Lisbon photos and a couple of Anya bags

Last week my sister and I spent a few glorious days in Lisbon and I finally got round to taking some photos of the Anya bags that I'd made us.  Zoe sent me this pattern to review almost a year ago and although I've now made 4 versions, I haven't gotten around to writing up my thoughts about the pattern yet, sorry Zoe.

Since these are my third and fourth versions of this bag, its safe to say that I am a fan of this pattern.  It's a great stash buster and results in a cute bag which holds a surprising amount of stuff.

This photos was taken just before we left for the airport.  At this stage my bag was holding my passport, wallet (which is a beast), phone, bottle of water, kindle, ipad and bunch of house keys.  It's doing pretty well isn't it?

My sister chilling with our drinks in the 31 degree heat, coming back to the UK was a bit of a shock to the system. 

My version is made from a Cath Kidson upholstery weight fabric, with a polycotton lining and my sisters is made from scraps of the tulip stretch cotton left over from my circle skirt and it's lined with the pink waffle fabric I lined my 70s coat with.  While both work fine for summer bags, the upholstery fabric holds the pleats better and makes a greater feature of them.

I made a couple of small changes to to the pattern.  I shortened the straps slightly, the pattern calls for the straps to be 80cm each and I made them about 70cm as I wanted the bag to sit a bit higher so that it would be a bit more securely under my arm and the contents safely away from pickpockets.  Instead of a button for the tab I used some magnetic snap closures for an easier fastening.  With very few pattern pieces, the bag comes together in an hour or two and the instructions are really clear.  I reckon I've got another few of these in me, they'll make good Christmas gifts in some more wintery fabrics.

And now you get a few of my Lisbon photos, so look away now if other peoples holiday snaps bore you!  I would really recommend Lisbon as a city break for anyone who hasn't been, it's so pretty and has great food and wine.

 There are lots of gorgeous views across the river, this was such a perfect lunch spot.

 I spotted this sewing machine at the flea market, it would have made such a good souvenir but sadly I don't think I could have got it through the Ryanair luggage allowance!

 A bit of silliness at the Castle walls.

 There are all these gorgeous tiled building everywhere.  Why don't we have these?

 They have lots of cool graffiti everywhere, this cute fellow caught my eye and we made friends!

Thanks so much to my amazing little sister for helping me to have such a fun holiday and for bearing with all the photography I insisted on! I hope you're all having a great weekend. 

One week, one pattern

When Hannah announced that she would be running OWOP this year, I knew that I wanted to take part.  I'd loved taking part in 2014 when Jane hosted and I used the lady skater pattern.  This time I decided to use the SoZo Dolores dress and top pattern.  I already had 3 versions of the top made up, versions 1 and 2 can be seen here and I decided that this was the perfect excuse to give the dress a go.  I can knock versions of this up in a about an hour, so I reached for this blue and red rayon knit that I had in my stash and got stitching.  Scroll down for an exciting peek at it.

So how did my week turn out?

Day 1.  I spent most of the day in my peacock Dolores top before changing into some glad rags for a wedding.

Day 2.  After the wedding I went for a paddle on Margate beach in my yellow Dolores top.  The water was really pretty warm.

Day 3.  Peacock top again.  It was at this point that I realised that I was going to have a problem as a heat wave had hit London and 2 out of 4 of my possible makes for this week had long sleeves.

Day 4.  The hottest ever September day, I finally ventured out at about 7 to get a photo of my new dress.

Day 5.  I enjoyed the sunshine at my local lido, wearing my Sew over it ultimate shorts and yellow Dolores top to cycle down there.

Day 6.  I enjoyed the last of the summer sunshine again at the Lido and my dress was the perfect thing to throw on over the top of my swimsuit.

Day 7. The solution to my lack of hot weather apparel was obviously to make myself another Dolores top!  This one was on my to make list but just got bumped up the list rather speedily!  I bought this amazing stripey jersey when I was in Amsterdam.  I love the varying stripes and it feels like everyone should have a stripey top in the wardrobe and somehow I didn't have one yet.

How did you all get on with your one week, one pattern?  

Me made May 16 days 1-8

Two posts in one week!  It must be May!  I'm going to start this week's round up with a refashion, partly to save those of you who follow me on Instagram from total boredom and partly because I love it. 

I started with this jumper; a men's Asos  lambswool jumper.  It had a couple of moth (or something) holes and was too big. 

I started by pinning to bring the arm holes up to what might approximate my shoulders and pinning in the sides. I also put in bust darts which for future reference is a mistake in a fabric like this. 

I wanted a copped jumper so removed the ribbing, took a chunk off the length and then reattached the ribbing.  I found that serging the ribbing back on resulted in a very wavy join so I then topstitched the seam.  It's not really visible as the fabric absorbs the stitches but makes the whole jumper sit more pleasingly.

 I also wanted to try out the hi-low thing which is everywhere and I've never been a big fan of but thought might work well for this jumper.

The next step was to darn and embellish. I knew I wanted a bit of excitement on my jumper. One of my friends has a great jumper with similar gems on the front and I shamelessly ripped it off. The gems were from simply sequins and at £10.95 for a bag, they added considerably to the cost of my refashion. However I still have loads left for other projects.

You can just about see the darning in the above photo.  I feel like it's seriously overshadowed by the bling and this was exactly what I wanted.

You're not getting to see this jumper on as obviously the second I finished adjusting a lambswool sweater, the weather upped its game and I didn't fancy wearing it in the 20+ degree weather we've been experiencing.  I'm totally not complaining, even if I do have to wait a while to wear my new jumper. 

So on to the daily round up:

Day 1: lady skater dress. I've not made one of these for a while and I think it may be time for another! 

Day 2: feather plantain t-shirt (unblogged)

Day 3: Ultimate trousers and thrifted top

Day 4: refashioned jumper skirt, Angelica top

Day 5: Sleeveless maxi lady skater (unblogged) This is the point at which I started to fail at the photos.  Seriously it took 5 days!  I'm sure this will pop up again this month though as wearing it made me remember how much I love maxi dresses.

Day 6: My Jade skirt and a Dolores top, complete with photo bombers who are apparently better at posing for photos than I am.

Day 7: Carolyn pyjamas
I was super hungover this day so did not fancy getting a photo but I enjoyed having my lovely pyjamas to feel sorry for myself in!

Day 8: ultimate shorts (unblogged) and vintage tie top

Right, thats my week-see you all again next week.  I'm loving seeing everyones round ups.

Making progress with my fall essentials

Hi all, I hope you're all having lovely weekends. I'm on holiday in Spain so things are pretty good in my world. 

On my fall essentials planning list I planned to make a Dolores batwing top by the lovely Zoe.  Never having made the top before I was so delighted when my first one was such a hit that I immediately made a second version. So today I have 2 tops to show you, be warned this post is full of lots of gushing!

The first one is a long sleeved Dolores tunic in the fabric I had planned.

I really love the shape of this top and it's flattering over all ones lumps and bumps. Although it's harder when wearing jeans as their hardware creates extra sticky-out bits.

I love this fabric, I slightly feel like a giant peacock when I wear it! 

The second is a mustard gold short sleeve tunic. I'm describing it as gold because for the last couple of years, since mustard became trendy I have been objecting to it and declaring how gross I found mustard.  However when I saw this viscose jersey in my local fabric shop I snapped it up immediately, so I'm declaring it gold so that I don't have to budge on my decidedly anti-mustard position. 

I've spotted a couple of posts recently, like this one by Megan Neilsen about how important it is to press knit fabrics, just like you would wovens. I'm really guilty of not pressing my knits but I really found that I needed to with this viscose jersey. 

This is a great patten and so easy to sew. It's the perfect instant gratification project, I'm sure I was able to get it from pdf to finished top in less than a couple of hours. 

I've been spending a lot of time in uni recently and these tops have been such a godsend to throw on with a pair of jeans or a skirt.  I wish I hadn't put off buying the pattern for so long now.  I was afraid that it wasn't going to be flattering for someone of my shape, however, I really love the shape of it on me so I'm sure more versions will turn up in my wardrobe at some point.

Right I'm off to catch the last of the Spanish sunshine before I have to head home.  I hope you all have lovely weekends and if you haven't voted yet in the sew independent challenges please, please go and do so here and here.