Skyline lilou dress

Okay so I'm finally ready to reveal my eureka moment! (Brace yourself there's some awkward pictures!)

Basically I decided to make a skyline dress after seeing this image in Pinterest! 

I used the lilou dress from love at first stitch because I'm obsessed with it! And cut a size 3 with no alterations! 

Construction wise it was pretty basic, the bodice is fully lined (that black smug is my way of knowing that's the lining, I hope and pray it washes out!)

And I French seamed the pretty hefty skirt! 

Yep there are some serious gathers going on there! 

Fastening wise I opted for my regular zip insertation , it ain't fancy but it does the job. 

And added another handmade loop, mainly because an old lady in tesco  commented on how neat the one on my he-man dress is, and her mother was a dressmaker so she should know! 

All of the fabric came from my stash, I think the cream is a quilting cotton and the skyline is made up from scrap bits of black fabric and lace.

The skyline was actually pretty simple to create , after I cut my skirt pieces I cut a load of outlines of buildings from scrap fabric. Some are simple rectangles, some have triangle roofs, some have domes, I just kind of went with it! I was tempted to recreate the London skyline but I don't have the patience! Then I just appliqués them to my skirt pieces using a wide zig zag stitch.

If I were to make it again , id make taller buildings I think, and I'd make the skirt a bit shorter (it's currently rocking an inch of hem!) and I think I'm going to try and find a petticoat to wear with it! 

But all in all I LOVE IT! It's a quirky fun piece and it used up a lot of stash fabric , including the cream that I probably wouldn't have used other wise! 

Here's the question though! I wonder if Tilly thinks I've made it my own?

Much love 

Frankie

Xxx

By the power of grayskull!

Okay so after feeling a bit meh about my projects in the waiting I decided to do something really fun and frivolous. So I made a He-man dress. 

I should probably explain that my He-man fabric came from little knitwits godfather (they were his childhood curtains) and they were in super! Good condition! 

Now I've been planning on toiling my lilou bodice again (from love at first stitch by Tilly walnes) mainly because I thought I could get away with a size smaller so this seemed like a perfect opportunity to do some testing and have fun. 

It went together fairly easily until I realised this had happened, that's a fully twisted strap folks! By the time I realised I had already attached the skirt to the front bodice and attached the lining, apart from at the bottom, so instead of undoing about five steps of hard work I just unpicked the should seam and pushed it through in a moment of sewing wizardry (I realise that makes about as much sense as the shell suit phenomenon, but there you go! If I screw up again I'll be sure to take pictures) and then top stitched the whole thing to neaten it up. 

Anyway I got it together in the end! 

I'm still having trouble with the shoulder straps, so I'm assuming I have some  sort of quirky shoulder thing going on! (Are you proud of me by the way? I managed to do a back view without bowing my head down!) 

Due to fabric shortage I couldn't really pattern match, which I don't really mind. It means I have skeletor rising out of my back! 

And I managed to keep anything huge from drawing people's eyes to my boobage area. 

I used all the fabric I had left for the skirt. I had roughly a square so I just halved it and then halved one of the halfs to make three panels (one front two back) for the skirt. It's pretty full because of all the gathering but I think it looks cute. 

I did end up with a gap at the top of my zip, so I added a button. Do you remember the first series of gbsb when they made the shell top and had to make a loop from thread? Well I made one of those! 

Mainly to prove to myself that if Patrick grant was stood over me, I'd be able to make one. And if he'd like me to prove it, I'd be quite happy to. 

Here's the print, we have skeltor. 

Not sure who this is? 

He-man himself, who wears smaller pants than I remember? 

But no she-ra sadly.... 

That's the inside of the bodice which I stitched by hand for added neatness! 

All in all I love it , and it's a far better fit! 

Much love

Frankie 

Xxx

A new Lilou and a lesson learned

If I could give you two peices of advice it would be these: 

Always wear clean pants

And don't combine your first time working with slippery fabric with your first time pattern matching! 

That's what I did , I decided for my second lilou (from love at first stitch) I'd use the lovely striped drapey fabric that I got from abakhans, I could tell you what it is but I think it's poly something? It's slippery and silky and it moves faster than a hyperactive toddler when you try and cut it! 

Now that's all very well and good until you realise that all the stripes are a continuous pattern of different sizes, and that all you have to do is blink and you pinned fabric shifts half a yard! 

So I patiently (whilst cursing) pinned the folded fabric along each stripe so I wouldn't move! Then I pinned my pattern pieces and I cut. And I'm not sure I took a breath the whole time. 

Anyway after swearing profusely whilst cutting the bodice peices I decided that a  gather skirt as suggested by tilly would look much better (and not require me to pin anymore blasted pieces!) so I used the snip and rip method to get perfectly sized skirt pieces! 

Anyway here it is....

I think it's a super cute summer dress, the bodice is still a little big but I'm calling  that Icecream room. 

The back gapes a little bit too? What is that? Where do I need to adjust? Is it my shoulders? Do I have a "sway" back? What's a sway back? Somebody help me!!!!!

I like the horizontal and vertical stripes together! Makes me feel like a circus tent! (In a good way) 

The only thing left to mention us that I top stitched me sleeves and neckline, it's just a personal preference thing. 

Now shall I make one more lilou and try for the perfect fit? Or shall I make a megan? Decisions decisions!!! 

Much love 

Frankie

Xxx

A skinny Clemence!

Okay so I should probably start by telling you I'm stupidly proud of this project!

After making a toile of the Megan dress from love at first stitch and realising that the fit is dammed near perfection I decided that I didn't want to invest anymore time into it until I was making it in a beautiful fabric. (I'm hoping Santa might send some pennies my way to help this come true!)

This meant I was left with nothing to sew! YIKES! 

So I moved onto the next pattern in the book , the Clemence skirt! This is the pattern in love at first stitch that you draft yourself, so I carefully took my measurements and made up my pattern! 

Next I needed to choose fabric, and I thought to myself how lovely would it be to use the fabric I won from handmade janes/dragonfly fabrics giveaway yonks ago! 

As you can see it's fairly stunning! It's called "field study" by Anne Marie Horner .However I only had a very very very! Small amount if it! (Due to using most of my winnings on another fabric!)

Anyway I realised fairly quickly that no amount of magic, prayer or ritual sacrifice would make my pattern pieces fit! 

So I sat down with a pencil and paper and worked out the measurements for a "skinny" clemence! 

I decided I'd make the skirt out of this fabric because well for starters it's so darn pretty and secondly it was sat there looking at me! 

Here's my marked pattern pieces according to my technical maths stuff!

And the waistband I cut from a scrap if fabric from a recent (top secret) project! It's actually A dammed good match! 

Sewing French seams! And being that I'm super sad, I say "ooh la lah" after each one! Yes sometimes I even make myself cringe! 

Evenly distributing gathers! 

Waistband on! Now for the zip! 

Insert swearing here! 

Bloody thing went in wonky! Needless to say I ripped it out and re stitched! (Quite proud actually old Frankie would have left it)

And yay a "skinny" clemence! So it doesn't have to beautiful big gathers of Tilly's original but I love it all the same! 

I did three rows of stitching to make a feature hem! 

I had two goes at stitching in the ditch! The first time I might have well be stitching air! 

But I am proud of that zip! My first one using an actual zipper foot (no idea how I coped before!) 

So all in all I love this skirt it's beautiful, it has a crazy print and it's some of my best work to date! I fact I love it that much I'm going to wear it to a birthday party on Saturday! Weather allowing! (Please prepare yourself for photos of me rocking this beauty!)

Now I still can't wait to start my actual proper clemence , but I think I'm going to do mimi blouse first (I have the idea for a lil set in my head!) 

Much love

Frankie

Xxx

P.s if someone wants to send me two metres of this fabric if love to make the full skirted version!