Expressing my love for the African wax print

Today I have a very colourful dress to show you.  This is my fourth African wax print dress and each time I wear the others I swear that I'm going another as they make me so happy.  I feel like they fit my style well as they are colourful without being novelty and I also love the great interactions I get with other people when I wear them.  People come up to me on the street or the hospital that I work in and talk to me about the prints which is awesome as Londoners tend not to do that often.

 

I used the Sew Over It Ultimate shift dress pattern.  I've made this pattern so many times but I'd never made the frilled shoulders before as I'm not a massive frill fan but I don't know what got into me and I just went for it and I'm really pleased as these frills I love. 

 

Despite making this pattern a lot of times, each time I do, I think that I need to lengthen it.  I think I forgot because several of them are winter versions that I wear with tights.  However, this is definitely a summer version and it feels like it should be a smidge longer.  However its been doing me well in this heat wave we've been having. 

And just because if there's ever a giant pink flamingo around you, you should definitely give it a cuddle, particularly if you're wearing a dress to match!

 

Planning from the deep stash

I'm a member of the sewalongs and sewing contest group on facebook, and this quarter's theme is deep stash patterns.  As my pattern stash is getting out of control, this was an awesome theme for me.  My plan currently looks like this:

From left to right; Mia jeans, Ondee sweater, Various vintage patterns, I have plans for view 2 and 3 of Simplicity 5359, Vintage shirt dress, Anderson blouse, Brume skirt.  Most of these I've never made before and I'm looking forward to trying them out.  When I first started sewing, I didn't understand how other sewists had so many patterns that they'd never used in their stash.  Turns out the longer you sew and the more invested that you become in this hobby, the easier it is to just accumulate things!

However, since I have minimal follow through on my planned lists, I'm not convinced that my final makes will look anything like this.  The coppelia cardigan, opal shirt and multiple other patterns are also on my 'to make list' and may be subbed in.  In fact, this top pattern is currently obsessing me and I bought the perfect fabrics on a recent trip to Paris so my 'plan' really is incredibly fluid!

However, I can guarantee that the Vintage shirt dress will definitely be entered as it is finished already!  I bought a length of African wax print in December, with the main purpose of making my sister some ultimate pjs (and other bits and pieces).  However, since the fabric was awesome and I had quite a lot of the 5.5m length left, I made myself a vintage shirt dress.

This pattern was a Christmas gift last year and so far this is my third version.  It's swiftly becoming one of my favourite patterns and I love this version! As my second version was also in an African wax fabric, clearly I feel like the African wax prints and this pattern are a perfect match (watch this space for more, although since I don't currently have any in my stash so this would involve a shopping trip).  The African wax cotton is a bit similar to quilting cotton, although it's a bit drapier and is really easy to work with.  When I first started sewing, I would predominantly have bought this kind of fabric and slowly moved away from them.  Partly due to wanting to sew a greater range of garments and use different techniques.  However, I'm starting to feel a real lack of this kind of fabric in my stash and actually investing in some more.  Maybe it is time for that shopping trip.  However, just a word of warning, one of the big issues with a shopping trip for African wax print is that it is sold in 5.5m lengths and while it is not always essential to buy that much, your incoming totals can mount up quickly.

I did not have 8 suitable buttons in my stash so it did involve a trip to the haberdashery (which is always fraught with peril as there is just so much temptation to try to resist).  However, I was good and just bought these buttons which have a subtle circle design on them, to echo but not clash with the print on the fabric.

This dress makes me really happy, it's smart enough to wear for work but also bright and patterned enough to give a little boost to my day.   I hope you all have colour or sewing or something to make you happy for the rest of the week.

There's nothing subtle about this

Hi folks, I hope you all had lovely bank holiday weekends and are not too blue at the return to work.  I spent a really lovely weekend with family in Wales and managed to persuade my sister to take some fun photos for this blog post.  A couple of months ago on a shopping trip to Walthamstow, I bought this royal blue and pink African wax print cotton.  I couldn't resist but as the colours were pretty vibrant I figured that it really could only be used as an item of summer clothing.

I've been wanting to make a sleeveless Vintage shirt dress since I made my sleeved version.  This fabric seemed like a good option for my next version.  From the last version I knew I needed to make certain alterations, I sized down in the bodice and lengthened it by 5cm.  I then took 5cm out of the skirt.  However, I seem to have lost more length in the skirt as this dress is considerably shorter than my last version!  I'm not quite sure how this happened.  I like it for this dress as it adds to the summery vibe but I must pay attention for the next version.

I used some plain black buttons that I had in my stash. I figured that I really needed to go as simple as possible with the buttons on this. Although I did sew them on with royal blue thread to match the dress! This is also one of those occasions where I should have paid attention to pattern placement as the slightly off placement of the circles on each side has slightly the effect of an optical illusion. As I don't have to spend much time looking at it, it's not a problem for my brain but if my friends start going cross eyed and throwing up around me, it may be a problem!

I watched the Great British Sewing Bee with a group of lovely ladies pulled together by Ana and Elena.  When international week happened, we all went a bit nuts for the fabulous dresses made from African wax fabric.  I'm so pleased to finally have my own version but there's no doubting you definitely stand out in fabric this vibrant.

I'm sure my aunt an uncle would have been delighted had they seen us taking these photos on their picnic table!  They also had a tree house which I happily climbed up!

Thanks so much to my lovely sister for taking the pictures and putting up with me as I danced round the garden in my dress and demanded that she take even more photos!  I really love this very summery dress which hopefully I can eek out a bit more wear from if the good weather holds but it will definitely form part of my holiday wardrobe for when I go to Lisbon in a few weeks.