2017 catch-up...

Waiting to blow out my birthday candles wearing my favourite me-made dress!

So, I have been doing lots of  sewing recently, did Me-Made-May again, went to a fantastic sewing party, celebrated several family birthdays, did some pattern testing... and haven't blogged about any of it! Instagram has made it very easy to post makes straight away, but I still get great enjoyment out of reading other peoples blogs, with a bit more detail about the makes - in fact I added quite a few new blogs throughout May as I discovered new people in the sewing community. With this in mind I am going to try and post a bit more, but for now here are some of this years makes. This is going to be quite a long catch up post I feel....

The last thing I posted was my sparkly Drop top, which I actually made in March but posted in June. Straight after I made that top, I made another Mouse House Creations Julia Cardigan in a loose sweater knit fabric that I bought from the Girl Charlee stand at the Knitting and Stitching show in October.  It was not very seasonally appropriate when I made it and I wasn't sure I liked it when it was finished, but I did find myself wearing it quite a lot for Me-Made-May. I have also had quite a few compliments on it which is always nice!

 

The next make was more PJ's for Youngest daughter. The fabric was a gift from my sister-in-law, who had been to Hong Kong and Singapore with her husband just before Christmas, and found herself in the fabric district of one of them at some point. I made True Bias Hudson pants again (and spent a long time stripe matching when cutting out), but this time she wanted short sleeves, so I made a Kristen Kimono Tee by Maria Denmark:

Next up I cut out multiple projects to get me over the 'starting a project' hump. I cut out a Syrah Skirt from Lauren Dahl/Baste and Gather. This is a flared skirt with a yoga style waistband that I made in some lovely navy cotton/spandex jersey, from Girl Charlee UK online.  The pattern doesn't include pockets so I used a pocket piece form another pattern and just did simple side seam pockets. I also added some elastic to the waistband as I wasn't sure how secure it would be without!

The other garments I cut out were two tops for me and a denim pinafore dress for Eldest. If you can bear to do it, it is definitely worth cutting out more than one project at a time. You can dive straight in after finishing one project, or you can try something different if you hit a stumbling block with another project.

For the tops, I made my two usual styles, the Burda raglan top and the MyImage cowl neck top. I have made both of these quite a lot, and whilst I still like them I feel it is probably time to choose a new favourite!

A while ago I made a pinafore/dungaree dress for Eldest using the Cotton+Chalk Sunday Set pattern that came free with a sewing magazine last year (I think). She has wanted another for some time, but I wanted her to have some input in to the choice of fabric.  Whilst clicking around instagram one day I found what I thought would be the perfect fabric from @SewMeSomething. Eldest agreed (it is her favourite colour) so I placed an order and amazingly it arrived the next day! When I made the previous dungaree dress I had to draft a half circle skirt due to fabric limits.  I used the same pattern pieces for the skirt again and then had to try and remember the modifications I made to the cutting out and construction. Even with the notes I have made in my makers workbook it took me a while to work through what I had done! She was very pleased with it and has got lots of compliments from her friends.

Well I haven't even got half way through yet so I am am going to stop here and continue in another post! I hope you have all been making lovely things over the last few months.