Jessica Dress by Mimi G

 Lets start off by saying IT HAS POCKETS FOLKS!!!! 

Big pockets. I mean BIG pockets! Big enough for your keys and your phone and all the other excess baggage we carry around day in day out!

Pockets are are big enough to smuggle kittens [no kittens were harmed in the making of this blog post!]

Next lets say this pattern was FREEEEEEE!!! Yes free as in no money left my hands in order to get this pattern.

The dress is by Mimi G style and she offered it as a free download on her website. I however missed the boat and didn't even realise she'd released it until I saw all of the beautiful versions popping up on my Instagram feed. 

Anyway I thought it would be the perfect summer dress for me [and I've worn it loads in winter too] so I sent her a message saying how gutted I was to miss the free download and she only went and emailed me a copy didn't she. Mimi G is a legend and a lovely lady!

Okay so the pattern, The bodice is princess seamed with a gathered skirt and wide straps. You can make the straps skinnier but I personally like a wide strap because its more likely to hid my bra. But the two real statements are the button front and the large pockets. 

Adjustments wise I didn't make many, just thickening the straps and taking about 6 inches off the length. 

I trusted the measurements because Mimi G is the master of ease and fit. However it does use a 3/8 seam allowance which I didn't realise until I'd sewn the bodice and the lining at the standard seam allowance so guess who had a lot of unpicking to do!!!! 

I'm pretty sure the pattern calls for a facing but I chose to line both my bodice and the pockets in a slightly paler coloured cotton.

The main body of the dress is made from linen which i got from abakhans fabric fill a bag sale. I was a bit unsure about the colour as Its what I called battle ship blue/grey. But I actually really love it on this dress. 

The buttons are from my stash. I have an inkling that I took them off an old item of clothing but I'm not sure what?

Its pretty much my ideal summer dress. And winter dress to be honest. I wore it a lot when it was cold with tshirts underneath, thick black tights and boots. So its a pretty versatile. 

I did make a version in Christmas fabric from the craft cotton company. However I didn't get chance to wear it at Christmas as I'd lost too much weight and it was hanging off me, so I've popped it in the wardrobe ready for next Christmas. 

I'm planning a few more versions of this dress. Mainly because its so easy to wear and because I do love a dress with pockets. Although I am wondering if I should make the next version a bit shorter? But I do like the length because its easy to wear without tights and there is no fear of flashing my pants.  

So all in all I LOVE this dress. 

In other news!!! 

I made a pair of pjs and a skirt in some awesome marvel fabric [the skirt is currently on my instagram]

And Lil Man has CHICKEN POX! Yeah I took him for his bath on Wednesday and well SPOTS everywhere!!!!! Luckily hes taking it really well, hes chirpy enough just a bit tired and he knows not to scratch his spots! 

And I have new tyres for my car!!! Which was a complete pain in the ass!!!! The garages facebook page took me 30 minutes away and I couldn't find it so I rang them and lo and behold the garage is about 3 minutes from my house. But anyway I managed it and I got their in the end! 

Much Love

Frankie 

xxxx

The Origami Dress - New Look K8144 - In linen

I made this ages ago. and by ages I mean I took these pictures on my old camera before my hair was pink. 

so yeah they are old. 

The pattern is K8144 by new look. Its one of those patterns where the cover art is just baffling. 

I dunno maybe its just me but I think the dress is really really bright! 

It originally came free with a copy of sew magazine but I got my copy from my mums friend sue. 

After looking at the pattern drawings I realised that I really like the front pleated section and thought it might be nice to make it up in some of this blue linen I had lying around. 

As it goes I didn't have quite enough of the blue linen so I had to use some left of black for the belt, shoulder sections and the facings. 

I didn't like the belt that came with the pattern so I add some waist ties into the side seams. I made them quite long to create a sort of obi effect. I think it worked really nicely and I much prefer my belt to the one on the pattern.

Fit wise the top half okay but it is a bit tight on the hips. Annoyingly is not so tight that I'll rip open the side seams for more wiggle room. Instead its just tight enough that if I cut out the donuts then it will probably fit better..... I don't want to cut out the donuts though so *shrugs* . [actually thinking about it I made this dress before we even had Polly so at least four months ago and I have been going on a walk twice a day since getting her so I may have slimmed my hips down a bit! I'll have to try it one.] 

The origami bit at the front is created by cutting and folding the fabric. Which took me quite a while to get my head around and made me a bit tense. Well its not very often you cut directly into the front of your dress is it.

Because of the folded detail the entire front is cut flat instead of on the fold. This did mean I had to do a bit of pattern jigsawing to get everything to fit.  

Note to self - linen likes to wrinkle. Which I did know but sweet Jesus it really does like to wrinkle up doesn't it! I have a black dress in linen that I absolutely love but if I'm going somewhere in the car I have to hitch my skirts right up to keep them as flat as possible so I don't look messy when I get to where ever I'm going. [she says like she goes anywhere more interesting than mcdonalds and Lil mans school]

On this picture you can see how tight it is across the hips. I'm hoping this was just because I was full of Easter chocolate. I really really don't want to have to unpick the side seams.  

I like the fact that I can tie it at the front and the back but I think I prefer it with the ties at the front because they shield any muffin top issues I may be having. 

To add them in I just cut four long rectangles, sewed them into tube and then inserted them into the side seams.

I actually don't hate this picture of my bum to be honest. 

So I guess I'm off to try this on to see if I need to let out the side seams and amend my pattern pieces or if I just need to get some spanx! 

Much Love Frankie 

x

Vintage Linen Slouch Top

The weather is awful today, I've got some lovely fabrics set aside to make some summer dresses but this rain is sapping all of the joy out of me. On the plus side I'm sat in my double trouble jumper watching project runway and I've got a whole packet of chocolate digestives at my disposal....so I guess its not all bad. 

I made this a few weeks ago whilst we were having that hot spell and I was sick of wearing clothes that clung and stuck to me, all I really wanted to do was wonder around naked but sadly that's not appropriate for the school run!

It all started with this embroidered linen pillowcase that came from my Aunty Shelias house. It had a small bit of embroidery on each side [It looks like it may have been done by hand?] but sadly the rest of it was badly damaged so I decided to use the embroidery as a feature on a garment and use a different fabric for the rest of it.

So the embroidery was used for the sleeves and the main body of the top was just made of a light cotton. The weights of the embroidered fabric and the main fabric are slightly different but you can't notice it when I have it on. I also added a piece of lace in a band around the top because the front felt too plain. The lace came from a craft market and is fairly thick. I just attached it using a straight stitch on the top edge, the bottom edge hangs free.  

The pattern for the top is by prima magazine, its just a very basic boxy top with a boxy sleeve. In fact the sleeve is so boxy the sleeve head is practically flat! I've never had an easier time of setting in a sleeve. It does mean that it sits rather low though, you can't really see on the pictures because the white on white photography isn't exactly brilliant for showing details. But the shoulder head reaches the top part of my arm and then the sleeve starts. This kind of goes against all of my fitting knowledge but it looks okay right? So maybe its meant to be like that! 

The prima pattern is really simple, no darts no tucks no pleats just two sleeves a front and a back! I cut a size 14 but I think I may size down next time? 

To add a bit more colour I did the hems using a coloured thread, it just ties the colour of the embroidery to the rest of the top, 

All in all I like it. When I finished it I absolutely hated it, it was just lying on the table all big and shapeless but then I tried it on with my jeans and with a few skirts and I decided that maybe its actually sort of cute in a kind of french way. I'm looking forward to the weather warming up so I can wear it again. And I love that it uses some of my Aunty Shelias stuff and that I managed to cute around the damaged fabric [although there is still a small stain on the top of one of the sleeves, but I live with a small boy so stains are part of my life at the moment!!] 

Much Love 

Frankie 

x

OWOP day 2

Hey it's the second day of OWOP! My Robert dress is in the wash ready in case I need it tommorrow! (It's first ever wash, pray for me people! Other wise the rest of OWOP might just be me butt naked!)

Anyway it's a little warmer today so I've opted for my Scarlett Ohara dress (gone with the wind? She makes the dress out of curtains! This is made from curtains!!)

This is how I'm wearing it! 

Dress - simplicity 4070 , and linen curtains

Belt - to bring out the skirts fullness - primark 

 

Shoes - primark 

Bracelet - handmade? , you know the cheap jewellery that brakes? Well I put all of the interesting bits from them onto a bracelet from Claire's accessories. And voila! Charm bracelet! 

Necklace - a jewellery party years ago - onyx (not cheap!) 

That's day two sorted!! 

I'm loving this challenge it's exciting to see how I can make the same dress look different every day! 

Much love

Frankie

Xxx

Will I Ever Learn?

As mentioned in my previous blog post, yesterday I started recovering my cushions. It took a little bit longer than I was expected, mainly due to my inability to measure accurately. I don't know how many times I have had parent/teachers/friends tell me to measure twice cut once. But either way I still haven't learnt my lesson, I might have  definitely measured the new covers wrong, luckily after some swearing and stuffing of inserts into the new covers I got them finished! I did them the lazy way and didn't put in any fastenings just slip stitched the openings closed after sewing. This is for practical reasons, Little Knitwit has developed a fondness for zips and for stuffing his toy cars into the covers and reclosing them. I'd just like to say you have not felt pain until you've plonked yourself down with a nice hot brew and found yourself with a matchbox car up your jaxi and hot tea over your lap.

 

 

I only recovered the brown cushions they used to be a mix of grey, white and beige. So know we have three "accent" cushions (Mr.Knitwit laughed at me when I used this term earlier) and the rest are dark brown suede.

 

 

This my little nest, do you like my cushion? Its a vintage sewing machine cushion and was given to me this Christmas by my brother and his family, it reminds me to make something beautiful everyday.

 

In other news I've started the top half of my dress for OWOP, I'm using simplicity 4070, well the bodice at least I always tend to go a bit rouge on skirts depending on how much fabric I have left. I've used this pattern before and loved it but always managed to avoid the zip putting in part. I've never done a zip before, I've read up on it in pretty much every sewing book I have but to be honest its about as clear as mud so I'm envisioning a lot of ripping out in this project.

 

 

And yes that is a pattern envelope with ALL the pieces inside! Anybody who has used a pattern before knows that once you've opened that envelope your chances of getting anything back into it are slim to none! But I used to go walking and spent years folding ordance survey maps! Patterns are nothing!

 

 

This is my start to the bodice, I'm working in a nice white linen, and hoping to add a linen skirt. It has princess seams and it's going to have a zip. My first one ever!!! And as with everything else it needs a good iron!

 

Now I'm off to try and finish my knitting! I keep saying that but other things keep cropping up!

 

Much Love

 

Frankie

 

xxx