The Monthly Stitch - Frocktober - Purple Velvet Dress

You may remember this post where I told you all my plan for frocktober was to make one Halloween themed dress for each week in October. I feel like I may have over-committed myself, but I am going to continue to try and make four Halloween inspired/themed dresses even if some of them come into existence after Halloween.

Here's my second Halloween themed dress - its purple (again) and its a very deep shade of purple. This is more of a gothic witch inspired frock.

So I should let you all know that the last couple days have been EXTREMELY windy, even by Wellington standards and that's been putting my haircut to the test. Which is a problem, my haircuts are usually based on being manageable in our wild weather conditions!

This is another dress made from Maudella 5619 - basically when I find a pattern I love I used it around a billion times! I'm not as crazy about this version of the dress as early versions, I may try it with a belt and see if I like it more.

I am currently working on my fourth Halloween dress and I have started stitching it up - want a sneak peak? Well here you go!

It's being made from a pattern I've never used before *shock horror* the Derby Dress pattern by Christine Haynes. I'm making the fabric on the right and I'm using black cotton and some of that sweet little ghost/coffin fabric. 

Just one thing before I go - I thought I'd share my wee ghost necklace - I think he adds an extra creepy cute touch to the outfit.

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend - now its time to go and sew up my next dress!

The Monthly Stitch - Frocktober - Purple Kitty Dress

This months challenge over at The Monthly Stitch is Frocktober - my original Frocktober plan was to make a Halloween themed dress for each week of the month. I love Halloween and thought this would be a great excuse to make four ridiculous Halloween dresses.

But then you know how things go - life gets in the way! It's now 15 October and I've only made one Halloween themed dress. I always have good intentions but making them into reality can be difficult. I've decided that I won't be too hard on myself for only having made one dress - the rest will come with time (even if that time ends up being November or December!).

Here's my first dress of Frocktober 2013 and I've rather chuffed with how it turned out - my purple kitty dress.

Remember how I visited Alicia and Bear in Pennsylvania and Alicia took me to ALL THE HUGE craft stores - including Joanns. I could have spent my whole trip budget a Joanns - but I restrained myself and bought only seven and a half yards. That included two and a half yards of this purple fabric with kitty print.

It's pretty adorable fabric! I love the cats and their happy faces and purple just seems like a Halloween colour don't you think?

We are back in the delightful car park of our building - complete with weeds and random crap on the ground.

If any sewing geeks out there are wondering - I made this dress from a pattern in Sew La Tea Do. The pattern in the book is the "Too Cute Tunic Dress" which I have made countless times before (well actually more like five). I really love this dress as its just so simple to make and every time I've sewn it up it looks great. I guess I'm just one of those sewists who finds a pattern she likes and makes it over and over again.

We had a pretty big storm in Wellington yesterday, which is a bit of a worry when your apartment block is covered in scaffolding and "stuff" is flying everywhere. See that bit of wood I'm standing on, it "fell" off the building and Rich helped the guy that runs the shop downstairs move it to the back of the building to get it out of the way - have I mentioned before how much I am looking forward to the scaffolding coming off the building? Because I REALLY can't wait until its ALL GONE!

Seen as we are talking about the storm and scaffolding - this building site near our house didn't come out of the storm so well. I took this photo on the way home last night, Wellington is known for its wind but this is kind of out of control.

So its been kind of an exciting week so far - let's hope for calm skies and sunshine for the rest of the week!