being a bit smaller in the bodice.  Maybe I'll take the side seams in at some point, but at the moment I can live with it.




Pink polka dot dress

I'm really pleased to have made these five dresses this month - I've missed sewing while I've been knitting.  Though now I'm missing knitting!  I have a cardigan I really want to get finished before it gets too warm to wear it, (I live in hope) so I think maybe I should have that as a me-made-May pledge - I will finish knitting my pink cardigan.  I also intend to wear a me-made dress to work every day during May - I might devote one week solely to bird print dresses.  Someone at work actually asked me when I was going to wear my Flamingolex again, which made me feel all warm inside - a dress that I have made has made a positive impression on someone - so it will definitely feature in the bird-print-week.  Now I must away and knit a few rows.

Up, up and away (with the birds)

I really didn't intend for there to be such a delay in posting about these dresses but unfortunately malfunctioning technology intervened!  Anyway... problem one resolved, problem two trundles on, but at least I can now download my photos.  Now, on with today's dresses.

I've seen a few made with this hot air balloons fabric popping up in the blogosphere, and this is the colourway I liked best, so when I saw it at Ally Pally last year I had to get some.  I was running out of cash by the time I spotted it, so bought 1.5 metres with the plan of pairing it up with some plain fabric.  I don't remember now whether I already had the yellow cotton in my stash or whether I bought it after the balloons fabric, it came from the Fancy Silk Store in Birmingham and I'm not entirely convinced that it is 100% cotton.  Doesn't matter though because I love the colour.  Since the balloon fabric has rather a large pattern repeat I decided to do a gathered skirt and not worry about pattern matching.  Same skirt as for my Dotty Anna actually, two widths (58") of fabric with one cut up the middle for the zip at the back.  Although I think this one is a little bit shorter.  Why I felt the need to make such a summery dress in December I don't know, I haven't actually worn it yet, but once the weather warms up a bit it's going to get quite a bit of wear I think.  The pattern is of course Elisalex.

Up, up and away Elisalex

Dress number two is another variation on Elisalex, made with some fabric I bought in Ikea a few years ago with no plan in mind, I just liked the look of it.  I probably thought I'd make a cushion cover because I only bought one metre.  Because of this I cut the skirt narrower, it goes from 14 at the waist, to 6 at the sides and back out to 14 at the base (pretty much in a straight line actually).  I worked out the cutting line with the highly technical method of putting on my Flamingolex dress, grabbing some pins, pinning the sides to take out some of the width and deciding 'yep, that'll work'.  I can't remember exactly what I did next because I made this a while ago and didn't take any notes, but I now have a paper skirt pattern in this new outline which I can use again.

Birdielex

This dress originally had short sleeves which I had to fiddle around with because by mistake I cut out two the same rather than a left and a right, but eventually I got a left sleeve and a right sleeve, attached them and tried the dress on.  Disaster.  Well that's an exaggeration really, but I can't think of a more appropriate word at the moment!  And it looks wrong whether I spell it with one 'g' or two.  The sleeves pulled the shoulders down and the armholes were a bit snug - it's furnishing fabric so that may have something to do with it, but I was so disappointed after all the time it had taken me to cut the sleeves and put them in.  So I unpicked the sleeve seam, took them out and oversewed the bodice and lining together at the armhole and it's now a sleeveless dress.  The black bodice fabric is a plain cotton from Fabricland.

Birdielex

Dotty Anna & Lily Anna

Here are two more Anna dresses from By Hand London – this is such a pretty and versatile pattern that I will be making more of them this year.  I made both of these in December but haven’t had time to blog about them until now because, well, life.

The first one is made from some polka dot fabric which I bought at the Knitting & Stitching Show at Ally Pally in October.  I like polka dots, in the same way that I like gingham, and bird prints, and I like this particular one very much because (a) it’s cotton not polycotton and (b) it’s white dots on a colour rather than the other way round.  I decided to make this with a gathered skirt, which is just two widths of the fabric (58” wide) with one cut in half to accommodate the back seam, so I got the whole dress out of 2m of fabric.

As with my first Anna I cut a size 12 and took the back neckline in by ⅝” and tapered it out.  I also did size 14 bust pleats because the pleats on my Anthro Anna come up a little high.  With a machined hem this dress came together very quickly.

Dotty Anna

This next one is a v-necked maxi version made with stretch cotton which I bought in Fabricland recently.  As soon as I saw it on the roll I knew I wanted to make an Anna maxi from it (and that doesn’t happen often – it’s more usual that I buy fabric without a particular pattern in mind).  I bought 3.5m and as it’s 56” wide and I cut the skirt pieces 6” shorter this was enough fabric, even though it has a one-way print.

This too I made with size 14 bust pleats, however I didn’t think to cut a size 14 skirt front, so there is a bit of mismatch going on at the waist.  I don’t think it’s that noticeable though and it’s not something I’m going to fret about.  Next time though, if I am using the skirt pattern pieces, I will either cut a 14 skirt front, or use the size 12 bust pleats and make them shorter so that things match up.  With a gathered skirt of course this doesn’t matter!  I also tapered all the skirt seams from ⅝” out to ½” to give a little more room around the waist and this has worked well.

As I was sewing the skirt pieces together I noticed one of them had a mark on it – not sure what from, but having seen it I decided to cut out a replacement piece which fortunately I had enough fabric left to do.  If there hadn’t have been enough I’d have left it and tried to ignore it, it wasn’t that noticeable really and I’m not sure that anyone else would have seen it, but once I knew it was there…  However, I didn’t have quite enough fabric and so the replacement piece was a bit shorter than the rest.  This meant I ended up cutting 1½” off the length, and with a machined hem of ⅝” + ⅞” it is now an ideal length for wearing with flip flops rather than killer heels.  Which is just fine actually as I tend to live in Birkenstocks in the summer.  The only thing I haven’t done, and probably will, is to top stitch the neckline to keep the facing from riding up at the front.



Lily Anna maxi

I’m really pleased with both these dresses and I’m sure other versions will be appearing in the next few months.  At least one more maxi (this is the only maxi dress pattern I have), and maybe a mash-up with the Elisalex skirt, possibly one with the Cambie A-line skirt if I can make the darts line up (or use a fabric where it won’t show if not), and, well, we’ll just have to see where the fancy takes me for further outings of this pattern.