50s print dress

I bought the fabric for this dress from Hammersmith Vintage Fair 3+ years ago and it's been sitting patiently waiting for me to make up my mind which pattern to use it for ever since.  I decided it was high time I stopped prevaricating, because I love the print and wanted to wear it.

So... it's another Simplicity 5510 / New Look 6824 combo.  It's also one of my #2018makenine challenge items.  I've actually only made three out of the nine this year - four if you count the Merlot cardigan (used the yarn, but not for its originally intended design).  Once again my enthusiasm exceeded the time available, but never mind, it did focus my mind on knitting and sewing from stash this year, which is largely what I've done.  I'll write more about this in my end-of-year round-up.

I love this dress and am very pleased I finally got around to sewing it!  And that's it now until after Christmas...

Monochrome Breton

This is another Breton style jumper, similar to my grey and turquoise one but with additional waist shaping in the back.

I tried a few stripe sequences and decided I didn't like the large white stripe.

Wide white stripe was a definite no-no

The colours look different in these pictures because some were taken without the benefit of natural daylight - the trouble with taking photos in autumn evenings!

Also, I only had one ball of the mid-grey colour so that influenced the decision - I ended up using all of it bar a few yards.

I do like this style, it's the knitted equivalent of a sweatshirt in my book.  Also, stripes are good for using up leftovers!

Me Made May - weeks 4 & 5

The first outfit for week 4 was my Flamingolex dress, with a pink cardigan from Woolovers and pink Birkenstocks, so it must have been a warm day ;-)

I should really decide what to do with the rest of this fabric, I think I have just under 2 metres left, so enough to make another dress, but maybe I should make a skirt instead?  I've seen some other flamingo fabric which I'm tempted to buy, but haven't yet - I really have (far) more than enough fabric stashed to last me through the summer.  I also have a flamingo print Hell Bunny dress which I bought last summer and which needs altering - should get on to that soon really because it's a fab dress.

 

19th May outfit



On Tuesday I wore my red roses dress, with a green Woolovers cardigan and white Birks.  I must make another of these because I do like the circle skirt on it.

20th May outfit

On Wednesday I wore my yellow Cambie dress with a blue Woolovers cardi and navy Birkenstocks (bit of a pattern here I think).

21st May outfit

And that was it for week 4 - I had Thursday and Friday off work.

Week 5 was a four day week because Monday was a bank holiday.  My original thinking at the beginning of the month was that by this time the weather would be warm enough for me to wear any of my dresses, but Tuesday was freezing and so I wore my yellow birds Emery again, with my Pecan Primrose cardigan, woolly tights and El Naturalista shoes.  Honestly, the last week of May and the weather was like March - urrghh!  I had intended not to repeat-wear any dress this month, but the fabric of this dress is quite thick, and wearing it meant that I could also wear a wool cardigan.  I've got lots of H&M and Woolovers cardis in different colours which are great when the weather's not cold, but they don't really cut it when it is.




27th May outfit

  Wednesday was no better weather-wise and so I wore an rtw dress from Anne Elisabeth in Paris with a me-made wool cardigan which I haven't blogged about, but there is some info about it on Ravelry here.

I absolutely LOVE this dress, I bought it last year and I can see that when it eventually wears out I'll unpick it to use as a pattern.  There's something quite vintage-y about the style - although not the fabric - kimono sleeves, underarm gussets, shaped bodice and a darted skirt with a deep hem.  It even has a lapped zip.  I find AE clothes are a bit hit and miss - some years I've liked lots of them other years not.  I have a fabulous skirt which I bought a few years ago, gorgeous print and very flattering style (although I won't unpick this one - I haven't got the patience to sew up the number of seams that it has).  And there have been a few other dresses and skirts that I've liked, but they either haven't had my size or I've baulked at the prices - in the past few years the perception that spending foreign currency isn't like spending 'real' money, and anyway I'm on holiday so it's a souvenir, hasn't overridden the sharp intake of breath at the price tag.  But this dress was worth every euro.

Woolly tights and black El Naturalista shoes, again.  Nearly June and woolly tights - it just shouldn't be necessary.

28th May outfit

On Thursday it felt marginally warmer and I wore my Anthro Anna dress with a cream H&M cardi, but still with woolly tights and El Naturalista shoes.

29th May outfit

Friday was another repeat wearing - my yellow vintage repro Vogue dress with a me-made blue wool cardigan (unblogged, but will write about it soonish), navy tights and Orla Kiely for Clarks shoes.




30th May outfit

 

And that is it!  I've enjoyed wearing these dresses and am itching to make some more now, having sewn nothing at all during May.

The pink cardigan I wrote about last week didn't actually get finished until the evening of Sunday 1st June, but that is close enough to the end of May for me.  And I didn't get to make a dress with buttonholes, but I have all summer to do that!  And I wish the weather had been a bit warmer towards the end of the month... but all in all, I've enjoyed participating in Me Made May and seeing what other bloggers have worn too.

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