Lilou Tie Shoulder Dress Hack

I like Pina Coladas and getting drunk in the rain. Actually I hate cocktails and well I live in England so I have been drunk in the rain, In fact its probably a statistical fact that I've been drunk in the rain more times than drunk in sun.

Anyway ! This dress! I mean THIS DRESS! Sometimes you can have an awesome pattern and awesome fabric and its still a bit lacking but not this time! I love this dress, Rikki likes this dress, I think I might want to be buried on this dress [well this one or my wax cotton one]

I mean its a Hawaiian print, so lets just start with that. I don't normally do colour but as soon as I saw this on the craft cotton company website I fell in love. Suddenly I had visions of myself strutting down a sunny street with the beach boys playing in the background.

Its like someone took the whole of summer and wove it into a print! Anyway its a 100% cotton, didn't shrink in the wash, ironed beautifully and no colours ran at all! And it was a dream to sew with and cut out, it doesn't shift and yo can finger press a lot of your seams! I didn't bother pattern matching but I did cut all my pieces the same way up.

In fact my only fault with this dress is that the zip is about 0.5cm out, but I've added a big button and it doesn't really bother me to be honest! At least it doesn't bother me enough to unpick everything and start again! 

So lets get to the nitty gritty! the top is the lilou bodice from love at first stitch by tilly and the buttons. But I hacked the bodice so I could keep with the 60's beach boys theme and have tie shoulders! 

It really was a simple hack and I think it looks awesome!

First I traced a copy of my front and back Lilou bodices.

Then using my ruler I just extended the strap by about 4/5 inches and rounded it off. I also curved in the edges where the original strap ended to reduce bulk. [sorry for the rubbish pictures they were taken on my phone]

Then cut of your new pattern piece!

Construction is pretty much the same as in the book, you stay stitch the neckline, but when it asks you to join the front bodice and the back bodices at the shoulders you just skip that part! Then you attach the front bodice to the front bodice lining right sides together and stitch all the way from one armscye up the strap around the round strap end through to the neckline and up the other strap and to the armscye again!

Then you do the same with the left back bodice and the right.

Then you just turn all the pieces through [after your clipped the edges] and then you can follow the instructions again for joining them all p at the side seams and adding the skirt and zip.

Here's me demonstrating the toe of the shoulders with the creepiest look on my face ever.

In hindsight next time I would only extend the straps by 3 inches instead of the 4/5 I used because I think mine are a touch long. But you live you learn! And it think it looks really cute and summery! Although you do have to line your bodice to have these straps so I'd recommend picking light fabrics.

The skirt is from the 2nd Great British Sewing Bee book. Its the box pleat skirt again, however I altered it to have a centre back seam and I omitted the waistband. The skirt was actually a touch too long for the bodice so I used a 2cm seam allowance on the skirt side seams instead of a 1.5cm one. Its definitely worth basting it in before you have to do lots of unpicking! or even worse MATHS! 

I think this might be my favourite Lilou dress hack so far! 

In other news! 

I've started a You tube channel!

So if you had a burning desire to see my actual face talking about sewing then all of your dreams have come true!

But in all seriousness its something I've wanted to do for a really long time and I'm glad I took the plunge! I do have to give a HUGE thank you to my lovely brother in law Keith though, because he has been patiently watching my failed video attempts and providing feedback since about March!

So yeah you pop over there and actually watch me talk about sewing! I can guarantee its far more awkward than any pictures I've ever posted on here!

And there's a cheeky video about this dress as well!

Much Love

Frankie

xxx

Big Pocket Skirt!

So this skirt was suppose to be the bottom half of my outfit along project. However I got to the sleeves part of my jumper and was like this is yuck, the jumper is gross, its like a bad jumper that you make when you first start knitting and can't help sucking a little bit. Only I can help sucking and should have known better. So I'm going to rip that back but I doubt Ill have time to craft a new jumper so I thought I might as well show you the skirt anyway.

It started out like as a Delphine skirt by tilly and the buttons , But I hacked the pattern so I could have a button front [Instead of a zip back] and so I could have these huge pockets!

The main skirt fabric is a suede that my mums friend gave me and the floral I used for the pockets belonged to my Nan, she gave it me with a couple of other pieces of cool fabric.

Its not an awful skirt, the pockets are a bit iffy but as I've never done anything with this sort of pocket let alone drafted in my own I think they could have turned out far worse!

There's actually not a huge amount of room in the pocket they are mainly for show! In fact I think I might slip stitch them closed so the skirt sits better.

The front buttons came from either my mums neighbours old stash or a big jar that my mum brought me from a charity shop. I actually kind of hated them but they work nicely for this skirt, I think they related just enough to the floral fabric but stand out in a cute way as well.

The waistband, hem and button band are all finished in a really thick bias tape, It worked quite nicely and everything sits in place.

I did a lot of top stitching on this skirt [the colour of the thread is just a shade darker than the buttons!]

So its not a grand success, I really liked that I tried to do something new and I think I gained a few new skills with regards to pattern drafting, Its just that the fits a bit off [I had to take this in 1cm on either side] and that the pockets don't quite sit properly [slip stitching them closed is definitely happening, who needs to use pockets anyway?]

But I do love the fabrics I used, especially seen as the pockets are made from the last scraps of the fabric my Nan gave me! And I really like the 70's vibe it has! Now I just need to work out what to wear it with?

Any suggestions?

Much Love

Frankie

x

Are the Great British Sewing Bee Books Worth The Money?

Very often I see bloggers posting about the latest releases of the Great British Sewing Bee books. But after thinking about the latest release I started to wonder if these books were actually worth the money we spend on them? Very often I follow the blog book tours, see bloggers make an item and then I never really see the books being used again [I'm not saying all bloggers do this, but it did get me thinking about other people and whether they use them]

So I've decided to review what I've made from the books and try and work out if they are worth buying!

So I best start off with the first book! which I don't own! well that was quick! [I also don't plan on buying it, the patterns have to be printed off not traced and I heard it was a bit naff projects wise, that said if I see it in a charity shop I might have a cheeky purchase]

Instead I started my GBSB book journey with the book from the second series, sew your own wardrobe!

Now at first I didn't think I'd used this a lot until I took a gander through the old blog archives! And I've made 14 things from this book! [the child's dungarees I made are not pictured!]

From left to right

Tunic top, tunic dress, pencil skirt hack, pencil skirt, pencil skirt

This is still my go to pencil skirt pattern, the fit is awesome and I love how easy it is to add my own features!

And I still think about this tunic top whenever I want to make a comfy dress! Sadly I lost the skull print dress to the great bleach incident of 2015, insert sad face here!

But I think I got the most mileage ot of the princess seam bodice! this is used for two projects in the book and I love it! I have finally got the fit just right!!!!!! 

gingahm and lace dress, knit dress, leather insert dress, Pansy dress, and wrap skirt [this is a hack of the pencil skirt.

Vintage princess seam dress, flower dress, velvet dress.

So I'd say that was pretty good value! and I still have a few things I'd like to make from it, like the bowling shirt and the box pleat skirt! And maybe the leggings, maybe......

Now onto book three!

Surprisingly I made less from this book, maybe because by now I have a bunch of patterns that I love so I use those instead? or maybe because I haven't had it as long? 

Anyway I've used the corset bodice three times so that was well worth tracing, and I made the sleeveless top once, which was meh, I'm going to remake this at some point in a larger size and do the button back version.

I used the blouse pattern twice, once for one with a collar and once for the pussy bow one, which I omitted the sleeves on. And I used the cami top pattern twice once as a top and once as the starting point for a dress.

So I've made less in this book but I do still want to have a go at the walkaway dress, and the comfy trousers. But its a case of finding the right fabric for both.

so do I think they are worth buying?

I think it depends on what type of sewer you are? If you already have a huge amount of patterns then probably not. because likely hood is you already have some variation on the patterns in it. 

But if you don't have many patterns and you like hacking and experimenting with patterns then this is definitely worth investing in. There's so much you can do with the Patterns from the book if you use your imagination!

So will I be getting the latest one?

Simply put? YES!!! I'm curious about the sort of patterns that are going to be featured this year and I've already seen one I definitely want to make!

Much Love

Frankie!

xxx 

Collared Sleeveless GBSB blouse

So I have a new make to show! After making the pussy bow blouse from the GBSB book fashion with fabric I immediately decided to make the hacked collared version. So I quickly added lightweight drapey material to my shopping list ready and waiting for when I actually go fabric shopping.

Then something wonderful happened, A lovely lady who reads my blog got in touch and asked if I'd like some of her patterns as she was having a clear out? Obviously I said yes! Then the same lovely lady sent me some fabric that she wasn't going to use...... all I can say is WELCOME TO THE FAMILY!!! I'm officially adopting her.

So there was three different fabrics in the parcel [shout out to her husband who was lovely enough to take them to the post office] but the one that immediately caught my eye was a drapey, spotty, soft fabric thing..... I'm not sure what the technical term is?

Okay so I'm wearing it open [Its styled buttoned up in the book], I have this weird thing where I like my neck and chest to be free, its weird I don't know why, but I do. I also have boobs [they used to be bigger] so I still tend to dress for my old bigger boob that couldn't really be contained. Now they are more manageable but I still fell the need to flaunt some cleavage.

Sewing wise its a pretty easy make you just have to pay close attention to cutting and pinning your pattern pieces, no seriously this is the type of fabric that moves faster than Severus Snape confronted with a bar of soap.

I'm really going for the tucked in style at the moment I seem to be tucking everything in, not sure why? Maybe its because its getting colder and my mum always tucked me in when it was cold so I wouldn't get a cold tummy?

I really should have ironed this at some point but I was so terrified so burning a massive hole in my work that I decided not to, I think air drying it on a hanger might help with some of the wrinkles.

All in all I really love it, I think its flattering and I like the collar, although I might attach it differently if I make it again.

The only variations I really make was marking my own buttonholes [I used the sweetest tiny mother of pearl buttons on this] and backing my collar in a lightweight cotton. I did this for two reasons , one I ran out of the spotty stuff and substitutions had to be made and secondly because I had a brainwave, you see with a cotton on the underside of the collar I can safely iron it! Without the heat having to touch the spotty fabric! GENIUS!

Not quite sure what happened with this picture? But I like it because I look creepy and stuff.

I've shown it buttoned up/down and tucked and untucked, I'm not 100% on which style I prefer to be honest.

Wow I look grumpy and tired in these pictures. Lil knitwit is still being delightfully stubborn and naughty which is tiring to say the least, there's nothing quite like getting up at seven in the morning to wake up a child, who then screams at you, because you put his sock on wrong. because I love getting up early, and walking in the cold so you can sing humpty dumpty at nursery........ alternatively maybe I should just learn the art of properly applying socks to feet.

I'm also grouchy because it became apparent that we have something else living in our shed apart from our bunny rabbit "Ronnie". I've had my suspicions but I put the scuttled noises down to things falling over or the wind. The bag of rabbit food nibbled open and the un rabbit shaped poop on the floor was slightly harder to avoid. So I spent yesterday cleaning out the shed, putting all food into sealed tins and putting down rat poison. Yes I think its a rat, they are pretty hefty poops to be a mouse. I suppose it could be a squirrel? God I hope its a squirrel, I hate rats.

Anyway our rodent suspicions were confirmed today when we saw next doors cat sat staring at our shed. all I can say is "faster kitty cat, kill, kill kill!".

I'm calling this picture "was that a rat?"

Much Love

Frankie

x