Taking a circle skirt up a notch

Today's post is about a total basic, the circle skirt.  However, this one has been made super fabulous by the awesome fabric, which is so summery!  Plus I had a great backdrop and wonderful photographer taking these photos so it all worked out pretty perfectly.  

 This is the Megan Neilsen Veronika skirt pattern which I've used once before for my pleather skirt which is still a big winner in my wardrobe.

The fabric is a gorgeous stretch cotton with tulip print that I bought on Goldhawk road.  They had 5m left in the shop and my cousin and I split it.  I think we both may have made the same skirt so we'll have to be careful not to wear it at the same time as I'm not a fan of the whole matching outfit thing, to be honest I don't reckon she is either so at least we'll be on the same page.

Aside from hemming the skirt, which was as lengthy as circle skirts always are (also despite the above photo which makes the whole thing look lopsided, it is straight).  The whole thing came together quickly, its really just a few seams and an invisible zip. 

I love this skirt and this was the perfect backdrop as I also love London, even with construction stuff going on, which is lucky as it's also a feature of the London skyline!

These were taken by my lovely friend Dominika (thanks Dominika).  Fingers crossed for more lovely evenings like this with lovely clothes, lovely friends, lovely weather and lovely settings (and if my mother ever reads this sentence with this many lovely's in it, her head will explode!)

I'm entering this as one of the makes in Allie's Social Sew, this month's theme is 'hot, hot heat', come sew with us.  Happy summer all!

Fall essentials sewalong, how did I do?

Hello all.  I've actually spent quite a bit of time thinking about this post as once I started reviewing where I got to with creating my fall essentials, I got to thinking about the reasons for my successes, failures and excuses.  It's been a really interesting process and I think will be very helpful for forward planning.  So while this is a round up post, there are also some planning thoughts. So for those who don't know; the fall essentials sew along is the brainchild of Sarah and was running this year from the 12th September to the 14th November.

While I had a comprehensive list of makes I was realistic about not being able to get everything done and some things being longer term goals. Anyway what did I manage?  And where do I go from here?

Fashionable foundations

Pleather circle skirt: Done and I wear this a lot! The added bonus with this is that I never fail to get a complement on it when I wear it.

Culottes: not even in the priority pile yet. I have however almost finished a pair of black trousers which will be very useful. 

Chic chemises

I made my first Dolores top and a second one promptly followed and a third will shortly happen. This top is a win in my book!

I didn't make any of the other tops that I'd considered but have a couple of others as WIPs. Watch this space. I decided against an Agatha cardigan but I cast on an Aiken jumper when I was on holiday, although progress on this has slightly stalled as I've made a start on some knitted Christmas gifts. I'm ok with this, I know that I knit really slowly and that it's not realistic to expect my knitwear to be hand knitted at this point, it's something I do as a personal challenge and for the enjoyment of the process.

I am always desperate to make good tops as I feel it's a real gap in my wardrobe but this situation is slowly starting to improve.

Fabulous frocks

I managed my Renfrew/lady skater mash up dress and it may be love. I want one in a less synthetic fabric now.

I did not manage my vintage Style 3361 pattern, I still really want to make it but it's going to require a fair amount of fitting work and I'm feeling lazy. 

I started my Lou Lou dress as I thought it would make a lovely dress to take on holiday but I came a cropper somewhere in the process which was super demoralising. I was also really annoyed as it would have been perfect to float around in the Spanish sunshine in. 

Baby it's cold outside

I have a real tale of woe to tell about my chunky scarf. I made it and it was a thing of beauty and lovely and snuggly and warm and the first day I wore it I left it on a train. I honestly could have cried! I have some left over wool and I think I going to try making another one of these as I was really so in love with it.  Although I have to get over the psychological hurdles of having wasted such a lot of money on version number one and the time it's going to take me to recreate!

The weather has been really mild here in London so far this autumn so the mittens never became a priority for me to make but as temperatures have decreased this week, they have swiftly moved to the top of my list.

My vintage coat is still very early on in its development stage. I've made some paper pattern alterations and tissue fitted it to my mannequin but I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to have to make a muslin which I never do and so am procrastinating doing that. I want to do this properly so this may be one of those projects that drags on for a long time.  This is no bad thing as I should learn to pay more attention to details and this process should be a good learning curve.

My general thoughts on moving on to winter sewing are; take time over the coat. I have some wonderful Donegal tweed for the coat that I don't want to ruin by rushing things, even if it means that I won't get much wear out of it until next winter.  Keep sewing everyday items which I want to wear and help me develop skills.  I wear these most and get real pleasure from wearing them and as they get constant use it makes me be thoughtful about fit and hat I can do to improve these items.  This being said I went on a night out last night wearing a RTW dress and it made me swear to myself that I am going to make some posh frocks for myself that work for me in the same way as my everyday clothes.  Watch this space for a sparkly Christmas dress!

Did you take part in the fall essentials sewalong? How did you get on?  What's on your winter sewing list?

A leather circle shirt

Hi all and happy Friday. As I mentioned in my autumn/winter planning post, I really wanted a drapey leather skirt since I saw this one made by Carolyn but I knew I wanted a fuller circle skirt.  I was planning on drafting it myself and then I remembered that Megan Neilsen had released a free circle skirt pattern and my natural laziness won and I decided to use the Veronika pattern.

I used a pleather that I had in my stash.  It was left over from a coupon I had bought in Paris and used some of for this bag.

I can't really comment on the instructions as I didn't use them but the pattern came together really easily.  Of course the whole thing was made a touch easier as I didn't have to finish any seams and I didn't bother to hem it!  I used a leather needle in my machine and it sewed up really easily, I don't know if all pleather is this easy to sew but if it is, I need to think of some other pleather items for my wardrobe.  *Edit* having worn this a few times now, I think maybe having an all pleather wardrobe is a less good idea-you are essentially wearing plastic, which in a hot room equals gross sweatiness!  Maybe I should stick to the 'everything in moderation' mantra!

This is the first item made from my fall essentials list.  I'm quite excited about wearing this with tights and boots and that snuggly cowl I'm going to finish knitting soon...hmmm better get back to that.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!