A pretty take on London transport

When I spotted this liberty fabric a few months ago in Simply fabrics in Brixton, I knew I had to have it.  It combines some of my favourite things in a fabric print; bikes, flowers and stylised London transport, how could I resist?  From the beginning I knew I was going to make another Mathilde blouse with it, it just took me a few months to get round to it.

Like my previous version I made a straight size 4, which fits fine, however maybe next time I make it I will narrow the neckline slightly as my bra straps are often on show with both versions.  I love the huge sleeves and really enjoy how they showcase this fabric.  I've worn this top a few times now and have got so many compliments on it, it's clearly one of my most popular makes.

I used some buttons from my stash which Kristi had sent me as part of a thrift swap we'd been partnered in a few years back.  They are a really unusual colour and they match some of the flowers on the fabric perfectly.

As I was making up this Mathilde, I realised how much progress I've made in my sewing skills in the last couple of years.  I remember struggling with some of the instructions last time and this time it was a doddle.  It also helped that I was making this on my new sewing machine!  The buttonholes, which my old machine struggled with, are a thing of beauty.  Sadly I couldn't get detailed enough shots of them, so you can't see but you can take my word for it.

I took these photos on a trip to Whitstable with my cousin this weekend and there were all these beach huts which made such a great backdrop for the photos.  We went for walks which gave us views like this:

We even managed to sneak in a little sewing related tourism.  I spotted this industrial Singer in a sewing machine shop on the high street:

And I bought these patterns and notions.  The dress came from a charity shop and the lingerie pattern and buttons came from a vintage shop.  The lingerie pattern is one I've been searching for on ebay/etsy etc for a while and it was in my size, it was very exciting! 

I'll leave you with this photo of the cutest houses ever.  I hope you all have a good week!

A little bit of selfless sewing

So usually I am a selfish sewist and do not sew things for other people. However my father turned 75 a couple of weeks ago (happy birthday daddy) and I decided that I wanted to make something for him to mark the occasion.

I'd spotted this quilt tutorial on Purl Soho and thought that it was so pretty and hopefully wouldn't take too long to make. In the interests of full disclosure I did not use lots of Liberty fabrics-the blue one is a length of Liberty fabric that I bought especially for this quilt but the others are scraps I had left over from dressmaking projects. I feel that this embraces the ethos of quilt making a bit better than buying lots especially for a quilt.  In particular, I was able to use scraps of the parrot fabric from my Flora dress in the 'best fabric ever', that had been a present from my Dad.  I thought this was a nice touch for a gift.

I made my quilt bigger than the original pattern as, although I didn't want this to be a full size quilt, I did want it to be large enough to act as a throw on a three seater sofa, as this is what my Dad has in his living room.  I bought the fabric for the top and bottom at Simply Fabrics in Brixton.  It's a fairly hefty cotton which I bought because it was exactly the oatmeal colour I wanted, however it did have a bit of stretch to it which was not ideal.  I bought this gorgeous wadding from plush addict, it's an iron-on wadding which I had never seen before and thought was really clever. It's nice to have that extra security as you stitch together all the layers.  The bias binding I made from some African print cotton in my stash.

This was the first ever quilt I have ever finished, although I've started several (you should hear my sister on the subject, she's still waiting for one I promised her for her birthday 3 years ago!)  This quilt is obviously not a traditional pieced quilt  and there is a lot of hand stitching involved which I actually quite enjoyed, even though I really dislike hand stitching my dress making projects.  Even with all the hand sewing, it's still a relatively quick make. I started it towards the end of April and it was finished at the beginning of June. I'd say just over a month to complete a quilt is pretty good going, especially as I had a bunch of other projects on the go at the same time.

The Purl Soho instructions are great and I learnt some new tips which I would never have thought of.  For example they have you sew the circles, right sides together with interfacing, essentially creating a bag with the interfacing and then turning them out before appliqueing to the quilt top.  It gave a really clean edge to the circles which I know I wouldn't have got had I just tried to turn the edges under before appliqueing.  They also direct you to tutorials for binding the quilt, which I found really helpful, since never having actually completed a quilt before, I hadn't done this step before.  Actually it was simpler than I expected.  The binding looks neat and 3 of the corners are pretty perfect, with just one being slightly wonky.

A final shot of the quilt in its new home.  The patchwork cushion was another present that I made for my Dad on a previous birthday.

I really like this quilt and now I want one for myself. I feel like it has a great impact while not involving as much work as other quilts.  It may be time to get stitching again!  Does anyone have any recommendations of any other speedy quilts?

Birthday dress

So Monday was my 30th birthday! Everyone knows a birthday needs a new dress and since I had recently just bought this amazing pencil print cotton poplin from Libertys, I decided to go down the really grown up route and make a dress with little pencils on it to enter my fourth decade in! 

In what is now becoming a bit of a birthday tradition, I used the Deer and Doe Belladone for my birthday dress. Last years dress can be seen here. 

Aside from lengthening the bodice, which is a standard alteration for me, although I could have done with adding another cm or 2, I didn't make any changes to the pattern. I used a pink cotton from my stash for the binding. This cotton has been exclusively used for binding Belladones, since I also used it for last years version too.  I also used it to create some piping which I sewed either side of the waistband and I like the definition that this gives to the waistband.

There's not a lot else to say about this dress apart from it being awesome and I could develop a serious Liberty fabric habit based on these last 2 makes!  Again, I wore this make on my lovely birthday trip to Amsterdam and I felt really great floating around Amsterdam in this dress.

I loved Amsterdam and really recommend it as a destination for anyone who hasn't been.  It's just so pretty and also everyone seems so chilled out ( and not just because of the cannabis!)  There are lots of lovely museums, markets and canals and we had a lovely few days just wandering the streets.

As an added bonus there are several fabric shops and a fabric market in Amsterdam.  The market is on a Monday morning-what better way for a sewist to spend their birthday?  I properly blew any chance of stashbusting at this market.

So far my 30s have been filled with holidays, family, friends and fabric, it really has not been too bad. If the next decade pans out this well, I'll be very happy! 

Liberty peplum top

It's indie pattern month over on the monthly stitch. Are you watching all the awesome stuff people are making for the challenges?  I have a couple of versions of the Deer and Doe Belladones that I've made to enter for the one pattern, two ways challenge. Today I'm going to show you version number one. 

I had a metre of this gorgeous Liberty tana lawn that I wanted to make a peplum top from but I didn't have a pattern. In my pondering, I kept retuning to the shape of my belladone bodice and thought I would give hacking a go. 

My Belladone pattern is an old one so doesn't have the closed back version that the updated versions do, however there is a tutorial about how to create it for yourself here on the deer and doe blog, which I followed to create my back piece. I also lengthened the back and front pieces so as to leave out the waistband piece. I didn't sew up the darts in the back bodice piece so as to leave more room. There is a little too much excess in the back so I should probably have just reduced the darts slightly but this does make it lovely and loose and cool in hot weather.  

I extended the back pieces to create a pleat in the back but by mistake I cut out 2 back skirt pieces as with the normal pattern pieces, if I'd been thinking properly I would have cut out one back skirt piece on the fold, eliminating the extra seam allowance. I extended the front skirt piece to eliminate the pockets and also leave room for another couple of little pleats to add some oomph to the peplum.  This can be seen with the wind catching it in the photo below.

Tana lawn sews like a dream and I decided to make a special effort and French seam all of the seams so it looks lovely inside. I even French seamed the zip seam which went better than I expected. 

These photos were taken in Amsterdam. My wonderful sister surprised me with an unexpected birthday trip there for the weekend. We had an amazing time, with glorious weather and silliness.  

Everyone always mentions how awesome tana lawn is and how great it feels to wear, let me just add my voice to this and say that it was incredible to wear in the heat. I love this top, it feels pretty and flattering. Peplums are great.  I even made a little matching bracelet to go with it. 

Thanks for an amazing trip Nini and for taking all my photos!  I'll be back later in the week with my birthday dress; Belladone mark 2!