I really am losing the will to sew/live

So you know that lovely floral fabric I bought to wear to the UK Sew Weekly meet up in London?  (Please note only 16 days left hence the panic in my voice.)  Well when I went for a walk yesterday I popped into my local newsagents and was delighted to see that they now stock the Burda magazine (thanks in part to me as a friend of mine campaigned for them to have it as she could never find it and I helped by supplying a photocopy of the front cover of said magazine so they could order it in!) and in it was the most perfect dress for me in my opinion.  It's 50's, it's got an interesting collar a bit like the vintage pattern I still need to draft up and make and it looks like a top and skirt but is actually a dress.  Look how lovely it is:

Burda style magazine 05/11

Isn't it just lovely?  Well, it's in petite sizes and I thought: Bonus! it won't be humongously long on me!  Haha!  Yeah, length isn't the problem it's the width.  I'd say what they think is my size is actually at least two sizes smaller and I've used all my lovely fabric.

My first thought was 'I give up, I'm not sewing any more stuff the lot of it IhateitIhateitIhateit' but now I'm thinking I'll finish it and see if sister number 2 wants it.  Sorry sisters number 1 and 3, I'll make you both something another time when I'm not on a deadline with nothing to wear unless I wear ready made.  Oh good grief why oh why is it all going so horribly wrong?  I'm following the instructions and everything!  Don't I deserve brownie points for that at least?????

Anyway here it is so far.  I can only dream of fitting into it...*sigh*

Front of dress

Close up of front bodice

View of the back

I'm sorry it's not hung up but it's got no sleeves on it so nothing to hang it off.  I even did a back vent in the skirt which I've never done before so at least I can say I've learnt something.  I'm trying to look on the bright side.  You know how lots of bloggers do 'how to' posts well I think mine should be 'how not to' posts!  Urgh.

Oh well I'm going to watch Breakfast at Tiffany's as never seen it and have been told to watch it whilst he's out by J as he doesn't think it's his cup of tea.  Nice.  I'm sorry for moaning lots this week, hope there's been some smiles amongst it all.  I can at least say that I have one almost finished dress that will be completely done when the silly postman brings me the buttons.

Please tell me someone out there is having more luck?  And I haven't even walked under so much as a step ladder!  Finger's crossed, touching wood and throwing salt over my shoulder the next project will go well! ;)

Almost there with a UFO

Those of you who remember Me Made March know of my disaster dress, the one I got up early to make as I wanted it as a sort of Sunday Best dress to show off to the in-laws and well, pride before a fall and all that...

Anyway...I decided enough was enough the other day and actually took the seam ripper to the skirt and then that's as far as I got, then I got to pin the skirt to the top and then stop again...(you're seeing my reluctance here to finish aren't you?) so tonight I managed to sew the skirt to the top!  Yay!  It's not hemmed and will need to put the lining to the skirt in still, but I feel I've made progress!

Burda dress, nearly there...

What do you think of the gathering on the skirt?  Not too poofy?

Have made some more progress on the really fiddly project but will show you an update when it's a bit more done as don't want to over excite you or anything!

Me Made March Day 20 and pictures of the Wetlands

As it was such a sunny day we thought we'd go to the local wetlands and take a walk around and enjoy the views.  It was a really rather bracing walk as although it was sunny the wind was strong so I'm slightly windswept in my photo!

Me on a bridge on the water wearing me made red Burda dress with shop bought pink coat and grey boots and purple leather bag.

I like the clash between the raspberry red of the dress and the fuchsia pink of the coat, not too certain the twitchers were too happy with me though...  It's a great place to see and learn about birds and local wildlife, but to me the most important things are that it's near the sea, it's really quiet and it's pretty despite the proximity of power cables and the power plant and I get to see lots of birdies! 

So since the dress isn't new, here's some shots of the beautiful wetlands.  It really shows that you can make something beautiful from something not so pretty.

New and fluffy buds

and for some contrast pretty but spiky thistle-y things

Look!  Blue sky!  Lovely golden reeds.

Swans on one of the lakes with golden reeds and rows of pylons in the background

I really like the juxtaposition between the pylons and the reeds and swans.  I always feel really happy when I'm there, it's very restful, the only other place I love as much as this is the beach, any beach as I find the sea mesmerising.  Do you have a favourite place to visit that always makes you smile and feel good?

Me Made March Day 8

I had to rope a different work victim, ahem, I mean colleague into taking my picture today.  Wasn't having a good day so sorry I don't look as cheerful as normal.

Me made skirt with Primark t-shirt and bolero from Zara I think many years ago. Necklace same me made one posted last week.

This is a Burda pattern skirt with an added panel at the bottom as it's just a bit too short for me otherwise, more about this on this post. 

The Sound of Music skirt didn't quite happen, well, it got made but I hated it so it's going to be taken apart and reborn as a different style of skirt.  As I'm panicking that I won't have anything to wear tomorrow I'm hastily making another A-line skirt from the fabulous green fabric I got on the weekend pictured here.

If you're participating in Me Made March are you running out of clothes yet?  Are you hastily sewing like me?  Please tell me I'm not the only one who's badly under prepared?  Are we allowed to double up or anything?  Eeeck!

Me Made March Day 5

As I was up at the crack of dawn thanks to an alarm going off all night, I thought I'd get cracking on the raspberry colour dress I mentioned in this post and managed to finish it!  I teamed it with a tulle underskirt I already owned, sadly not handmade, and went out and bought some more fabric! ;)

Me in the garden wearing my raspberry dress and grey Dr Marten boots as it's too cold for heels

It's ok, I'm not nuts, I took my cardi off before having the picture taken so you can see the dress.  My only issue with it is that the neckline seems to keep wandering south so I'm glad I'm wearing matching undies that are pretty enough to show a peep of!  This doesn't happen with this version that I made as a top, so not sure whether it's the cardi or the fit yet.  I also seem to be having an issue with pointy darts that make me look like I'm permanently smuggling peanuts, not sure what I'm going to do about that either yet but think Gertie of Gertie's new blog for better sewing fame had a similar problem in the past so will see what she did to solve it!

I did try and get a picture of the tulle but was laughing so hard I nearly fell over so you can't really see it, but have a laugh anyway.

Me being a tit trying to look all burlesque by showing off my tulle underskirt and failing miserably because I can't stop laughing

Here's what I bought today, I'm thinking a simple skirt with a bright yellow waistband.  It was so hard to choose a fabric in the shop as there were so many lovely lovely patterns but I'm trying to be good as I've got lots in my stash I need to get through.

green cotton with white flowers which have either blue, yellow, red or darker green centres

This is what I bought on my way home yesterday that I forgot to take a picture of, managed to get more than the 3 metres I asked for as there was a fault in the fabric, so got about 0.5 metres free!  The fault was that the fabric had been stitched together from two pieces to go on the roll so it wouldn't be one continuous length of fabric.  The lady on the stall was very kind to let me have more than I asked for to allow for the fault as she was worried it would ruin my project.  I like nice thoughtful people like that!  Going to make this into a dress as thought it was a nice cool summery colour.

Light blue, almost duck egg blue I suppose fabric with white outline pattern of flowers

Close up of pattern of the white outline of flowers and leaves

Hope you're all having a productive weekend!  Or at least are snuggled up in the warm!

Happy St David's Day! and Me Made March Day 1

Lovely bright yellow daffodils

Well it's March 1st so can't let it go by without some lovely photos of daffs.  I love how cheery they are, it just brightens up my day!  Here's one I made to put on my desk, but it's a bit top heavy so had to lie it down to take a photo.

Felt daffodil with green pipe cleaner as the stem and green foam leaves

I now have batteries for my camera, if you hadn't noticed, and have taken pictures of what I'm going to be making for the next week or two.

Blue, grey and yellow plaid

This is the fabric I'm going to use for the Burda vintage style skirt, I really like the waterfall style front and the waistband but am a bit worried about putting it together.

Burda magazine picture of model wearing the skirt I want to make

Technical drawing of pattern, the one I want to make is in the top left hand corner

The other project will be this top from the same Burda magazine January 2011:

Photo of Burda magazine top I want to make, really like the red but not what I went for

Blurry photo of technical drawing of the top

I found this fabric in the market in Swansea and fell in love with it, it was the last two metres of fabric too...I think it was fate!

Lovely lovely slightly eye wobbling two shade of green squares

And finally here's the lovely raspberry fabric that I want to make into a dress from which pattern I used to make this top.

The colour isn't quite right, it's a bit darker and pinker but it's lovely cotton

Burda style magazine picture of dress I want to make from above fabric

Technical drawing of dress

And last but not least as this is a photo heavy post, here's what I wore today for Me Made March:

My Amy Butler Lotus pattern dress made with Amy Butler blue flower fabric

I know this is a picture you have seen before here but I'm not looking my best, I'm tired.  But I wore this dress today so it counts.  What have you been wearing for the first day of Me Made March?

Getting ready for Tuesday

As it's the kick off of Me Made March I have been fabric shopping and cutting out fabric this weekend, but no sewing yet.  Sadly my camera is out of batteries and the spares are on charge so no photos today unfortunately.  I bought some lovely raspberry coloured cotton to make a dress from, it's the Burda pattern I used for this but will make the whole thing this time!

I also got some blue, grey and dark blue plaid that I'm thinking of making a 1940s style skirt from Burda too and some extremely soft 100% cotton with tiny squares pattern in two shades of green that I'm going to make into a blouse.

I'm wondering if I'll have enough time to make clothes to last the month, hopefully everyone else has felt like this when they started the earlier Me Made and Self Stitched months. 

Wishing you all a happy and productive week!

Not bad for a remnant

Ok, so I slightly deviated from my week's plan as I got seduced by the remnant bin in John Lewis on Saturday.  I found this lovely piece of blue fabric with flowers that look like water colours and had to make a top out of it.  Since I'm completely bored of making the Lotus pattern I had to try something else.  I flicked through two Burda magazines and decided I didn't want to or couldn't make any of the tops due to fabric quantity restrictions, so thought I'd make the top half of a dress I liked and just put a band at the bottom to lengthen it and make it wearable.

Blue water colour flower top from top half of Burda dress - full length view

I really like the wide round neck line on this with the slightly cap sleeves.  I put a zip in the side to fasten it, I didn't line it fully but put facings and am happy with that.

Close up of front of top

I say happy with the facings but I'm noticing that it's peeping up on the neckline in this photo....grrrr.  I'm also wondering what to do with the back, I've put the darts in, not quite as the instructions state as they were too big, but now I'm wondering if they need to be longer, argh.  Think I might just wear it and see whether I can cope with it.

Back view of top

If you're thinking the band at the bottom is an interesting shape, it is!  It was either an interesting shape for front and back or use a different fabric in a coordinating colour.  I think I like this fabric so much as it's reminiscent of 80's floral fabric that I remember being worn lots by my sisters when I was growing up.

It's not very valentine-sy but I don't really have any red fabric.  What have you been sewing and is it valentine related?