A little dress for Georgia

You guys may have seen me hanging with this pretty lady before if you've followed by blog for a while - this is Alaina by BFF from law school. I'm not sure I would have survived law school without her (hard to believe - but law school isn't all rainbows and unicorns!).

We don't see each other too much these days, because Alaina lives in Melbourne and I live here in Wellington - but like a lot of BFFs we keep in contact and when we do hang out its like no time has passed at ALL!

At the end of last year Alaina had a wee daughter called Georgia and I REALLY wanted to make something super cute for her. When I told Alaina I was making something and it didn't have skulls or anything creepy on it she was kind of surprised - its obvious she knows me well if she is EXPECTING creepy stuff!

I have had this freaking adorable fabric in my stash for a LONG time - its been in that stupid catergory some sewists have of "too good to use" which is stupid. If anyone deserved fabric in this super adorable dress - Georgia does!

The  fabric is a little creased here - but as you guys can see its a whole lot of cute kids doing all kinds of jobs - the dressmaker is one of my favorites obviously!

I added a little pocket - as pockets are always great in a dress, no matter what age you are!

Here's the final dress, its from a pattern from Sew La Tea Do by Pip Lincoln and if you think its looks familiar, that's because I've made it a couple of times previously. I think its such a great little dress though (and hopefully it is - I have no idea not having my own kids!!).

So this dress won't even fit Georgia till she's about one - so I am thinking of making her a couple of tee shirts as well, but that's going to have to wait till our move is over! Have a good weekend everyone.

Hearts & Anchors

So you guys may (or may not) remeber that one of my goals for this year was to tackle my large pile of mending of and UFOs. If you're thinking to yourself right now, what's a UFO?  Well its an unfinished object! I have a LOT of UFOs around, I don't know WHY I do this to myself, but I will get all excited for a project and then give up half way through for no apparent reason. Or even WORSE than that, just cut the project out and put it in a plastic bag (to keep the pieces together) and not touch it again for MONTHS (ok I do know WHY I do this - I love cutting out fabric).

Back to the current project, I cut out this dress one time when I was at home sick. I started to feel better in the afternoon and was going a little stir crazy. I wasn't feeling 100% but at the same time I'm not good at not doing anything.

So I decided to grab this hearts and anchor fabric I had bought from a vintage fair (although its definitely not vintage - its still cute though) and Salme Bow Dress that I had printed out a few weeks back. I stuck the pattern together, cut out the pattern and cut out the dress. After I did that I was thoroughly exhausted because I was sick and meant to be resting. I put it all in a plastic bag and left it in the pile with all my other UFOs.

But in the spirit of making good on my resolution to finish up all of my outstanding UFOs I finished making the dress up a few weeks ago!

So I'm still not sure I am sold on this dress, it seems a little boxy to me, but I wore it to work and I got a lot of compliments! Also I  think the belt helps, but this belt is actually a bit big for me (not what you really want with an elasticated belt) so it may be less boxy if the belt fit better.

So a few points on the pattern, if you are familiar with it you will know the original does not have sleeves. But I wanted sleeves so I added some (I just added the sleeves from the Laurel dress and they worked fine).

Also the dress is pretty short and if you're taller than me (5'6) you MAY want to lengthen it - but if short dresses are your thing that's cool too. 

The other thing is the pattern instructions are pretty basic, that's fine if you have a bit of sewing experience as the dress is quite easy to put together. However if I tried to make this dress a couple of years back when I was first starting out sewing I think it would have quickly ended in tears!

So I DO  have to admit something, although I'm not 100% sure about this dress I HAVE cut another one. Hopefully it won't become another UFO (but lets face it - that's probably going to happen!).

I'm back - with BIG news!

Hello guys - so the computer repair took a LOT longer than I thought, about three weeks in all - my hard drive failed *boo*

In the meantime all kinds of fun stuff has been happening around here - including our big news - we bought a house like adults and its scary because I generally like to avoid being an adult at any cost.

Also when I  say house - I don't mean an ACTUAL house its a split house, so more of an apartment or flat (depending on what you call it in your part of the world).

Remember when I was talking about working on a big project - this was it! I was spending a lot of my evenings working on the due diligence for the property and sending various e-mails to various people.

We are moving in next Tuesday - and spent last weekend cleaning and packing so I think it will still be a while before life if back to normal! But I will try and catch up with your blogs when I can - see you soon!