Nostalgic Floral

Remember the floral bedsheet I acquired recently? Well it looks like these sheets have lasted well, and there're plenty of them about.

Sarah Rooftops has it (complete with cat) and it is in duvet form still.

Meanwhile in Edinburgh it is becoming fox-shaped:

Miss Foxette, from A Wooden Tree

Zoe of Zoe's crafts has three different colourways! Lucky lady. She's got them in her newly decorated spice rack.

Pilfered from this post

She also has the evidence that the sheets are originally from M&S.

Leanne on Vanilla Teapot loves it so much she has it as her blog background.

Anyone else come across this on their travels? Links! Pictures! I'll curate a little gallery of it :)

M6503 - Inspiration

After seeing M6503 on StitchyWitch, and thinking up a dozen different variations I'd like to have, I somewhat hastily bought it on eBay (no JoAnns for $0.99 pattern sales over here). It looks like a fairly simple pattern (allegedly "easy") and resembles some of my favourite dresses. Hurrah!

I'm a big fan of dresses and actually managed to wear a different one every day for most of December (á la Dressember). I might do that again and document it; it'd be harder in the summer though, some are just too hot.
Although I haven't seen any completed makes among the blogs I follow, Googling turned up a few, including a Make This Look on Sew Weekly which is a different interpretation to how I'd seen the pattern originally. Looking at other people's completed dresses seems like a really good idea in terms of finding out what the fit is like and what parts of the construction might cause difficulties. Yay for the internet!

Here's a little round up of what I found, in link form:

• Azalea & Rosebud Fiberworks - vintage inspired view A in aqua. I think the collar ruffles with the busy print are not for me, convenient since she reports difficulty with constructing the ruffle "sandwich" of the collar edge.
•  Historical Quintessence - straight view D in a strong floral prin. No problems reported beyond cosy sleeves. Good to be reminded of that since I seem to suffer from larger upper arms, though they've yet to descend into bingo wings...
• Sewing And Music  - She used view D to make a version of a Modcloth dress. I *think* she's quite a petite lady, the waistband looks lower than I imagine it should be and she mentions taking length out of the bodice if she were to make it again.
• Four Square Walls - this lady seems to take pattern altering in her stride, she's made not one but two dresses from this pattern. One is a longer-bodiced colour block version of view D, and the other is a heavily modified view A or B made to resemble another Modcloth dress, and it looks really nice. She observes that "the gathered bust was basically drafted for a double-Z cup" so that's something to look out for.
  

Modcloth is a very popular source of inspiration, and it's not hard to see why. So many pretty things. Definitely not within the price range I'd go for (but, as previously discussed, I am a horrible cheapskate).

I'm almost entirely new to dressmaking (apart from a too-tight halter top made for a birthday disco when I was 11) so when I finally get around to making this I won't be altering anything much.
If I do become confident enough, however, the idea of a version where the back section of the waistband is elasticated appeals to me. My umbrella dress has this feature and it means I can pull it over my head, so I might be able to lose the zip and the accompanying pokey-zip-top-in-the-armpit discomfort. The other thing my umbrella dress has is a waist tie. It's attached to the waistband up to the side seam and ties in a bow round the back, neatly covering the elastic (when I can make it stay).

Me & the wonderful Mr Adam in London, several years ago (outtake)

I can't seem to find  photos that show the structure of this dress very well, but here's an idea. The ruffle goes all the way around the back of the neck (irritating) and it's a bit too short for my liking (no bending over!) but otherwise it's nigh-on perfect. I just had a look and the armholes are finished with self bias binding and the neck is faced. Look at me, I know fancy sewing words!
I have a sixites duvet cover (previously seen here) and a new Asda charcoal grey double flat sheet, either of which might become a muslin for a sleeveless view B at some point in the future. However until I'm done with this here degree and have some sort of a future sorted out there'll be no dressmaking for me.

More Pretty Things

This is the second half of yesterday's epic post, with more of a sewing-y theme to it, but it's mostly just "Look at the pretty things!".
I seem to have had a week of fevered acquisition, mostly blog-inspired. Let's look at the evidence:

I first saw this dress on Alex and immediately opened up People Tree's website, I love bunnies. The dress is a really cute style too, fitted in the bodice with a flarey skirt and tapered shoulder straps with little bows at the front.
I was very happy to spot it in the sale section at £26 (down from £60) and made the snap decision to purchase it. It's good quality, I reasoned, and a very pretty thing from a good brand, so if it doesn't fit I can always put it on eBay. It was only available in one size, and the longer version going out of stock while I was browsing made up my mind about which to get. This version is navy and a decent length (no bending over though) and luckily the 14 fits me perfectly (take that, H&M!).
Oh, did I mention it's got BUNNIES on. Happy, frolicking bunnies! I wore it to frolic happily on my birthday, which mostly involved chasing the cat around the garden and trying to take his photo. The boy took some pictures of me but I'm pulling awful faces and wearing Mum's crocs so I'll refrain from posting them...

I spotted this on a sewing blog and in a fit of self-indulgence almost immediately bought it off eBay. Views C & D look a lot like two of my favourite and most worn dresses so I think this pattern will be a winner. It also says EASY so hopefully it will be...

What's this? A GLORIOUS old duvet cover. This reminds me of my Grandma's house (it's a wonderful time capsule of patterned wallpaper and strange ornaments). This beauty was going free from a table on the street around the corner from the Students' Union. There was a second one in a different pattern but I thought I'd spread the joy by leaving it for someone else to find.
What will it be? Perhaps a (wearable?) muslin for M6503? View A I think. I might end up looking like a sixties housewife but I won't care.

I blame Karen for this. She's trimmed her latest Sorbetto with the black version of this cute polka dot bias binding, and spurred me into buying some for my future strawbetto. I can't decide if it'll look nice or be a bit too strong for the strawberry fabric (which I bought on a sewists' expedition in Birmingham). I'll have to try pinning it on once I've actually got around to making the things. After exams. When I am a "real person" (eek!).
I actually got around to applying for a job yesterday, the process isn't my favourite thing in the world. Covering letters make me feel like a smarmy idiot. Hopefully the kind of companies I'm applying for will want to judge me on my CV and actually meeting me. Hum.
The job I applied for is in Cambridge (as are several others I'm looking at), and that's most definitely Not Bristol. I do love Bristol and want to stay here but Cambridge is also a lovely place and I'm not committing to staying away for ever. Plenty of time to move around yet, I am but twenty-two.

Written to the sound of: The Well-dressed Son To His Sweetheart by Devon Sproule

Progress!

 Over the weekend I did some cutting! I now have all the panels and facing for the skirt half of the dress, plus the three main bodice panels.
I didn't have the best surface to work on, I was using my mattress as a cutting table! It was only after cutting out the four skirt panels that I realised the small coffee table next to the bed was a better bed than the combination of mattress and clip frame backing I was using. Oh and I probably should have ironed the old dress pieces too... Laziness is to blame.

 

I laid out all my pieces to make sure they'd fit alright and pinned them in place, then I cut around them as best I could - I think flatter pieces and more pins would have helped.

Now I have a pile of dress pieces waiting to be sorted out and sewn together, hopefully soon to be joined by the rest of the dress pieces.
I must remember to keep each piece with its corresponding old dress piece so I have some help with where to fold and hem each bit. And I *must* remember to do the darts...
I haven't totally decided the order in which I'll assemble the dress, but I think lots of it will depend on what's tucked into where. The button placket must be one of the last things to go on as it covers the ends of all the intersecting seams. Breaking it up into mini-projects appeals (divide and conquer as CS lecturers call it), The collar and pockets lend themselves to this pretty well.
If there's any more progress before mid September then I'm probably not revising as much as I should be, that or I'm using it as a way of keeping myself sane in the face of principal ideal domains and factor rings.

In a fit of wild optimism today I bought this pattern:

It was 99p in Oxfam and these dresses look very much like the sort of thing I'd like to be wearing when it's hot. Not that I'll get anywhere near this pattern for a good few months! Oh well, I can dream...

Back In Bristol

I missed it. What I miss most when I'm at home (apart from that nice boy) is independence. I live in the depths of the countryside where there's almost no public transport and very little phone signal. This and the fact that I share a car with my two sisters makes it very hard to see my friends or do what I want to do. Add to that my Dad's constant (often counter-productive and usually irritating) nagging, and you've got a recipe for boredom and frustration. I do like my family and it's always nice to be bought things and cooked for but once you're used to living away from home it's not easy to go back for any length of time. But I'm back in Bristol now, yay!
I've gone and spent my first 24 hours not being very productive in terms of work, but I feel a lot better than I did when I was home. I've been for a walk, made my own tasty dinner, done my own food shopping, been to the pub with nice people and unpacked all my stuff.
Now some pictures!

 Lovely cherry blossom at Trevarno in Cornwall, last week.

 Last nights tasty (and healthy?) dinner, cooked in my new frying pan (I was going to buy one saucepan that cost £6 but then I found a set that contains one of those, a slightly larger one, a milk pan and this frying pan on sale at £6.60!). Also this was Bank Holiday bargain chicken :)

Playing with the boy's new Polaroid back for one of his big exciting cameras, didn't go terribly well to start with! Apparently it's ok now though :) I claim that these two are art.

I got waylaid by Oxfam on my way home this morning & bought this pattern for 99p, they had a whole box full! Hopefully it's a normal sort of size 14, guessing I'll find out by measuring pattern pieces? I'm no seamstress which is why I picked one with EASY written on... I was very tempted to buy a purple bedsheet for £2.99 to make into this. After exams I think...

I've appropriated the skirt section of one of Mum's handmade maternity dresses which she separated into skirt & shirt. I need to adapt it to be wearable now! Needs some elastic or a decent waistband, I really love the pattern & colours. It's a sort of soft cotton I think.

Thyme & basil on the kitchen windowsill. Thyme grown by Mum from a cutting I believe, basil from Sainsbury's, thoroughly abused by me. They're sitting on wonderfully ugly little brown saucers I bought from St Peters Hospice this morning for 25p each. So many of the other charity shops had priced ugly little saucers at well over a pound each :s

Easter bunnies! I had a Lindt Easter Egg this year and it had a cut-out-and-stick bunny basket on the back of the box...

Yay!