Sleeveless Emery dress - a stamp collector's dream

How do you get out of a sewing slump? For me, the answer usually involves an Emery dress and some fun fabric, because it's a combination that I know is going to be successful. So when I was annoyed that a pattern I'd ordered had been lost in the post the other week, that's just what I set about sewing. Unsurprisingly, I'm pretty pleased with the results!

I've made quite a few Emery dresses now (the last one's here), so it's a pattern I'm familiar with and doesn't cause me any stress. This time though, I decided mid-way through that I'd change things up a bit.

The dress was hanging up just waiting for sleeves and a hem, and I couldn't shake the feeling that it looked great without sleeves, and that adding them might be a bit too much with this busy print. I tried it on and decided that the armholes wouldn't be too big to be left sleeveless as long as I used a 1 cm seam allowance instead of 1.5 cm (which doesn't sound much, but it did seem to make a difference!). As I'd already lined the rest of the bodice, I cut some bias strips from my fabric and used them to finish the armholes - and it seems to have worked a treat as far as I'm concerned.

I love the fabric I used for this version, a lovely cotton poplin from Textile Express with a whole rainbow of colours. I called it a stamp collector's dream in the subject of this post, but I suspect it may actually be more like a nightmare - I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the ways of stamp collectors but I think they probably wouldn't appreciate the pretty floral and dotty "stamps" that intermingle with the more genuine items. For me, they definitely add to the fun though so it's all good.

OK, time for some honest opinions now! The observant among you may have noticed that the headband I'm wearing here matches my dress - is that just a little bit too twee or is it OK? Personally, I think I can just about get away with it here because it's a print with a relatively large repeat and until you look at it closely, the headband sort of just looks multicoloured, but with a more obvious fabric pattern it would definitely be too twee to be matching.

I have become slight obsessed with making these headbands recently though - they're really quick, a great way of using up scraps and something that I wear regularly. I'm a bit disappointed that none of my family or friends would really wear them, because if they would then that would be birthday and Christmas presents sorted! They're pretty simple, but I was thinking of doing a tutorial if anyone's interested?

So there we go - a pretty new dress and headband! They did just what they were meant to in terms of inspiring me to sew again. I'm also pleased that I tried leaving this version of the Emery sleeveless - I'd definitely do that again, which is nice because it gives me more options for my most reliable pattern. All in all, three cheers for TNTs!

Astoria, online fabric shopping & block printing

After the success of my first version of the Seamwork Astoria sweater, I knew I wanted to make a couple more. The style works really well with my many full-skirted dresses and having layering options means that I'll get even more wear out of my lovely dresses than I already do. Combine that with the fact that the Astoria is a really simple and quick pattern to make, and really making more was just sensible!

This first one is made using some really lovely cream flecked cotton fleece from Guthrie & Ghani. It really is great fabric, super soft, nice to work with and perfect for the Astoria. They have it in a few different colours, and I'm slightly gutted that the navy is now out of stock but I'm definitely tempted by both the turquoise and the fuchsia.

This version is cosy enough that I know it'll be great for next autumn/winter, but at the same time it was also perfect for throwing on over my blue roses Emery dress (one of my favourites) on a sunny but very windy (hence the state of my hair) afternoon on the beach. On that note, excuse the wrinkles in the sweater - my dress was a bit ruckled up underneath and I didn't realise until after we'd taken the photos.

I'm really pleased with this Astoria. As it's a neutral colour, it'll go with pretty much everything. Now, onto my next version....

I buy most of my fabric online, and usually that's fine, but I wasn't so impressed when this jersey arrived. I bought it from UK Fabrics Online, who describe it as turquoise heavy jersey. I was a bit dubious about the colour when I ordered it, because it didn't look anything like what I would think of as turquoise but I went ahead and bought it anyway because it was a good price I wanted to use it for a bit of an experiment.

The colour of the fabric in the photo above is pretty accurate, and I don't think it's either turquoise or the colour shown on the website. I also wouldn't describe the fabric as heavy jersey, I'd say it's medium weight at best.

On the bright side, given my gravitation towards all things blue, it's still a colour I like and it's a decent fabric, even if it's a lighter weight than I thought it would be, so I went ahead and used it anyway - it just means that this Astoria is much more of a t-shirt than a sweater. Still perfectly wearable though!

By now you may have guessed that my experiment with this Astoria was giving block printing a go. Have you ever tried it?

I bought the tea cup block from The Arty Crafty Place when Outlaw craft fair came to Bristol at the start of May. They were demonstrating block printing and selling starter packs - it looked fun and I thought it would be a good way to make garments even more unique. I did a couple of practice prints on scrap fabric to get the hang of how much paint to use, and then decided to go very basic and just use one single tea cup print on my first "real" attempt.

I love how it turned out and I think the one single tea cup is really effective on a top like this. This won't be the last you'll be seeing of this tea cup print though - I've got definite plans to use it to create my own border print round the hem of a skirt/dress which I hope will work out as well as it does in my head!

So there we have it - two nice new tops for my wardrobe! I realise now that I've mainly been waffling on about fabric and printing and barely mentioned the actual sewing, but that's because the Astoria is so simple that there's not a lot to say about the construction (and what there is to say, I said last time). The cream version in particular will be a great basic piece for me and I suspect that they won't be the last Astorias that I make! What are your go-to wardrobe staple patterns?

Sewing World Sundress

Are you a fan of sewing magazines? I am, and I often check out what they're all offering each month. So it was no surprise that when I saw a pretty summer dress pattern peeping out of the shelves in Smiths from May's Sewing World magazine (issue 231), I snapped it up straight away and the dress skipped straight to the top of my sewing list. Here's my version!

The dress was designed by Metia Bethell and has a mock collar, plunge neckline, buttons down the front of the bodice secured with cute little button loops, a swishy full pleated skirt, and it's fully lined. With all those elements combined in one dress, how could this fail to be a winner?!

The sample in the magazine is made in a stripey cotton which emphasizes the lines of the mock collar and waistband really effectively. I tried to find stripey fabric of my own, but I was being picky and wanted multicoloured stripes, and nothing I could find was quite right.

I was being impatient and wanted to make the dress though so I convinced myself that as all the hearts on this fabric (a soft cotton lawn from Textile Express) are kind of in lines, it might do the same job as the stripes. It's not as distinctive as stripes, but the dress is so pretty that I don't really mind. I'm on the lookout for some multicoloured striped material for another version still though - has anyone seen any?

As this is a pattern from a magazine, you do need to trace off the pattern pieces from a multi-pattern sheet, but there aren't too many patterns on each page and I didn't have any problems with tracing.

The instructions in the magazine are fairly brief but clear. I don't think I'd recommend this dress to a complete beginner, because it does assume that you're familiar with steps such as inserting a zip, pleating and making bias binding. It is made clear that this is assumed at the start though, so I think that's fine. And actually, it's nice to have a pattern in a magazine that's not aimed just at beginners!

One thing that I found slightly odd was that it tells you to use an invisible zip, but also says to stitch the side seam up to the zip position before inserting the zip, whereas any other invisible zip instructions I've seen tell you to sew the rest of the seam after you've inserted the zip. I ignored the instructions there and followed my usual method instead.

I also went a bit off piste when it came to the armholes. The pattern has you finish them with bias binding on the outside. That looks fine with the stripes, but I thought that with my fabric it might just end up looking messy so I turned my binding inside and catch stitched it to the lining instead. It means my armholes have ended up being ever so slightly bigger, but they still fit nicely so that's fine.

There aren't any finished garment measurements with the pattern, so I trusted my measurements, made a toile, and thankfully it was fairly spot on. I made a straight size 16, and just needed to make my standard adjustments to add a bit of length to the bodice and skirt. Because of the extra length, I also added an extra button, but those were the only changes I made.

I'm really pleased with this dress. Most of my dresses tend to be "my favourite" as soon as I've finished them, but this is one of the ones that I think will stay in favour even as newer additions appear in my wardrobe. It's a great shape, the fabric feels lovely to wear and all those colours mean that it'll go with plenty of cardigans/shoes and, most importantly, it makes me happy! What's your favourite thing you've sewn recently?

Summery Pauline Alice Cami Dress

My tartan version of the Pauline Alice Camí dress that I made for the Autumn of 1000 Shirtdresses is undoubtedly one of my favourite creations from last year, and I wore it a lot when the weather was still all wintery. So it's no surprise that when spring arrived I started to get the urge to sew another more summery version - and here it is!

Truthfully, the seeds of this dress were planted some time around the beginning of the year when I found this dotty cotton half price in the John Lewis sale. It was part of their 150th anniversary collection that they released last year, and I'd already used a different print from the same collection to make a Lilou dress for my Mum, so I knew it would be great to work with. Throw in pretty dots, a lovely teal colour and the fact that it was a bargain and I was sold, and from that point on it was pretty much destined to become a Camí.

For version two, I stuck with exactly the same size and modifications that I used for my first version (size 44 with 1.5 inches added to the length of the bodice and 3 inches to the skirt, and an extra button due to the added bodice length). This version seems to be slightly closer fitting than my first one, which I think is because there's slightly more give in the tartain/plaid than this crisp cotton, but they both fit nicely so it's all good.

In this version, I had a slight problem when I was attaching the collar - somehow my collar stand was too long for the neckline. I don't remember that being an issue on my first version so I think I must have been slightly imprecise when I was cutting out my fabric or something. There wasn't a massive difference though, so with a lot of pins and easing, and some ever-so-slight reshaping of the ends of the collar stand, I made it work! 

As luck would have it, I had a piece of teal poplin left in my stash from one of my very first dressmaking projects (I've learnt a lot since then!) which was an exact match for the dots on this fabric. You could call this a happy coincidence, but I think it's more likely to be an indication that I'm repeatedly drawn towards the same colours! I'm not complaining about that though, because it meant I could use the poplin to make perfectly matching covered buttons and a cute little bow belt (using a combination of tutorials from Tilly and Lauren).

The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that I don't have a button or button hole on the collar. I could claim that this was entirely intentional because I know I would never button the dress right up to the collar. That is partly true, but the main reason is because I only had 6 self-cover buttons left in my stash and I was too impatient to wait to get more! At some point I might get some more buttons and add one on the collar, but part of me thinks it isn't really necessary because it would never be used and I think the dress looks fine without it.

Given how much I liked my first version of the Camí, it's hardly surprising that I'm pretty pleased with this version too! At the moment I'm not convinced by the bow belt - I love how it looks but I think it might be a bit annoying to wear. I've still got some of the teal poplin left over though, so I might think about making another covered elastic belt instead. The dress itself is a definite success though, I'm looking forward to wearing it again! What have you been making recently?

Seamwork Astoria Sweater

My sewing machine has been quieter than usual recently because I've been engrossed in my current knitting and crochet projects, but I did also find time to sew this quick little project last week. It's the Astoria sweater, which is one of the patterns included in this month's issue of Seamwork from Colette Patterns.

I subscribed to Seamwork from the first issue, so have a little collection of patterns building up ready to sew now, but the Astoria is the first one that I've actually made. The cropped style instantly appealed to me because it's a great length for wearing with my many fit and flare dresses (yes, I'm looking like a bit of a Colette fan girl in these photos and wearing it with my Moneta), and a little sweater is a very welcome addition to a pretty dress on spring days like the one in these photos which look lovely and sunny but still aren't exactly warm.

The other thing that drew me to the pattern was that the blue sample in the pattern photos reminded me of the warm jersey I used for my latest Bronte top, and I remembered that I still had a fairly sizeable chunk of it left. Thankfully for me, there was just enough there to make the shorter sleeved version of Astoria - yay for "free" fabric!

I made a medium at the bust, grading out to a large at the waist. I compared the length with the pattern pieces I altered from my second Enid sweater, and on the basis of that I also added an inch to the length for the Astoria. The length is now just right for me, and I'm pleased with the fit in general.

The Seamwork patterns are all designed to be fairly quick projects to create staple wardrobe pieces, and the Astoria definitely fits into that category for me. I think I might need a whole rainbow of them to go with various dresses and skirts.

The pattern is rated as taking one hour and, if you exclude the time taping together the PDF and cutting the fabric, that was fairly accurate I think. Everything goes together nicely and the instructions are thorough and clear so there's nothing to cause any problems here. Another reason to make more of them!

Have you sewn any Seamwork patterns? I'm definitely keen to make a Bristol skirt - it looks so comfy and, as an added bonus, it's named after my home town so it must be good!