Smug-girl

Apologies for my erratic blogging; I work midweek, so will tend to tweet and blog most from Thursday to Monday.
So, my second post of the day is about the joy of lists and getting things done!
I love lists. I don’t understand how people can get on without writing and referring to lists; I write them for everything. I mean, seriously, my husband thinks I have a problem with them.
Anyway, obviously I can give up lust-writing anytime I like, so it’s not like an addiction or anything…
I had a little mini-list of clothes that I needed to fix up a bit, only 3 items (so far), but I just left them and left them, meaning I either didn’t wear them or wore them but wasn’t entirely comfortable. Baaad fadgirl.
So yesterday I got to work and ticked 2 off my list, hooray!
Item one; a brown sleeveless shirt with a gorgeous lace and sequin panel at the neck, sounds awful but is really lovely, honest. It was donated to me by my mum as a knee length, button-front dress. I took it up about 9 months ago to wear as a shirt. Great, you say, but actually no, it was too wide so I only ever wore it under a cardy or jacket. It took all of 7 minutes to take each side seam in by an inch, here’s m’lady looking slightly drunk and lopsided modelling it for your enjoyment:

Ooh, see how she even styled it with that chunky belt, she’s such a fashionista!
Item two is a two layered white lace tshirt, donated to me by my Mamma (that’s a grandma to most folks!). It was too, too big but I was too, too lazy. Until yesterday. I had to take in the sleeves, the lining, then the lace outer all separately, but I’m glad I did. M’lady really likes it and I think I may have to fight her to take it off and wear it myself. Tsk. Anyway, here she is modelling it (after a g & t I think):

Today I finished item three , which is the self-made dress from my earlier post, which is now the right length and feels great on too: I didn’t let m’lady get her hands on this one, she’s so possessive.
Do you have a dressmakers dummy with an attitude problem and/or drunken wobble?

Horizontal Pleats Dress

Continuing with my sort of participation in Self Stitched September, I’ve finished a quick update on a dress I made last month, but lazily left too long (mid calf, eugh), so as not to have to hem it. Lazy fadgirl.
The original dress pattern was the super easy Burda 11/2010 117A, which I have now made twice and LOVE! It’s so quick and easy, even with the zip and pockets and lining, brilliant.
So, I came across this lovely tutorial from the See Kate Sew blog for shortening a dress or skirt with horizontal pleats; which also adds a really sweet and interesting design feature too.

It was very easy to follow, thanks to guest poster Michael Ann’s clear directions. In fact, I didn’t even pin ( so slovenly I know!), I just used my trusty sewing ruler thingy and chalk. I marked the fold line all around, pressed then sewed using my sewing machine gauge to sew two pleats with a 2 cm depth, and 3 cm spacing.

The dress now hits me on the knee and I just adore the pleats, so cute and interesting, well worth the very small effort involved and much more fun than just hemming it shorter!

I’m wearing it over a long sleeved tshirt today as it’s a bit in-between weather-wise.
I think it makes a change from wearing a cardigan over it, although I am a big cardy fan, truth be told.
Hey, I like to feel warm, don’t judge me 🙂

Not Quite SSS 2011

Hoorah, a sewing post on my (sort of) sewing blog!
While I’ve been sewing for about 18 months now, I haven’t really sewn with a plan, and so my self stitched wardrobe isn’t hugely cohesive.
It is also lacking in many areas and I am pretty sure that I’d struggle to do Self Stitched September 2011, without having to make some kind of concession to the effect that it would include jewellery or accessories, not just clothes. This isn’t really how I want to join my first SS, I tend to think if you’re going to do it, you may as well do it properly.
So, my sewing is going to have to be stepped up a notch so that I can participate in future events like this, but done properly.
In the meantime, while I’m not an official participant, I am going to make an effort to wear and blog my self stitched clothes as much as possible from now on.
So, today I’m wearing a dress that I have barely been out of since I finished it a couple of weeks ago! I am not a dress person; I am a jeans, tshirt, jacket and flats person, but I’m so bored with dressing like an unimaginative web designer/developer (ahem) that I’m breaking entirely out of my comfort zone and I kind of like it!
Here’s the dress:

Yep, it’s good old Burda 11/2010 117A, with a lined navy linen bodice, and gathered unlined tartan skirt. Plus beautiful invisible zip (my first truly invisible zip in fact):

…and lovely, roomy pockets in this great denim coloured cotton, the same lining used for the bodice:

The lining was originally a white cotton double flat sheet, which I died along with a yellow double flat sheet using Dylon Indigo, the all in one stuff that doesn’t need extra rinsing. My first time using fabric dye and I was absolutely chuffed with how it came out; really even and such a great colour too. Bonus 🙂
Anyhoo, that’s today’s outfit. I also made the bracelet; it’s turquoise and tiger eye chips on sterling silver cable with a sterling heart toggle fastener. I wear it to death.
Turquoise and brown are my absolute faves!
Thanks for reading, are you doing SSS? How long have/had you been self stitching until you joined your first self stitched?