Two bird print dresses

These two dresses are sharing a post as I made them in quick succession and they are both sewn using the same pattern combo - a Sew Over It Betty bodice, the skirt from vintage Simplicity 3749 and pockets from Simplicity 2444.  I've made this twice before (here and here) and it will be cropping up again during May I'm sure.

The first is this turquoise beauty.

I absolutely love this print (Michael Miller Wing Song), I already have two rtw dresses in it - a straight skirted one in this colourway and a flared skirted one in a pink colourway, which sadly I've never found as fabric, otherwise I'd buy that too!

And this is dress number 2 - I've had this fabric since 2014 and finally got it sewn up.

I had a couple of setbacks with this dress, the first being an ironing incident with the bodice which meant ditching it and cutting another one, and the second was having to put the zip in twice because of a thread tension issue - I've no idea what caused it so I didn't do anything differently and the second time it went in fine.

Now I'm going to get some fabric cut out in preparation for me-made May, and I also have a cardigan I was hoping to finish by the end of the month, although that will be pushing it now I think since I still have one and a half sleeves to knit.  By the end of next week should be doable though.

Birds in Paradise dress

I bought this fabric four years ago from Ditto in Brighton, so it was high time I turned it into a dress.  I used the bodice from Simplicity 2444 which I've modified - lowered the neckline and brought the shoulders in - and the straight skirt from NewLook 6824.  I only had 2m of fabric and this took all of it.

I finished this at the beginning of August and wore it quite a bit before summer disappeared.

Hummingbird dress

So, hot on the heels of the Homemaker dress, I made this one.  Again, I used fabric which I've had for a while and which I thought would go well with the cardigan I'd decided to make.

This dress is a mash-up of the bodice from Simplicity 2444 which I modified to have a lower neckline at both the front and the back, and which I lined rather than faced, and the skirt is Christine Haynes Emery. 

 
I've used both these patterns before and since the skirt is gathered there was no lining up to do at the waistline and this was a quick make.  Another addition to my growing collection of bird print dresses!

Me Made May 2017 week 4 summary

Gosh, this month is flying by and finally, the weather has warmed up!  This has definitely influenced my choice of dresses - the summery prints are now in circulation.

Monday's outfit was an Emery dress with rtw cardigan.

On Tuesday I wore my Get Cutie bird print dress with an rtw cardigan.

Wednesday saw flamingos making an appearance with my Flamingolex dress and an rtw cardigan from Audrey Star's Boutique.  I love this dress - the style and the fabric, and I have enough fabric left over to make a skirt - I should get on and do that, I'd much rather wear it than let it languish in my leftovers box!

On Thursday I wore my Carmen Miranda dress and an rtw cardigan.

On Friday I wore my Beachhuts Cambie and an rtw cardigan.

Saturday saw the first wearing of my lemon print dress - I bought this in Sainsbury's a few years ago now and love it.  I paired it with a me-made tie front cardigan from pre-blogging days (I didn't use a pattern, so no link).

And to round off the week today I'm wearing my orange floral Simplicity 1801 maxi with an rtw cardigan.

Thinking ahead, a couple of weeks ago OAL 2017 was announced.  This is a challenge to create a complete outfit with a knitted and a sewn garment, and is hosted by Lauren Taylor and Andi Satterlund.  In 2014 I watched from the sidelines, in 2015 I made these, last year I didn't get around to joining in but this year I definitely will. The challenge runs for the whole of June and July and I've got two possible combinations lined up - I'm not sure that I'll get both cardigans knitted, but two dresses should definitely be possible.  I've got the cardigan pattern for one combo and the dress pattern for the other finalised, so still need to decide on the other two in order to get a complete outfit!

Me Made May 2017 week 1 summary

I've finally finished my clothes cull and have donated several bags of clothes and shoes to charity so now I  have a bit of storage capacity for new makes.  That being said, I haven't actually finished anything yet this month, but I do have tomorrow off work, so there maybe something finished soon!

I spent some time last weekend sorting out and photographing outfits which led to the realisation that I need to knit up the cardigan quantities of green yarn which I have stashed, and I could also do with a pink t-shirt!  Photographing things in advance saves the hassle of doing daily photos, which I find makes for an easier life.

So, without further ado, here is my round up of the first week for this year's Me Made May challenge.

Monday was a bank holiday and therefore was freezing cold!  I wore my Monochrome Breton jumper with some black leggings (although the photo shows a skirt - I can't put trousers on Myrtle unfortunately).

On Tuesday I wore a dress which I made during MMM 2016, and an rtw cardigan.  I have these in several colours and they will probably feature a few times this month.  They're very useful with summer dresses and are from Woolovers, although they don't seem to have them on their website now.

Simplicity 2444

Wednesday's outfit was another dress which I made for MMM2016 and an rtw cardigan.

Christine Haynes Emery

On Thursday I wore a lime green By Hand London Elisalex dress and rtw cropped cardigan from Fever - again, not on their website now.

By Hand London Elisalex

On Friday I wore my green birds dress with an rtw cardigan

McCalls 5764 - vintage from 1961

Saturday's choice was my tape measures dress and rtw cardigan from H&M.  A woman came up to me in the petrol station as I was going to pay and told me she loved my dress - it's lovely to get a compliment like that, I was smiling all the way home!

Vogue 8789

And today I'm wearing my red roses dress and an rtw cardigan by Banned.

Butterick 5748

I hope to spend a large part of tomorrow sewing because I haven't taken the cover off my machine yet this month!  Actually this year...  There has been progress on the knitting front though, so that's good.

Me Made May (2016) dress no 3 - Art Gallery Birds

Right, as part of my Big Easter Weekend Spring Clean it is time to dust off this blog and catch up with everything I've made since I last wrote!  Which was May last year.  Eek.  I guess the fact that I'd rather spend my time making than writing about making, and, let's be honest here, Instagram making for a much quicker posting experience are responsible for the extended break.  However, I don't really want to give up on blogging so I'm going to make a concerted effort now to get this up to date and then try and add things as I make them.

First up is this dress which I made during Me Made May 2016.  It's a Simplicity 2444 and I've worn it a lot since I made it.  The fabric was lovely to sew with, and I'm definitely going to make more dresses with this pattern.

I'm not sure why the armhole facings are described as such - they're not - which is why it took me a while to find the relevant pattern piece - I was looking for a curved facing and what this actually is is a strip of bias binding.  Not sure I'd do this way again, although I like how it's turned out I think I'd prefer to cut a bodice lining than neckline facing and armhole bias binding.  I also think it would make the armholes quite bulky to follow the pattern if using a thicker (e.g. quilting) fabric.  Since this cotton is a lighter weight than that it didn't matter.

Simplicity 2444 Art Gallery Birds dress

I'm very pleased with how this turned out and it's another dress to add to my collection of bird print dresses.

Me Made May dress number 2 - Anna La Paloma

This was another dress that I saw on someone else and wanted to make my own version - Deborah, one of the contestants on last year's Great British Sewing Bee.

Google image search is really handy when it comes to tracking down fabrics which have been around for a little while and are therefore not the latest newest thing - and an etsy seller came up trumps.  I absolutely love the colours in it, I love the print and think it's a really happy fabric that just makes me smile!

Anna la paloma

It took a while to cut out though since I did try to vaguely pattern match along the skirt side seams.  There was a point at which I thought I'd cut out two skirt side back panels the same (rather than as mirror images), but they both looked OK and on-grain so I decided to chance it and sew them up rather than cut another panel.  I think they're fine - I was writing on each skirt panel as I cut them - I've found this helps when I'm not following the cutting layout for this pattern (which is not for one-way-print fabrics) and I suspect I just wrote the wrong thing.

Back view

Since this is not the first time I've sewn this pattern (others are here, here, here and here) this came together pretty quickly once it had been cut out and marked up.  I used the v-back alteration which I'd done for my Tropicanna, but with the bateau neckline at the front.  My Tropicanna dress is fine if I'm standing up, but has a tendency to slip off my shoulders if I sit down - not helpful!  Fortunately I have some spare fabric leftover from this dress and have now cut out a bateau neck front bodice, unpicked the original v-necked one and will be putting it back together again in the next few days.  The back bodice pattern piece which comes with the pattern gapes at the centre back on me (it could do with some shoulder darts to fit it properly), but the v-neck eliminates this, which is handy.

v-back neckline

This is cut as a size 12, except the front skirt which is a size 14 so that it lines up with the bust pleats - I've found the size 12 pleats come up too high and the size 14 ones are just right.

And now I have another Anna to sew up, and one more to alter.  Toodlepip.

OAL 2015 - a complete outfit

Last year Andi Satterlund and Lauren Taylor ran an outfit-a-long in Andi's Ravelry group and I loved seeing what people made, so when they announced that they were repeating the event this year I signed up - I wrote a bit about this here.  Although there were both knitting and sewing patterns suggested, which Andi and Lauren blogged about, I decided to do my own thing and the end result was another toshsock cardigan and an Emery dress.
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It took me a while to decide on the fabric and yarn combination to use, with a couple of options which I eventually ruled out, but which will no doubt get made at some point.

Option 1 - Excelana 4-ply and Dear Stella Queen Anne's Lace fabric

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Option 2 - Malabrigo sock and vintage fabric from Hammersmith Vintage Fair

I finally decided on this combination - I would make the cardigan design up, and the fabric would become a Simplicity 3774 (second dress down). 

Tosh sock and fabric from Barry's in Birmingham

However... once I'd knitted the cardigan I decided that it wasn't a great match for the fabric.

Cardigan knitted in Madelinetosh Sock colourway Stovepipe

The lace pattern on the front is from Erika Knight's Lace and Eyelet Stitches book and the back and sleeves are stocking stitch.  The book actually lists the pattern twice - once as a single column called King Charles Brocade, and once as a repeating pattern called Diamond Rib.  I charted the pattern and it was easy to memorise.

Close up which shows the lace pattern in a bit more detail

These little buttons came from Hammersmith Vintage Fair and I chose them because they were the only ones in my stash that I had enough of - it doesn't show in the photos, but they are mirrored.

Once I'd got the cardigan finished I needed to find an alternative fabric for the dress and after a bit of humming and haa-ing I settled on this Bird on the Vine fabric from Michael Miller which I bought in Fabric Fair in Brighton last summer.  So I now have another bird print dress in my wardrobe.  I spent a bit of time cutting it out because I wanted to pattern match on the back of the dress and I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

Talking behind my back maybe?

Because this fabric has quite a large pattern repeat and I didn't have enough to cut symmetrical sleeves, it is sleeveless.  Which also saved me the hassle of setting in sleeves, possibly one of my least favourite sewing things to do.  Nothing else to say about the construction really, it's a straight size 6 and I love it!

Bluebirds on the Vine dress

And here are the two together - I'm really pleased with this outfit.

2015 Outfit-A-Long

If you'd like to see what others have made this year, the finished outfits are here - and there are some really great combinations there, more patterns / fabrics / yarn added to my mental wishlist...

Me made May final round-up

Here's the final round up for this year's me made May.  I'm hoping that June will be warmer!

Day 22 - a vintage Laura Ashley dress and Cad cardigan, which I knitted back in 2011.

Vintage Laura Ashley dress and Cad cardigan

Day 23 - a Simplicity 1990 dress and an rtw cardigan.

Simplicity 1990 and rtw cardigan

Day 24 - Yes, it was just about warm enough to justify wearing my Flamingolex dress - hooray!  This is still one of my absolute favourite dresses. With an eye-searingly bright rtw cardigan.

Flamingolex dress and rtw cardigan

Day 25 - An Anthropologie dress which I adore, and Emelie cardigan which I knitted in early 2013.

Burgeoning hypericum dress and Norway Spruce toshsock Emelie

Day 26 - Bluebirds dress and an rtw cardigan.

Bluebirds dress and rtw cardigan

Day 27 - Up, up and away dress and rtw cardigan.

Up, up and away dress and rtw cardigan

Day 28 - Watermelons Anna dress and rtw cardigan.

Watermelons dress and rtw cardigan

Day 29 - Ocean Waves cardigan, finished in 2012, and polka dot Simplicity 3774 dress - I must make another of these very soon, I love this pattern!  This is the first time I've worn these two together and I'll do it more often - they really go well together.

Simplicity 3774 dress and Ocean Waves cardigan

Day 30 - Carmen Miranda dress and Gooseberry Fool cardigan, knitted in 2011.

Carmen Miranda dress and Goosebery Fool cardigan

Day 31 - Tropicanna Anna maxi dress - I love this, although because it's got a V-neck back as well as front I think I'm going to replace the front bodice with a bateau-neck because it slips off my shoulders rather too easily if I'm sitting down.  It's fine when I'm vertical, gravity keeps it in place!

Tropicanna dress

And that's it for this year's me made May.  19 handknitted cardigans and 22 me made dresses - three Annas & variations, three Elisalexes & variations, three Emerys, two Butterick 5748s, one New Look 6824, one Simplicity 1990, one Simplicity 3774, two Vogue 8789s, one Vogue 8728, two Cambies and three dresses which were mash-up combinations of two patterns (Elisalex/Emery, Butterick 5748/Simplicity 2444 and Elisalex/New Look 6824).  I've really enjoyed it and it's made deciding what to wear each day easy.  I took the outfit photos in batches, usually on Sundays, and once I'd seen the weather forecast for each day I'd look through the photos and pick something suitable.  It says something about how cold this month has been that so many me-made cardigans have featured - normally at this time of year I wouldn't be wearing wool!

And now I must do some housework!

Me made May week 3 round-up

And here we have the outfits I wore during the third week of May - lucky there has been a long bank holiday weekend for me to do some blog catching up!

15 May - Shell Pink cardigan and rtw jeans and blouse.  As is obvious not a very good mirror selfie!  But this was the least worst of the dozen or so photos that I took...

Day 15 - Shell pink cardigan and rtw jeans and blouse

16 May - Honeybee cardigan which I made during Spring 2013, and Vogue 8789 orange dress.

Day 16 - V-8789 orange dress and Honeybee cardigan

17 May - rtw dress and Purple Hearts cardigan - blogged about here although I haven't yet published the post which I wrote once it was finished...

Day 17 - Eucalyptus dress and Purple Hearts cardigan

18 May - Pink birds dress and Bette cardigan - I've only recently finished this, so, yet another FO which I haven't blogged about yet!  Wrote about the dress here.

Day 18 - Bette cardigan and Pink Birds dress

19 May - This is a cotton cardigan which I made back in 2010 and which I haven't worn that much in the past couple of years because I prefer waist-length cardigans with dresses with full skirts.  However, I love the colour and should wear it more.  The t-shirt and skirt I've had for quite a few years.  The skirt originally had a tie sash on it, but I unpicked the side seams and took it out because I think it looks better without.  Love the vintage-y look of it.

Day 19 - Yellow cotton cardigan, skirt from Next

20 May - Shell Pink cardigan (again) and green daisy Emery dress.  I love this dress, it's so summery (shame the weather hasn't caught up with itself yet though).

Shell Pink cardigan and green daisy Emery dress

21 May - This is a tie front cardigan which I made a few years ago, and the dress is a modified Elisalex which I blogged about here.

Tangerine Dream cardigan and Birdielex dress

And now I'm all caught up with me-made-May.  Phew!  Just the posts about this year's finished cardigans to finish writing and publish now...

In the land of grey (leaves) and pink (birds)

Two dresses here, one (the grey one) I actually made in November last year, but have only worn once because of an accident with the pinking shears.  It's a combination of two New Look patterns - 6824 skirt & 6723 bodice and why I decided on that particular combination I really can't remember now.

Grey leaves dress

As I was trimming the back seam I managed to snip the dress - arrrgghhhh!  I decided to fix it with some fusible interfacing - since I hadn't actually cut any of the fabric out of the dress I thought this would be a good way to glue it back together.  Actually, I thought it was a brilliant idea and felt quite smug that I'd thought of it.  And it worked.  No-one would know there had been an accident except me.

Unfortunately... once it had been washed in the machine the interfacing came partially unstuck and took some fabric with it and there was a definite hole in the dress so I put it to one side knowing that it would need a more substantial repair.  And it has stayed put aside for months.  I was really quite pissed off about it because I love this fabric, I bought it ages ago in Ikea and of course they don't sell it now.  I only bought one metre which is why the centre of the bodice is plain grey - there wasn't enough to make the whole dress out of it.  I have got a few offcuts left over and I think I'll have to make a feature patch to sew on top of the offending hole - I haven't thought of any other way of making an invisible repair.  If it had been a gatherered skirt I'd have unpicked it at the waist and just cut the back pieces narrower, but it isn't.  I've ignored it all summer but since it's now definitely grey dress weather I think I need to get creative - maybe I'll cut out one of the leaves and applique it on - the hole is at the top of the back vent so I'm hoping this will look OK.


The second dress is from some fabric that I bought at Ditto in Brighton in the summer.  I nearly bought it in a blue, but then spotted the pink and decided that I preferred that.  This dress is an Elisalex bodice with an Emery skirt although without the pockets because I didn't have enough fabric.  I love it, it's so summery - which means it's now been put away for the winter, but will make me smile when I unpack it next spring.

Pink birds dress