My darling dress is almost finished, and I can tell I am going to wear it to death when Spring finally arrives to England: it is so soft and comfy. The floral corduroy is laaaavely to wear.
I learned a lot with this pattern as it isnt the easiest one to sew: lots of curves and symetry, as both panels surrounding the central yoke have to perfectly match each other in size and shape. I did bang my head against a wall a few times and am still malking final adjustments.
I also realised the neckline needed to be open and seriously lowered so that will be my task today: I always read patterns too quickly and made view A instead of view B, ie the view that calls for a mao collar.
Tweaks have already been numerous due to my weird body shape (!) , in no particular order: a round bum, a skinny back, a soft mummy-who-loves-cake-and-hates-exercise tummy, a small neck and narrow straight shoulders make for a lot of redrafting.
I also took the waist in a bit to give it a curvier silouette and to emphasize hips as the way the dress fell was a bit too straight for my taste: I like both ease and a bit of fit in a garment.
I am also about to enter another sewing contest: the Colette Laurel sewalong.
Well that only makes 3 projects in one go what with the 40s dress for Sew for Victory and the Mathilde blouse sewalong! A glutton for punishment, me? possibly!
xxx Love and smackers
Lo
Lately I had fun doing a mini photoshoot with my new tripod, so here are new photos of my little makes, for your eyes only.
I just love green and pink in the same outfit, here wearing my new pale pink tights found on sale in H&M during my last trip to London. Blue peter pan collar top found in a local market, camera brooch by my friend BeckyBoo.
Green Lodden print Liberty mini skirt in my Etsy shop! UK Sizes 8 to 14 available.
My first attempt at sewing a mini skirt from a 60s pattern, for the bold: extra mini! Fully lined with a back zipper. Guess what is my new favorite photoshoot prop? correct, love my felt floppy hat from H &M!
In my Etsy store soon.
A few Ipod photos of my latest make: the Paisley or denim skirt with Liberty 60s paisley pockets.
Better photographs are coming soon taken with a Canon, a tripod, ect!
Now if the weather could improve as well as the light in Northern uk that would help us greatly too!
The liberty fabric used is called Burton and is totally 60s with its gorgeous navy, turquoise and electric blue paisley patterns.
I will probably tweak this design a bit before putting it on sale on Etsy: I would like it to be lower on the hips and in a thicker softer denim fabric, real comfy.
This skirt is very comfortable anyway, yet the denim fabric is quite thin ans slightly stiff, a skirt for spring as that kind of denim is light and will keep you cool.
I wore it with electric blue tights found in H&m and a green Lodden liberty scalloped collar, done from a 60s pattern of course. Now I loooove scallops but they are damn hard to make, and this item isnt quite 100% perfect yet as you may notice: the end of the scallops are not exactly curved.
but hey it was my first time, guys. dont throw stones at the scallops virgin! It will be on sale when it is PERFECT.
Love and 60s kissing x Lo
(the side zipper isnt finished, which explains why the skirt looks a tad wonky. People: it is NOT wonky in real life!)
This is a sad story with a happy ending (ish)
One lovely day in November 2011, I bought this 60s dress from Clever Nettle's vintage shop on etsy:
It managed to be both gothic and 60s, Courtney-Love-little girlish and
marianne faithfullesque, what was I to do but yelp and press the
Purchase button?
I wore this dress, who fitted me perfectly a few
times, the first time for a date with my sweetie husband at the bar of the Hard Days Night's hotel in
Liverpool, the place where we got married in 2009.
I loved it as it
was really unusual and vintage looking, plus I absolutely adore
anything with old looking cream lace, oh and A FRILLY YOKE on a mini
dress always makes me swoon.
Then I decided to wash it.
And I put it in the washing machine.
EEEEEEK.
The dress shrunk by about a THIRD of its original size.
When it originally finished above the knee, it now ended just under the crotch. It had also shrunk in width so I couldnt fit into it any more.
I know, Fashion crime, its all my fault, ect, I need to be shot, i know, I know.
This is a blurry pic of what it looked like after being washed:
yep, disaster.
The dress turned shruk tunic ended up in my wardrobe, as I couldnt bear to throw it away and thought one day i could re use the lace for a sewing project.
Two years later, i started thinking of the outfit I was gonna wear at the Bloody Valentine gig in London on the 12th of march. I went through different ideas, like incorporating a mbv t shirt into the design of a crazy, electric blue and black dress with velvet and black lace. then I remembered my disaster dress.
Yeeeeahhh! could be perfect. I bought some black crepe on ebay, some cream lace and black lace and started making the ex dress wearable again as a long gothic tunic.
But being a busy mum and working full time meant I had very little energy and time to achieve my dream dress so i rushed it a bit a few days before I was due to travel to London.
Then I fell down the stairs in my house and sprained my ankle THE DAY BEFORE the gig!
yep that was monday evening.oh and after the fall I realised I had lost the beautiful tiny pale blue aquamarine stone from my wedding ring. AAARgh.
Was the tunic unlucky? I was too shaken and in pain to finish the tunic for the gig.
The morning I was due to take my train to London, my best friends, wo live in France and were supposed to meet me in London, and who used to WORSHIP My bloody Valentine with me years ago, called to say they couldnt get to London as the snowfalls meant the eurostar wasnt working.!!!
I went to the gig on my own , limping like an old granny and with a heavy heart.
but theres an ok ending.
The gig was AMAZING and My lovely friend alice who was to put me up for the night bought the spare tickets off me along with a girlfriend of hers. I wasnt to go to the gig on my own.
My french friends would have loved it though, so many memories shared of being into that band and seeing them together in a small venue in Lille where I come from.
I finished the gothic tunic a few days ago. I quite like it, all that distressed looking lace...maybe to be worn for a Cure concert one day? or just down the pub over leggings, why wait for a Cure concert!
Oh and we found the stone from my wedding ring 2 days ago. I still have a torn ligament in my foot but I'm so happy i went to the gig of one of my favorite bands... and made a rather pretty tunic out of a killed darling dress.
vintage collar: in my Etsy shop; boots:asos, tights: Primark
I added long rectangular crepe panels to the sides to add width, made some sleeves and moved the lacy cuffs to the hem of the new long sleeves. I sewed glittery trims and velvet ribbons over the lace.
Also added a brooch I made years ago and put a blue mbv pin on it.
The new Liberty collection has arrived! I am totally entranced by the beautiful new prints and plan to make lots of tunics and dresses for my self this spring. Amongst my favorite prints are:
'Travelling threads'
Tresco:
Isnt that the most beautiful print ever? Will look great as a simple shift dress.
Hannah' Poppy:
and... ta da: my first Liberty mini skirt in green Lodden print, soon in my etsy shop:!
It's fully lined, with a side zipper and will be available in UK size 8,10,12 and 14.
As well as lots of similar skirts in other beautiful Liberty prints of course!
I will also sell tunics and denim skirts with liberty inserts for autumn/winter
x
Here is my first sewn mini skirt, made from a 60s vintage pattern shown in my last post.
ma premiere mini jupe faite main, tres courte mais plutot innocente dans ce tissu non?
I love it!
It is quite short but hey being obsessed with all things 60s, I love a short skirt, and I think the pink and black floral print makes it kind of innocent looking, especially worn with flats.
It is rather simple to make and I am planning on selling similar ones in Liberty fabric on my Etsy shop!
Once I am 100% happy with the finish, of course. I will probably make them in 3 lengths: micro, mini and above the knee. What I learned:
-how to line a skirt
-how to sew a zipper with a proper zipper foot
-how to make darts work in shaping the skirt what I must improve:
-invisible zippers should be invisible!
-lining shouldnt be sewn the wrong way around. ha ha!
-learn to seew straight and dont rush things or you end up with a 'beak' at the back. Ha.
assez simple a realiser, dapres un patron 60s, je compte en vendre en tissu Liberty sur mon shop Etsy! en 3 longueurs silvousplait: micro, mini et dessus du genou.
I am also working on this colorful psychedelic thing for Spring, yes, quite loud!, its not an easy print, I know how it verges on bad taste 70s but i love it! I can picture myself wearing it in the sun, over leggings or jeans or bare legs, sleeveless with cute matching sandals...in 6 months time. It's a lovely and soft japanese cotton lawn found on ebay.
Petit projet pour le printemps: robe en tissu et dapres patron japonais, au haut asymetrique. jadore les couleurs vives et psychedeliques!
I found the pattern in my beloved japanese 'I am pretty dresses' book:
where you dont get patterns, but measurements for you to cut your own fabric. which can be very very fiddly and time consuming actually! Especially when you are an over enthusiastic beginner like me...prone to rushing things.
I am still perfecting the fit and cant wait to add dark pink flower-shape buttons to attach the side of the asymetric bodice.
Which length skirt do you wear most ? Funny how skirts were so much shorter in the 60s and no one seemed to bat an eyelid.
Are you afraid of bold patterns ?
I found a giant lightweight scarf in a charity shop in these brilliant psychedelic colors and decided to turn it into the Tessuti Gaby dress, and hey presto I wore it to death on holiday in the sun recently, its super comfortable and has just the right comfortable fit, yet is quite 60s.
The back: I simply folded the giant square and made a seam in the middle of the back, as well as on the sides. I didnt have a lot of fabric to play with, and just enough to make tiny sleeves: I gathered them with elastic as there was a glitch in the way I printed the pattern and they were too puffy before gathering.
I put interfacing and pink bias around the collar as the fabric wasnt easy to play with and quite light.
Sorry about the light-less photos, the sun sets at 3.30pm in Northern England !
I love my new summer dress. I will probably make it in Liberty fabric or corduroy for the winter x
