Hello everyone….. Can you believe I’ve had 2 months off from blogging! Say what?! I am truly sorry!!
Well it’s been of a bit of a strange couple of months, my sewing mojo totally went awol and my hubby hasn’t been very well at all, a week of him being in hospital and just me holding it all together at home, juggling work, kids, back and forth to hospital etc it took it toll on me.
So fingers crossed, everything will get back to normality soon I just hate being in “limbo” feeling.
Anyways! Finally, last week I decided to get my act together as the hubby and I had a very rare opportunity to go out and meet up with friends, eat good fatty food and have a good laugh! it spurred me on to make my Sew Crafty Design Team Project!,,
When I received my Gift card and browsing the lovely Sew Crafty Shop, I came across this beautiful Cherry Print 100% Cotton Fabric it screamed at me for a Dress! It’s a steal at £4.85 per half metre as its fantastic quality and to boot it’s 150cm (60″) wide, get in! So for a new challenge I decided to pick the Hawthorn Dress by Colette Patterns.
What a combo right with the Fabric and the pattern?!
Truth be told…. I’ve never mad a Shirt Dress before but I thought it’s always good to learn new techniques! With Colette Patterns they are great to follow with clear instructions and their Patterns fit me great without the need of taking the skirt up or making a narrow shoulder adjustment!
But to be on the safe side I decided to make a toile of the bodice as this was unknown territory of making a shirt dress and wanted to make sure it fit nicely across the Bust.
For the toile I used some scrap fabric and followed the instructions all the way to finish the bodice without the buttonholes.
As always I pre-washed my fabric on a 30 degree wash and it hardly shrunk and kept it vibrant colour, you can tell it’s a good quality fabric!
According to my measurements, I cut out a straight size 8 no grading out for the hips as it’s a half circle skirt yay!
After Cutting it all out and sewing the Darts it was time to get cracking sewing it all together!
It is pretty straight forward to sew together as always Colette Patterns have beautiful diagrams and easy instructions!
1st time ever, I’ve used the bias binding technique for armholes and my word it’s so neat!! I will have definitely have to remember this when finishing armholes in the future!!
With the help of the pins and my Simflex Expanding Gauge (My Sewing Bestie Becca aka Redwsews gave myself one for my birthday recently!!) to get the button placement right, i’d mentioned on my insta feed that i always struggle with rtw blouses/dresses, I would have ended up with a safety pin in between to stop the boob exposure but not this with Dress!!
Now the boring task on stitching 15 buttons by hand!!! Yes the pattern does state that it requires 13 but with my movement of said buttons for no gapping I just need a few extra 🙂
Now at this point…. All I wanna do is hem by skirt and get ready for twirling but no…. the instructions stated to slipstitch the hem!!! What?!!!
I was definitely not in the mood for that especially as i needed the dress all ready for the day after…. So Mr Singer came to rescue with his blind hem foot!!! It just made it a lot easier and quicker
And here is the Hawthron all sewn up!! Isn’t she a Beauty?! Maybe a little bit biased here….
Moi modelling on the Train Station! Yeah my shoes got cut off the only pic so here are my beauty of irregular choice cherry print shoes to match!!
unfortunately I’ve not been able to wear my heels at the mo to get a better overall outfit photo shoot as I’ve got blumming soft tissue damage in my right foot so I’m on high dose of anti-inflammatory from the hospital to bring my swelling down and instructions to rest and ice 🙁
But here is my fancy Dr Pepper alcoholic Cocktail and Best Brownie ever when we met with Friends in Hull and ate at the NYC Bar and Grill! Nom!
So here you go folks my Design team Project at last! I’ve got my shopping list in for my new Project coming soon!!
Sal xx
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