Showing posts with label sleeves. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sleeves. Show all posts

Saturday, 24 September 2016

Foxy Lilou Dress

I am exhausted! Lets just say lil man woke up yesterday morning not feeling well and by yesterday afternoon I was washing or actual duvet in the bath [it doesn't fit in our washer] whilst Rikki tried to track down a new one!

Anyway its only a cold [hes always sick when he has a cold] so we popped out later on to give him some fresh air......and .......... we ended up coming home with!!!!!! GERBILS!!!! If you check out my insta you'll see a cute lil video I've shot of them! I'm hoping to get some pictures to but boy are those lil guys rapid!!!! So if you do get to see it you'll meet Snowy, Daisy and Buttons [Guess which one I named?]

But your'e not here to hear me ramble on about my new furry friends!

Instead Your here to see this! A dress with furry foxes on it!!!!


Okay so the details! The fabric is from the craft cotton company and they sent it to me as an early wedding pressie so I could make some stuff for Vegas! It features a sitting fox and a sleeping fox and is about the most adorable fabric I have ever seen! 


Interestingly enough Rikki is a firm hater of novelty print fabrics and he doesn't mind this! I think it could be because I spent 10 minutes strutting around our living room singing "I'm a Foxy Lady" [if your wracking your brains truing to think how that song goes, it doesn't.....I made it up on the spot.............and the dance too]  


The pattern is a Lilou dress, from Tilly and the Buttons love at first stitch! BUT I added sleeves, mainly because I needed a dress with sleeves just in case Vegas has got some serious sunshine on the go! 

The sleeves are from the Megan dress from the same book. But instead of gathering the sleeve head I decided to just pleat it over. I'm always wary of gathered sleeves because they look like puff sleeves and hello I'm not five! So I just pleated them over to make it a bit more grownup. 


The skirts gathered, which is pretty standard for me, I tend to find gathered skirts, box pleat skirts and circle skirts the most flattering.


I think the scooped neckline works nicely with the sleeves and I'm glad I've opened up a whole new relm of Lilous to be made!

The zip is blue! I swear to god when I was finishing this at 10 at night I thought the zip I pulled out was black and then low and behold its bloody blue! Note to self : Having energy saving light bulbs where I sew is not energy saving at all! 


I'm wearing it belted here, but I'm not sure it needs to be. In fact these pictures show the belt in completely the wrong place which is a bit annoying!


The only thing I did that was really different was not doing a lined bodice, I thought I might really regret it but I just didn't have anything suitable to line it! Anyway I don't mind it, and I hope it might take me out of my EVERYTHING MUST BE LINED PHASE!!!! which I was worried might make me a bit sweaty [yeah I know too much info!]  

All in all I love it, I think its a really cute print and I can see me wearing it a lot through the darker months because of the colour!

Much Love

Frankie

xxx  

 


Saturday, 14 November 2015

Charcoal Knit Fabric Dress

Okay so this might just go down in history as the most boring dress in history but if you bear with me you'll see why I made it.


So the fabric was given to me by my sewing pen pal, I think she used it to make a Mortimer dress? Now I've never sewn a knit fabric dress before so my patterns and knowledge was a little limited! The fabric has two way stretch but I don't know how much! 


I made the top part of the dress using the princess seam bodice from the second GBSB book but I didn't put a zip in and I used a smaller seam allowance, and I drafted the sleeve myself using my French curves and using another sleeve pattern piece as reference. The skirt is just a large rectangle of fabric that I gathered.


I sewed it all up on my regular machine and didn't encounter too many problems although the top stitching on the neckband is just awful! I think I was trying to stitch through something too thick. I'm putting it don't as a learning moment. The top stitching on the neckline, sleeves and hem was done using my twin needle but I used a ball point needle on everything else.


All in all its a pretty simple dress, the fabric is soft which I like but the waist seam is a little high and id worry that I looked a bit preggers in it.


Know for the important bit! Here's WHY I made it! Some of you may remember the denim bustier I made from the third GBSB book. Now as lovely as it is it doesn't seem to get a lot of wear, mainly because it exposed both bosom and midriff. Not exactly appropriate for the nursery run.


So I made this dress so I can layer my denim top over the top of it!


I got the idea from seeing a picture of celebs in the 90's wearing tshirts under their strappy summer dresses.


All in all I absolutely love how it looks with this top!!! 


And I love that you can see my tattoo from the back! Its very comfortable to wear even with the corset top on top!


So even though it is the most boring dress in the world I'm calling it a great success!! 


Much Love

Frankie

xxx