Paris in the rain dress

I bought the fabric for this dress when I visited Paris last month and the name comes from the fact that the day I went to visit Make My Lemonade on Canal St Martin (which is where I bought it), it was raining.  Quite a lot.

I knew I would be making a dress in this style, I just wasn't sure which bodice pattern I'd use - I decided on Butterick 5748.  This is the first time I have used this bodice with this skirt and I'll be doing so again I expect because they fit together perfectly at the waist, without any fiddling about with the pleats to get a match.

I bought 2.5 metres of fabric - which is lovely - and used all of it - there was enough for pockets and a certain amount of pattern matching which I'm very pleased about!

It was the perfect dress to wear to Hampton Court Flower Show last week - I finished it just in time on the Wednesday evening before visiting on the Thursday, and the weather was lovely - lots of warmth and sunshine.  This really is my favourite style of summer dress.

Turquoise Roses dress - me-made May dress no 4

I bought the fabric for this dress from Barry's in Birmingham in August 2014... and it's been waiting for me to make it up ever since.  I absolutely love it and I think the reason I've delayed using it has been that I didn't want to make it up and then wish I'd chosen a different pattern.  I decided to use the same Sew Over It Betty bodice / Butterick vintage 2248 skirt combo as for my navy lemons dress (one of my favourites) which I knew would work - problem solved!  It's a lovely cotton by John Kaldor.

This came together quickly although I did have to adjust the pleats to fit the bodice waist, but that is not difficult to do.

Unfortunately I don't have any more fabric in my stash that I could use to make another - it needs 58"+ width for the skirt - so I might break my self-imposed buying ban if I see something suitable.

So, photos.

Firstly without a petticoat,

And secondly with.

I know I'm going to wear this a lot, despite the time it takes to iron!

Lemons dress

The next dress I made was for the #OAL2018 challenge, but I've decided that I'll write that one up with the two others I did for the challenge, so on to this one.

I first saw this fabric when it started popping up on my instagram feed last year - dressmakers I follow made some gorgeous dresses with it.  It didn't take me long to decide to buy some, but unfortunately by then the navy colourway had sold out and it was only available with a black background, which I didn't want.  And so I thought that was that.  Until this year when I decided to check the Etsy seller who had it last year, just to see..., and she had it back in stock so I snapped up 3m.

I used the SOI Betty bodice and the skirt from a vintage Butterick pattern, 2248, which I first used for this dress.

I traced and slightly changed the skirt pattern pieces so that they would fit on one width of the fabric (56" wide).  I still had to fiddle about with the pleats a bit to fit the bodice.  After I'd finished it and worn it a few times I decided to add side seam pockets as I didn't use all the fabric and I do prefer my dresses to have pockets!  This was much more of a faff than if I'd put them in when I was actually making it, but worth doing though - I'm glad they are there now.

Here is the dress with a petticoat underneath to pouf out the skirt.

I absolutely love this dress, I think navy, yellow and white is a great combination and the fabric is lovely.

Yellow and grey Hemingway dress

This dress is made with a gorgeous quality Hemingway design fabric from a trip to Brighton three years ago, and I love the print.  It's another Ruby bodice / different skirt mash up - I used the skirt from a vintage pattern which I picked up in the pattern swap at #sewbrum a couple of years ago.

I had to fiddle about with the pleats a bit to get the two waistlines to match up (the skirt being bigger than the bodice), but pleats are really quite forgiving of a bit of adjustment here and there and other than that this was a straightforward make.

Shown here with a petticoat - this dress is one I'll probably wear in the winter with a wool cardigan and boots (and the petticoat for extra insulation).