The Flirty Cherry skirt

Way back in August, a good friend had her birthday and I decided (was told?) to make her something as a gift! The criteria: It needed to have a cherry print (like my first dress that she liked), and the cut would need to be her style. Now, she has lots of super-girly clothes, is petite and super slim. So I needed to find a pattern that would fit, was flirty enough, and would hopefully match the rest of her wardrobe... 

After far too long deliberating I came across this pattern from Vogue, V8295. It's too long, but I thought it might work with a lot of shortening and some cute fabric.

Supplies for this one are from right across Britain! I picked up the cherry fabric at Mostyn's Abakhan Fabrics, the lining came from Brick Lane in London and the lace trim from Watson and Thorntons in Shrewsbury.

I chose to just drop the hem band to keep the length short, but think it'll probably need more trimming to get it the right length for her. 

And so, the final verdict? Well she seems to like it! I'm absolutely convinced it won't fit her (the dreaded unpredictable 4 inches of 'ease'), but fingers crossed! I'll upload some pictures of her wearing it if / when she sends them over.

As an aside, if you're looking for fabric shops, you might want to check out my map of fabric shops across the UK. I'm writing reviews as I come across new places :)

Shoddy party dress

Last year at Christmas I made the decision to make my own dress for the festivities, as a way of celebrating all that I'd learnt about sewing in the past year. I picked up Cynthia Rowley dress 2497 free with Sew magazine which I had a subscription for at the time. 

All went nice and slowly for the few weeks, and then BOOM it was the night before the Christmas party and I only had the base colour cut out, the contrast fabric hadn't been chosen and it was all going to pot!

After staying up until midnight and stitching it was finally done... the shoddiest dress I've yet made, a bright red zip, threads hanging off, not one bit of overlocking! Thankfully the fabric was just £2 p/m from a market stall in Horsham, so it didn't feel like I wasted too much money. The navy contrast was just kicking around from the stash.

Luckily for the first wearing it was dark so the threads couldn't be seen, everyone thought the ruffles couldn't possibly be done by me as a second dress, so they concluded the bright red zip must be a design element, until I confessed. Christmas day was another matter, but what's a trailing thread or 50 between family ;)

A fantastically easy pattern to make up, but once you've done it once there's little incentive to make it again, I think it could look very samey to do another. What do you think guys?

Self-Stitched September: Week 4

Just one wear again this week... Thoroughly boring to wear the same blouse again, but felt an utter lack of inspiration!

Anyway I wore this to university and then on to deliver a talk to a philosophy group. A busy day - you might be able to tell this was taken at almost midnight after the talk and a pint of local ale - so tired!

Self Stitched September all done then! Phew - it's made me realise that I'm bored of all my makes. Think the pace of stitching will be slowed down until the thesis is done...