Summer Sewing

The past few weeks sewing projects have started whirling around in my head, usually during night feeds, and although I won't get time to make them all I thought if I posted a few of them it might give me a bit of motivation plus I really enjoy seeing other sewers planned projects and how they adapt and change.

Since having a baby my body shape has really changed  (I believe I am now an apple!) and left me with lots of clothing that just doesn't fit.  Add to that the need for nursing friendly clothing and I am down to wearing the same few items in rotation.  So sewing some correctly sized gap-filling and nursing friendly clothes is high on my priority list.   I am going on holiday in a week too and I would dearly love at least one finished item to take with me so here goes!

Butterfly Delphine

The easiest and probably fastest make would be Tilly's Delphine skirt from 'Love at first Stitch'. It uses only a metre of fabric and is quite a straightforward a-line so I think this is my best shot at getting something completed.  Plus the shape looks good on so many figures I'm hoping it will suit my newly curvy one.

'Love at First Stitch' by Tilly and the Buttons

I found this great butterfly appliqué tutorial at Project Run and Play (for little girls but that won't stop me) and I'm going to try it in a different colour scheme.

Photo credit: Jessica from my inner need to create via Project Run and Play

Dusty pink is the main skirt fabric and then the other florals and lilacs will make up the butterfly wings 

Bright Box Pleats

I really love the box pleat skirt from the Great British Sewing Bee second book which is again a straightforward looking sew but very stylish.  This style of skirt seems to be forever popping up on my pinterest at the moment.  I would love it in a chevron print or  stripe but I am on a self imposed fabric buying ban so anything I do sew will be from the stash.  (This doesn't seem to have stopped me much, now I seem to be buying zips and trims instead!)

I have a fab bold paisley print which my brother bought me a few years ago which I think will work.  Originally I thought maybe it would become a tunic or a maxi dress but now I'm thinking this skirt.

My stash fabric I think it is an old Anna Marie Horner design

Turquoise shirt dress

Lastly I have had this turquoise kona cotton since I made my carousel dress and all along I have wanted to turn it into a shirt dress.  I love shirt dresses they are so easy to wear and I keep seeing them popping up all over people's blogs at the minute. 

Silver Needles Pattern 56 - I haven't come across this brand before

I think I have settled on this pattern but I'm still unsure.  I cannot decide if I want sleeveless or short sleeves? Do I want to use the fushia pink rose buttons I originally got for it or are they too big?  Do I want to use fushia piping to match?  What about a floral contrast to collar and cuffs?  The list goes on...

What would you do?  Also how do other mums manage their sewing time?  I'm all ears.

Planning my Little Red Dress

I have wanted to make a little red New Girl inspired dress for while now.  In fact this was going to be my Christmas dress, then my New Year dress but it is still laying uncut even now!  I just haven't had the time to work on anything sewing related.  This is starting to become a theme now! I have next week off however, and as well as visiting my parents and Sam's I should have a few days at home to really work on it.  If I am lucky I might even finish it!  That is the plan anyway.

Image from What Would Zooey Wear?

I love the program New Girl (so does nearly every other sewing blogger) possibly more for Zooey's perfect outfits than anything else.  Plus New Girl makes are springing up all over the blog world.  

Dance Bomb Fashion at Burda Style

Vicki at Sew Weekly

Sewingadicta even ran a New Girl Sewalong!

Sewingadicta

I am going to use a pattern from Burda Style August 2012, blogged about here, which has cap sleeves instead of elbow length sleeves which I think will look really sweet.  Plus it means I can wear layers underneath it which I will definitely need as it is ccccccolddddd here!  

Burda Style 08/12

I envisioned using a fabric with some texture so I have bought some moss crepe fabric (on the left) for the main fabric as I think it will add a bit of interest.  I am using cotton lawn for the lining (on the right) as I know a lot of sewers swear by it as a lining fabric and I really hate the cheapo staticy stuff you can get.  For something close of my skin I want it to feel nice and this lawn is really soft.  

After a my week away next week I am looking forward to getting stuck in to the project!  

Lilac Love Wedding Party Dress Planning

This September is the wedding of my lovely friend Emma which I am so excited for.  Her very talented mother is making her wedding dress and the bridesmaids dresses so I thought it was only right that I make my own dress for the wedding and evening shindig.

I wanted something summery that would work for the church service and stand up to A LOT of dancing in the evening.  She is the first of my uni friends to get married and her wedding is going to be like a huge reunion and knowing how much dancing went on at the hen weekend the reception is set to be rather active!  I had a look through my saved inspiration photos and found myself often coming back to this really cute dress from Modcloth.

Modcloth Walk with Me Dress

Sweet, no?  Then up popped this McCall's M5849 pattern on ebay which I had saved a search for as it was so highly recommended by Suzannah at Adventures in Dressmaking here, here and here and the similarity hit me right away.  I won the auction for no less than 99p, (!) after being prepared for a fight, and I am using it for the base of my dress.  The Modcloth version has the dotted lace making a sort of illusion neckline (which is hard to see on the form) but I am doing mine a little differently.  I decided to make it as a halter neck dress using the strapless dress pattern and adding straps as strapless dresses don't look very balanced on me as I have a bigger bust.  I really love the colours though so I found some cheap polycotton on ebay in a slightly pinker lilac but I had a bit of a nightmare trying to find some similar white spot tulle.

McCall's 5849 and lilac polycotton

The only ones I could find that looked right were on Etsy and were just too expensive for me.  So I widened my search a little and found this adorable heart print on Cheap Fabrics.   I couldn't resist it, plus it has glitter!  You can't really see the glitter in the picture but it is there and is just sprinkled over the tulle.  The problem with this is that it is quite a stiff tulle, more like netting really and is meant to be used for petticoats or tutus so it won't be the nice drapy tulle of the Modcloth version.  (I might not be using the correct terms but I think you know what sort of thing I mean!)

Heart flock tulle over the lilac

The polycotton is pretty thin though so the net might give it a little strength anyway.  I am not sure about the waistband bow yet, as my tulle is less white so I won't need to break up the white and it may be a little bulky at the waist anyway.  I am planning on making the straps in just the lilac (so it won't be scratchy) and the bodice will be lilac with the heart net sewn to it like an underlining.  The bodice will be fully lined and will have plastic boning to help it stay up and the net piece will be loose over the lilac layer of the skirt.  I am hoping to have the net shorten than the cotton like the original inspiration.  I have even had a bra fitting and got myself a new strapless bra to wear under it and to withstand the dancing!  heehee!  Plus it will help to fit it exactly to my shape and stop any over-spillage.  It will be interesting to see if this pattern would work as a strapless dress on me too but the halter will help if it is a little loose.

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!