Lady skater take 2

So as I mentioned in my last lady skater post, this pattern/dress is amazing.  It comes together so quickly and easily.  So here is my second lady skater.

And now a little bit of silliness!

 

The only problem with this dress is that the blue polka dot jersey was such rubbish quality that its really bugging me to wear now.  I have a very sad suspicion that this dress is going to end up on the refashion pile soon. However, I like the colour block concept of this dress so I'm sure another (better quality) version will be on my cutting table soon.

 

Thanks so much to Leonie who took my photos and bossed me into good positions to show off the dress.  Your photography skills exceed mine by a hundred fold! 

 

Have a good week!

Catastrophy!

My sewing machine is currently broken!  Don't know how this happened, the poor thing is probably overworked!  So it has had to go to sewing machine hospital.

In the meantime and so that there is a hope of me finishing my Christmas presents in time, my lovely mother has leant me hers.  The only problem is her machine scares me a little, it's very old and weighs a ton and has many more dials and stuff than mine. However I just need to suck it up and read the manual and get on with it! 

Eek!!!

Wish me luck. 

Blogger swap!

When Miche at buttons and birdcages posted that she and Martyna from Spoolish were hosting a giveaway, I knew I wanted to take part.  I love Miche's blog and her refashioning style and was really pleased to be introduced to Martyna's. 

I was paired with Kristi from Alligator toe.  She is so cool and I have loved getting to know her a little.  I had a lot of info to go on as Kristi has lots of resources, like Pinterest as well as her super great blog.  She just had to rely on my fledgling blog and our 'getting to know you' emails but look how great she did:

When this parcel arrived I curled up in bed all excited like a kid with a Christmas stocking.

Look it came from foreign lands:

Kristi sent me a postcard of California (where she's from) which I loved, a letter (more on this in a minute), buttons, a Burt's bees lip balm, nail polish and a tote bag she had made herself.  What a great package! 

These buttons were my favourite and I already have a use for them in mind!

I love Burt's bees but I've never used their lip balm, this one is awesome and its tinted! I really don't think we can get this one here and I'm already obsessed!  Obligatory pouty,  lip-balm modelling photo:

The nail polish is called English rose which is appropriate considering where I live and my colouring.  I painted my toes and fingers instantly (and then did the washing up so destroyed my finger nails but the toes are still perfect).

Modelling my new shopping tote!

Ok so Kristi wrote me a lovely letter, which looked like this:

The envelope opens up so the letter is on the inside of the envelope and it unfolds like an old-fashioned letter which was written on paper and then folded up and sealed with sealing wax.  I thought this was amazing and totally charming.  However when I waxed lyrical about it to everyone, they all were like "duh, Alexa, that's airmail paper" (or something, clearly I didn't listen very hard).  However I still think its really cool and I plan on ignoring all who rain on my excitement. 

I loved getting my parcel from Kristi and getting to know her (hopefully this will continue post presents) and I really want to see what the other bloggers exchanged. 

The others participating in the blog were Miche and Martyna (see above), Louise, Sally (this was the only other person who's blog I knew before, and I love it), Zhenya, Lisa, Katie and Kristy (who doesn't have a blog).

Happy weekend all!

Super cosy refashion

This post is not just inspired by but totally ripped off from So Zo's post on recycled mittens.  I even used the same pattern from fibersandtwigs etsy store.

I have shrunk quite a few of my lovely warm cashmere/wool jumpers in the wash recently and really wanted to do something with them. Plus when my Dad came to visit recently he donated some old and holey jumpers to my refashion stash. 

( since I was quite clearly inside I'm not sure why I had my coat on in these pictures)

These are so easy to put together and a really quick and fun project. 

I used a lovely soft, cosy cotton, viscose and angora dress for the lining. I loved this dress but it was only meant to be hand washed and guess what I did. The exterior is made from a proper old man jumper (thanks daddy) and a red jumper which was originally mine (but again, me and my washing machine had a falling out over it). I used old socks for the cuffs.

I had intended these to be a Christmas present but they're so lovely and snugly that they've become a winter present to me!!!

Just a word of warning: the pattern says to mark the right side of the fabric if its not obvious to ensure you get a right and left mitten. I ignored this advice and this is what happened:

Silly Alexa! Oh well I was planning on making lots of these anyway. I'll just have to make sure the next couple are just left hand mittens! I loved these so much that I have been shopping again at the fibersandtwigs store so look out for some more cosy refashions coming soon.  

Just as an aside, what is the difference between refashioning and upcycling?  I have a sneaking suspicion that what I've done here actually counts as upcycling. On that note, I'm off to google it!  

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Jumping on the lady skater band wagon

So it has already been very well documented in the blogging world that the Kitschy Coo lady skater pattern is amazing.  I'm just adding my voice to this, it really is AMAZING!

I had never sewn with jersey before but there are so many great blogs out there with super helpful tips, so having spent a lot of time reading, I jumped right in.  Also the tips and beginner instructions that come with the pattern are ace.

It may have been beginners luck but this dress came together with no problems what so ever (at least on the stitching front).

In my usual impatient style I did not make a muslin. I figured that as I picked up my fabric for £3 a meter, it could be a wearable muslin. However, I did have to underline it as it was super thin. Even with an extra layer of fabric, I still had no sewing issues! Definitely a testimony to all the great tips out there. Thank you blogging community. 

However, this make was not totally without irritations. I managed to make a very silly mistake through my own assumptions. I have a really long body and always have to lengthen the bodice of patterns, so I jumped right in and lengthened this bodice by 5cm. As you may be able to see (or then again maybe not) from the photos, I really didn't need to, I'm not a massive fan of the dropped waist! 

Sorry for the rubbish quality of the photos. My camera is playing up and I took almost 100 photos even to get these ones!

I took this one just to show off the daisies. When I saw the fabric, there was no way I was going to resist. I had to have a daisy dress!

Just for fun, a twirly photo to show off the skirt. 

This pattern is going to become a staple, I have already cut out and started a second one! So watch this space.