Constellation Dress

As promised i'm back trying to blog again. 

This dress is years old, and by years old I actually mean YEARS old!!! 

The fabric was brought at the #sewnorthwest workshop that me and my sister attended ages ago. It was a bit of a treat yo'self moment due to the fact my sister and her husband had decided to treat me to my ticket. [I actually had the money in my purse to pay for her for it and she was like "nah me and Keith have decided to treat you"] So when Fabric magpie set up her pop up shop and I saw this my sister was all like "well you've got the money from your ticket....." and well 1.5m ended up coming home with me. 

Naturally 1.5m doesn't exactly go far. So I opted for the French Navy Now Orla dress pattern which is free to download. 

Oddly whenever I make this dress the fit is slightly different, probably because I spend a lot of time hacking it! For this one I opted for a zip back and kept things really simple. I think this is when I was starting to experiment with slightly less fitted clothes and a more relaxed silhouettes. 

Making this dress perfect for those nights when your trying to eat as much pizza as possible! 

The bodice is lined, but its done BADLY! Just proving that even people who have been sewing for years sometimes say screw it and do a terrible job!!!!!!! However its functional and no one sees it when I take it off so hey ho!

I'm glad I went with a simple pattern so I could really let the print of the fabric do the talking. 

In other news!!!!! 

- Lil dude is learning piano and well by some weird extension I've been giving it a go. I'm pretty sure I'm doing horribly but my ability to read music helps and I think I might book in a appointment to have a quick lesson with my brother in law! Surely I'll sound better on an actual piano rather than a keyboard? right........?

- I've been knitting away. Its yet another diagonal garter stitch blanket but this time I'm using a beautiful colour change yarn from the shop. I'm loving how its turning out but I forgot how much I hate knitting on small needles [chunky all the way!] so its slow progress but I'm getting bits done by keeping it with me as often as I can, turns out waiting in the car at school pick up is the perfect time to do a few rows! 

-I've also been crocheting. Well I say I've been crocheting what I've actually been doing is crocheting a few rounds and then accidentally leaving it in reach of our cat Bandit and then hes been undoing all my hard work! 

And that's it really , plenty of relaxing and cuddling and doing little bits of crafting here and there!

Much Love

Frankie 

xxx

BB8 Orla Dress

I don't ever remember not knowing about star wars? I think that must be a side effect of having an older brother and sister who were both big fans. Which also means I never had the shocking "Luke I am your father" moment either because I always knew. 

I don't know how many times I've seen the original three movies [ya know the best ones!] and I've seen the next three a fair amount too [can we appreciate how gorgeous Ewan Mcgregor was as Obi Wan Kenobi for a minute please? ]

But I've only seen the first of the new ones so far. I think I had a bit of a "OMG THEY ARE GOING TO RUIN STAR WARS MOMENT" As it goes I did quite enjoy it so I really do need to get around to watching the last two!

Which is why when the Craft Cotton Company sent me this BB8 fabric I was chuffed! I decided to use it as an excuse to make a cute dress and introduce my lil boy to star wars! [Obviously whilst wearing the dress!]

Because its such a busy print I decided to opt for a really simple dress pattern. I chose to use the Orla Dress Pattern by French Navy Now [This pattern is actually free!!! So GO GO GO!]

The pattern is really simple, it had two darts in the front bodice, cute capped sleeves and a gathered skirt. Its also meant to have a zip in the back but after the success of my button back, Mr men, orla dress I decided to do another button up version.

Because of the busy print you can't really see the button placket or the buttons. In hindsight it might have been really cool to do a orange button placket to make it stand out a bit more but so it would still match the print. 

That said I do really like the button placket on this dress and the fact that I only need to undo the waist button to pull it over my head. 

You can sort of see the buttons I used here [although they do blend in very well!] They are small mosaic style buttons that came from my friends mums house. I don't think I'd use them but they sort of remind me of lil bb8s so they are perfect for this project. 

Normally I'm a fitted girl through and through but I really like the boxy loose style of the Orla dress and its a great pattern for show casing fun prints! The only changes I made to this pattern are to add the button back and to line the bodice. I always line my bodices because I think it creates a neater finish and lets face it with living in cold England an extra layer of fabric/warmth never goes amiss! Even in summer!!

The gathered skirt isn't as full as I normally go for but I have noticed it doesn't blow up as much in the wind. So maybe a skinnier gathered skirt is the way to go dignity wise!

The fabric is cotton so it behaves beautifully when your sewing it. As much as I love sewing with tricky fabrics and textures sometimes its just so nice to throw something together with a fabric that doesn't shift and holds a crease when you want it too!

 And I like how the print just looks like a crazy geometric deign from the distance. It means the dress will be a lot more wearable in the summer months.

And that's it really. I love making summer dresses like these but it does make me wish it was summer already! 

This morning we woke up to SNOW! Although its stopped now and it doesn't seem to be sticking which is a bit gutting because I was hoping school would be cancelled.

In other news! 

Our tumble dryer is sort of working! It makes a loud banging noise but its drying clothes so that's good.

However then the washing machine started fritzing. It was draining but not as much as it should be. Anyway Rikki pulled it out of its hole put it on its side and after about an hour and a half of swearing and banging he proudly came into the living room brandishing a sock that had been caught in the filter! Which begs the question how on earth did it get there? I've had a good look and I can't see anyway of a sock escaping the drum? And it wasn't even a kids sock, which are small and easily misplaced it was an ADULT sock! 

But now that's fixed I've been working on pre washing the small pile of fabric that I brought from the Abakhans Sale! A full video of the fabric I brought went up on my you tube a few days ago and you can find it here! 

 

I warn you though Its a long one!!! So make a brew and enjoy!

Much Love 

Frankie 

xxx

Mr Men Orla Dress

I often get asked why I sew. Yes its cheaper to buy clothes and its less time consuming.

BUT 

It does mean I get to make myself a Mr Men dress!

Mr Men guys! MR MEN! The fabric for this dress came from my friend Steve during his loft clear out. There was about a metre and a half? Which meant I had to be careful what pattern I chose. I was tempted by the Lilou pattern but I;m trying to get a few different dresses in my wardrobe so I opted for the Orla Pattern by French navy Now [You can down load it for free here]  

The Orla dress only has waist darts so its pretty perfect for making sure you don't spilt up busy patterns like this one. 

Pattern placement wise, I tried to make sure I didn't have a Mr Man on my boob but other than that I just tried to get all of the pattern pieces out of the limited fabric I had. Although the sleeves are cut on this opposite grain due to shortage. You can't really notice tit when its on though. 

I did ignore the instructions though as I chose to fully line the bodice. I think the actual instructions call for bias binding on the neckline but I'd rather have everything tucked and tidied away. 

I also swapped out the zip in the back for some buttons. I think I'll do this the next time I make it too.

Unlike my first version this one is a lot looser due to me using the 1cm seam allowance rather than trying to ramrod a 1.5cm seam allowance in there. [You wouldn't think that 0.5cm would make that much difference but it does!] This dress is cut in a size XL, which I confess I'm struggling not to let bother me. I know size doesn't matter and realistically looking at this I could go down a size but The XL label is just...... I dunno maybe this a throwback from all my days of shopping and how having to size up could seriously put a downer on my day. 

On the plus side though the XL size and the button back means I only have to undo one button at the waist to get in and out! Which is a huge bonus because it means I don't have to ask Rikki to do up the back buttons whenever I want to wear it. 

Incidentally the buttons also came from Steve's house, I think they were his mums? [Who's also an absolute babe!]

It turned out to be a pretty quick make, I even hemmed the sleeves and hems by machine rather than hand stitching them down. 

So all in all I LOVE THIS DRESS! And little man thinks its hilarious that mummy has a Mr Men dress because he loves the books! He likes Mr Bump but I like Mr Chatterbox because I find him very similar to myself...... No seriously if we ever have to good fortune to meet in person you will see that I can talk for England, hell I could probably throw in Ireland , Scotland and Wales in for good measure too!  

In other news! 

Its freezing - I've invested in some thick tights for the school run but its still chilly!

I've been reading Eat pray love and I'm just not into it. I dunno why but I'm just not relating to the lead character at the moment. I might try a few more chapters but so far its loving like a might have to ditch it off in favour of something else.  

Much Love

Frankie 

xxx