My Alice dress

This is probably the easiest dress I have ever made - it is quite simply just a vest and a large rectangle of cotton shirting that I had in my stash sewn together with a waist length piece of elastic to give it shape and gather it together.

The idea was not my own however - it was devised by the lovely Hattie of the Little Red Roost blog, although mine differs slightly from hers because I didn't apply a frill around the neckline and straps as she did.

Here is the link to the tutorial :

http://littleredroost.blogspot.com/2010/05/alice-dress.html

AND - because you can pick up vests like mine for around £3 in H&M, this dress will cost you next to nothing and can be used with any light to medium weight fabric!

My Vintage Hued Summer's Evening

and some geese!

Jumpsuit!

This jumpsuit is the fruit of my Sunday labours, and I'm pretty happy with the outcome..... :-)

Photography by the lovely Anwen Jenkins!

Weekend sewing - Burda 7552

I had a very productive sewing session this weekend, and made a playsuit and a jumpsuit out of some lovely fabrics I had in my stash (bonus!) this made me feel slightly better about spending so much money at Fabrics Galore on Friday afternoon......

Both are ridiculously comfortable and the playsuit was a definite winner this weekend because it was BOILING in the UK for a change, and so it was perfect to keep me cool in the heat.

Here is a picture of the playsuit - sadly it is not the nicest picture because I had to ask someone else to take it for me and this was the best of an unflattering bunch....


I used Burda pattern 7552 to make both (pictures to follow of the jumpsuit in a later post) and I would definitely recommend it, the fit was fairly true to size and its very easy to make and alter the design if you want to.

New Sewing Book Wishlist

I just noticed that these two lovely books are due to be published very soon - and they both look fantastic, I cant wait to get my grubby little hands on them!


Little green dresses by Tina Sparkles (real name?! I think not) available to pre-order HERE.

PS - I made this by Erica Domesek, available to pre-order HERE.

My weekend in pictures

Dad's Radishes

Sleepy mice

Rumple

Home Sweet Home

One of my Mum's paintings exhibited

Chickens at her exhibition

Zzzzzz

Framboise

Beautiful. This reminds me of holidays in France.

Found via : étiquettes boissons from agence eureka

Jim Goodyear - the great man himself!

It was indeed a very happy Father's Day for my family and I this year, because we very nearly lost my lovely Daddy in February and so to be able to still have him with us and for him to have recovered so quickly is nothing short of a miracle :-)

Here he is at his happiest, working on his allotment !

Monday Sadness

This story has made me really sad today, I had encountered him several times through the company I work for and he was always very quiet and polite, with none of the arrogance so often associated with such a job.

It is so awful to think that someone so young couldn't see a way out of their sadness and had to take such a drastic measure.

The new dress challenge

So - considering I spent 3 years of my life studying fashion design and pattern cutting I really felt it was time to put this to the test as I have been cheating a little recently with pre-printed patterns...

My latest love is 50's style dresses, like this one:
My challenge is to cut the pattern myself from scratch and make it in the black and white colourway of the following Alexander Henry fabric (maybe) I might bottle out and go for a safe option but I think it could be quite funny.....

My cat's moustache

"Sleep, sleep cat of the night,
with episcopal ceremony
and your stone-carved moustache.
Take care of all our dreams;
control the obscurity
of our slumbering prowess
with your relentless heart
and the great ruff of your tail."

Cat's Dream by Pablo Neruda

Holiday in Dorset