By Hand London Love

Hey There,

Eep another long time with no post. There is a reason tho, not just my lazy ways.
Since I got back from Tas (the size of a hippo) I have been trying to lose weight, so decided to not sew anything for myself until it was worth my while.
It gave me a chance to hem some curtains *yawn*and sew some cushions to pass the time.. after about 34 cushions ending up on the couch I had lost some weight and decided I might sew something for myself.. the husband agreed..(he's currently suffocating in cushions)

So I decided on a 'Fat dress' if you will, something flowy and not tight that I could wear to work, casual outings etc.. since I've been wearing my Polly Top alot to work, I thought hey why not make it into a dress, so I did.

I used leftover cotton sateen from my New look 6124 dress, which I dont think I blogged, but looks along the lines of this one. The purple is a light linen which I only had about 1.5 mtrs of that I picked up from the local Op Shop Sewing Centre for $2 ;)

I wear it to work at least once a week, because its easy, colourful and much more fun than my boring black suits. Also it looks really cute with my Mel flats, that I totally bought after seeing them on Roisin's site that woman's shoes..*drool*

So once I started with the sewing and the fitting and the cutting out of fabric, I was like an addict.
This is where Georgia came in. Oh Georgia.
I have been madly following the #Georgiadress tag on Instagram for agessss, dying to make one. I love the shape, I love everyone's versions, and lets be honest I just love everything By Hand London do.
I swear every time I catch up, they bring another pattern out. You are killing me girls.

So I made one... then I made another one.. and I already want another.
GAH.. I couldn't help it. She was calling to me.

The dress itself comes together pretty quickly,
I made a muslin which I noted left my boobs a bit like HELLO THERE but whatevs.
The blue satin was my first and woah it tis a bit tight. (side note: put the pizza down)
I cut a size US12 and left all the seams at 5/8". I shouldn't have.
Also I'm not sure I am in love with the fabric/colour :/  But this may be because I am not used to the shinyness of satin?

So next up was my Black version, this fabric is like a cottony stretchy corduroy weird thing haha.. 

I still cut a size 12 but changed the seams to 3/4. This made the fit better, and more comfortable, also no zip needed ;)
Due to the fabric being so thick I had to top stitch the bodice to stop it from bloody moving around, oh and trying to handstitch the lining in was a Bitch.
I also tapered the skirt to make it more pencil style :)

 

I really REALLY want to make her in a Cotton Sateen, I just haven't found the right colour yet.. Dark Purple people. Keep your eyes peeled for me.

PS:
Ugh please excuse my disgusting hair, I am DYING to get in done soon, but due to the PPS it is rarer than normal.

PPS:
Totally unrelated to sewing, I am planning a Europe Trip with the Hubs in Sept.. Wooohooo!
I know the blogosphere is large, and would LOVE any advice/suggestions about where to go, what to see (where the fabric shops are) ;)
Apart from our Topdeck tour (eastern spirit if your interested or have done it before?) which is planned, we are visiting:
Rome, Munich, Barcelona, Paris, Athens, Mykonos, Santorini, Dubai. :D

PPPS: How do you stop yourself from feeling like a twit in pictures?

Would love to hear from you

my little silk goddess

This baby has got to be one of my favourite makes yet.
It is of course the Anna Dress in 100% Silk Habutai, from the lovely ladies at Tessuti.
It was $28 a metre and I bought 5 metres, I also bought beautiful lining which I didn't end up using at all, so it's gone to the stash..I only ended up using about 3ish metres.. so this dress ended up costing around $100 all up:)

I decided to wear a slip underneath and using bias binding on the neckline.
The neck binding and the zipper insertion took me about 3 hours, due to me constantly thinking I would screw it up, it was sewn at the pace of a snail... progress shots..

(luckily I have a large dining table)

 (ooh yeah frenchies and zipper)

 

(right before heming)

God I was so worried about touching, cutting, sewing, pinning, zipper insertioning, french seaming, marking, hemming this gorgeous fabric that it took me about 3 months before I even took it out of the bag.
To the readers of my blog that dont sew, (i.e my mates and family that like to make me feel good about my sewing) you know that feeling you have when you have satin sheets on the bed, and your wearing boxer shorts/silky nightie and you jump on the bed and slide onto the ground. Imagine sewing that shit together.

I researched ALOT of different ways to pretty much do everything on this dress,

I had a beautiful email with alot of very helpful information from Lauren after I asked her some questions about how she was planning on going about her Silk Anna, which of course I took on board because she is a genius.
I used Jen's method for cutting the silk, found here, which worked perfectly, time consuming with a maxi yes, but well worth it...
I also used her easy roll hem tute, also well worth looking at :)
Oh and if you're wondering why some of my normally shithouse pictures look so different in this post, it's because my bro's wonderful photographer girlfriend Sal (Rollabilly Photgraphy) offered to take these for me :)

Very summertime, so it's perfect timing. I made this dress specifically to wear to my brother-in-laws wedding in Tassie in a couple of weeks, so I'm hoping the weather holds out ;)
Let me know what you think:)

p.s this post totally made me remember to book my hair appointment, ouch

Long time no post

Hello There,

Well my silk Anna only has the hem to be done and then she is completed:)
(sneak peaks on my Instagram, booyeah on the zip)
Will hopefully get some pics of her on the weekend.. until then here are some things I've been creating..

I made the above dress, New Look 6124 in version A this time, and I love the neckline. It seems I'm getting faster as this only took me about 5 hours to put together, but I have made it before.
It seems I must have sewn seams at 3/4 last time and didn't make notes.. ahh so cant breathe it in very well, but I'm sure ill kick on ;)

I also made this Elisalex skirt version with the cutest puppy fabric ever. SAUSAGE DOGS PEOPLE.

 

I started to make a.. get this.. stretch denim Anna. WTF. To be fair it was past midnight and I probably should have just gone to bed.

 

I am also in the process of making a Negroni for the hubs...

 

  I still have this Anorak pattern from Style Arc, which I have been wanting to make up for agesssss, but haven't found an olive green in the right kind of fabric.. so I settled and bought this Lightweight Twill.

Now all I have to worry about are the vague (for me) instructions :| eeep. Does anyone know of any versions?

aaannnndd I just got these babies today. . *squeeeel*

Also completely unrelated to any of the above.. If any of you lovely ladies in blog land have suggestions for a great pants pattern I would love to hear it. In case you didn't notice I have more junk in the trunk than most, so a pattern to suit the err "Curvier" type butts would be great :)

Polly Break

Hey All,

If you follow me on Instagram you would know that I been struggling with this pain in the ass lovely little dress..

New look 6123

..so to stop myself from hurting someone, I took a break and made the latest freebie going round from the girls I love at By Hand London the Polly top. Obviously the faces are to make me feel better too..

Go make it :)