My First Blog Award!

I have been away for a week and a little holiday-bobs and I come back to find I have been awarded this!  I am very grateful!  It is my first award and I know they tend to flash around the interwebs but I have never had one and I appreciate that the lovely Crissy Baker from Adventures in Adventuring for choosing me.  I love her blog, you have to check it out, she makes the cutest dresses, my favourites being the unicorn dress and the fabtastic poodle dress!  How much do I want that dress?!

The Rules

• add the badge to the winning blog page
• thank the blogger who gave it
• list the rules
• list seven (7) random facts about yourself
• pass on the award to five (5) deserving and conscientious bloggers who are nominated for their diligence, demonstration skill, and achievements in the world of blogging and specifically in the sewing related category.
• contact the nominated bloggers and let them know they are recipients

 The 7 Random Facts
1) Last week I went on a little holiday to Cambridgeshire house sitting for my boyfriends parents.  I had a lovely time and got to visit these pretty places:

Peterborough Cathedral

Cambridge Punts

2) I absolutely HATE baked beans.  I don't like the texture of any beans and last time I ate baked beans I was sick.  I don't even like the smell.

3) I am an assistant guide leader and have been gradually taking a more and more active role in the unit and district.  I am helping out with the division Jubilee tea party soon so expect more cup cakes and cake related goodies in the future.  Last week we made these for the teddy bear challenge, based on my previous cake pop post.  (Mine were neater than the girls, bless them!)

Teddy Bear Cake Pops

Pre-decoration

4) I read A LOT.  I always have a book on the go and carry one around with me most of the time as you never know when you might have a spare 5 minutes or a sunny spot to sit in.

5) I have wedding fever!  Two of my friends got married in February and one of my very close friends is getting hitched in September and then my boyfriends sister next March!  Gees a lot of weddings, I guess I am that age now!  All these weddings can't help but make me start thinking about it too heehee! 

Fabric Garlands

6) I have an extra bone in each of my feet.

7) I am desperate to get a cat.  I love cats and haven't had one since I was little.  Luckily my boyfriend is a cat person too though we cannot agree on the cat we want.  I would like to adopt any old thing whereas he wants one of these!

Maine Coon Cat

Yes they really are that big!

My Nominations
A Sewing Odyssey
Adventures in Dressmaking 
All things quilty and sewy
Beebee's Vintage Dress
Handmade Jane

If you have been awarded it before, you don't have to do it again, it just shows how awesome you are!

The Banana Carousel Dress - Planning

I have had the idea in my head fr this dress for a while now.  In fact since I saw this wonderful dress on Modcloth I have wanted to make my own.

Modcloth

I am not sure it is even on the site any more but I saved the picture and continually looked at it.  I love the red piping, the tabs and the carousel print.  I found a pattern pretty easily which I thought would work really well and snapped it up along with red piping and a big metal zipper as I thought about doing an exposed zipper right down the back.

New Look 6864

 The black dress and the floral one on the far right are perfect for the circle neckline and waistband I want.  Then I started to look for carousel print material.  Here I hit a massive snag.  I just could not find anything anywhere that was both carousel, or as my family call them, golden gallopers AND had the same red/yellow/beige tones as the original dress.  I knew I wouldn't find an exact match but I did want to keep the original tones of the dress. 

The nearest I could find was this on Spoonflower but it was just too costly to pay for it, pay for postage and pay customs too.  (I looked at A LOT of websites!)  I started widening my search to circus themed and found some cute Cath Kidston fabric but it was still expensive.  I then set up an ebay search to alert me if anything with 'carousel fabric' came up and up popped just under a metre of this very cute boarder print.

My lovely border print and Kona Banana

It was the right colour and had actual horses on it rather than just circus but it was a border rather than full fabric but I decided this could work and snapped it up for a couple of quid.  Then the second search began fr a main fabric which would match the border and my bright red piping.  I looked at a lot of beige and cream fabrics and considered some dobby gauze but I wasn't sure I would wear a cream dress that much as it is not a very practical colour.  I then spotted some 'apricot' fabric on ebay which I thought matched the border but when it arrived I didn't like it.  (This then got dyed purple and became my Amazing 8 Hour Christmas Dress.) 

After seeing the apricot I decided I would rather have a pale yellow main dress and browsed the Kona cottons which I had seen recommended on the blogosphere.  I found Kona Banana, fell in love and that was it!  I rarely have to put so much time and effort into finding materials for a dress so this was all quite new to me.

Now on to the sewing!