A return to blogging for 2018 - Orange Moneta Dress

Hello anyone who may still be reading my blog! I don't want to lament too much about the lack of blogging in 2017, but instead look towards 2018 and my New Years Resolution of getting back to both sewing and blogging (about sewing and life in general).

So here's my first make of 2017 and the blog post to go with it, another Colette Moneta dress.

I've made a number of versions of this dress already so it's a tried and true pattern (no risk of messing it up and losing confidence) and also it's easy to make a short sleeved version as it's approximately a million degrees right now.

I bought a tonne of this fabric when Spotlight in Porirua was closing down, because I love orange and I love stretchy fabric and I love retro prints and I also love fabric for $3 per metre!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years, I do have a lot to post about, including our trip to Korea and Japan in November and my plans/resolutions for the upcoming year! But I will leave it for another day when the heat hasn't sapped all my energy x

The Nevermore Dress

I've named this one after the fabric its made from, the fabric is called "Nevermore" and its buy Micheal Miller. It's called "Nevermore" for obvious reasons....

This is more fabric that has been sitting in my collection of "good fabric" for far too long...basically fabric I'm too scared to use in case its a disaster! However, this year is the year of using the "good" fabric and I'm bravely cutting into fabric I'm scared of destroyed (after all, there will always be more cool fabric in the world for me to buy).

 

This dress is another "frankenpattern" the skirt is from the Peony dress by Colette and the bodice is from the Sigma dress by Papercut Patterns. For these photos I wore it with my Ouiji Board cardi from Hell Bunny.

I even got Rich to take a photo of the dress without the cardi, which was pretty brave of me to be honest as its freaking freezing right now (I'm over winter already).

I think even my selfie game is off due to the freezing weather situation! 

Seen as I was already wearing a slightly creepy dress and cardi I decided I should wear this AMAZING locket made for me by Vany - inside are some pictures of my true loves - Hello Kitty and Rich!

Hope you all had a great weekend and I hope it was warmer than mine, it was the first on winter on 1 June in my part of the world and its already feeling like a really long winter.

Crocodile Rock Dress

So the title of this post is pretty lame, but whatever, it seemed like the best thing to name a dress covered in crocodiles (or alligators) what's the difference anyways? Some folks may remember this fabric, I received it way back in December in a blogger swap.

 I feel like lately my sewing skills have greatly improved, it's like I've kind of done enough sewing for certain things to click. I'm not saying I'm perfect, or even particularly skilled compared to a lot of my friends (especially when I have friends like Ria who are just crazy talented). Also I'm totally nailing invisible zippers lately, they are finally invisible!

As well as feeling a lot more confident about my sewing lately I'm also really into making franken patterns or mash ups or whatever you may like to call it! This pattern is actually two different patterns together.

The bodice of the dress is from a pattern from By Hand London called the Anna Dress, I have made this dress once before and you can see that version here. My previous version was the maxi length version with a v neck, and I really want to make another maxi version (maybe next summer or for my next holiday somewhere warm) and I do want to make another Anna with this length of skirt using the original paneled skirt.

The skirt is from the Colette Peony dress, I've made this dress a few times before, but I think my first version is still my favourite!

It's a little hard to see in this photo, but the necklace has a flamingo with blue glitter inside, I think I was going for a kind of Florida look? Although in Florida it is alligators right?

As well as feeling like I've improved a lot in terms of sewing, I've actually been sewing a lot more! I have two more new dresses to sew and I've even been using up the "good"  fabric! WHO AM I!?

Jungle January

So this post is way overdue, its now closer to March than January - opps! Anyway ages ago my friend Emma and I decided to take part in Jungle January. The premise of Jungle January is pretty simple, sew something from Jungle inspired fabric.

I decided to make a simple dress - one of my favourite "frankenpatterns" - the Salme Pussy Bow dress with the sleeves from the Colette Laurel dress. I've made this "mash up"a couple of times before - here and here.

As I decided NOT to buy any new fabric this year (25 of February and I have caved and bought any new fabric) I  had to look through my stash and see what I had one hand. Fortunately I had a couple of metres of leopard print in my stash that I had bought from The Fabric Store that I decided I needed  because "reasons".

Before having photos taken in our Jungle January frocks, Emma and I decided to have drinks and  treats at Louis Sergent - so fancy!

It was a super hot day when we went, so I had this icy lemon drink and a lychee dessert and it was awesome.

Emma also got a tasty treat, I don't remember what it was exactly (because this was back on 31 January) but it sure looked spectacular!

After treats and shopping Emma's husband Paul took some photos of our Jungle January frocks. We even found a wall that was a little bit Jungle like in the central city.

I've always worn a belt with the other versions of this dress and I think next time I  wear this  dress it will be belted, its kind of a weird shape without a belt.

If you're wondering, Emma's wrap dress is made with this pattern and she told me she bought the  fabric ages from Trelise Cooper, apparently Trelise Cooper used to sell fabric!

Also we tried to do animal faces, it may not have been a success. I think I have the opposite of resting bitch face - its resting smiling like a cheese ball face.

It was pretty fun to do a sewing challenge with a friend, hopefully I  can  do more sewing challenges like this on this year!

Colette Myrtle Dress

Some of you may already know I've not really been into making stuff for myself lately, I don't know why. I've just not been into it. I feel like I've been losing any desire to sew anything at all really. Which is a problem when I have a tonne of patterns and a bookshelf full of fabric.

So I decided to push myself to make something and see how it goes, I have had the Myrtle Dress from Colette patterns sitting around for a while and decided I'd try to make it up. I felt like I wanted to make something new, but didn't want something with a bunch of fitting dramas - so a simple knit dress is perfect.

I also decided to use some fabric I already had in my stash, as I'd never made this pattern before I didn't want to crack into anything fancy, so I used some paisley fabric I picked up at the op shop for a few dollars.

I posted a few photos of the dress on instagram along the way, because that's how I roll these days.

Here's the finished dress - I'm a bit on the fence about it, but I'm not sure if there's anything wrong with the dress or if its just my current "bleh sewing" mood.

I do have a couple of problems, one my hair is totally out of control (haircut on Saturday - yes) and two - I literally have no flats anymore. I threw out a bunch when we moved and not I really only have these skull ones and my walking sneakers. I think I need to go shoe shopping, these shoes don't work with this frock at all.

Here's the dress without the cardi, I have to admit one of the reasons I've been a bit reluctant to make this dress is that its sleeveless and due to the construction, I'm not really sure how to add sleeves. As I'm pretty much constantly cold, I'm not a big fan of sleeveless dresses, but I guess that's what cardis are for right?

Here's another "Action Shot" of the dress when I was out with Ria - photo is taken from the outside garden area at Te Papa. It was obviously windy, because I live in Wellington.

I don't know, I'm just not sold on this make and I think my next project will be for someone other than myself again. Not sure how to break these "sewing for myself blues" guys! Any tips are much appreciated.

Celestial Dress!

A few weeks back Rich and I heard about an event that was happening at the Carter Observatory called Celestial Cinema - being fans of both cinema and space we decided to go along. Although there were quite a few technical difficulties on the evening we got to see some really cool films, they were screened inside the planetarium.

The movies were a mix of old time fantastic movies and real life information about space, including documentary footage of a Russia space walk in the 1960s. My favourite was a trip to the moon, which you can watch on you tube if you'd like to, but there is something magical about being able to watch it on the big screen inside a planetarium!


For the price of our movie ticket we also had the chance to explore the gallery at the observatory for free, I hadn't been here for years but the exhibits are really cool. We had about half an hour to look around, but I'd like to come back soon and take a better look.

I decided I needed a new dress for the event, fortunately recently the Salvation Army op shop moved and is now around the corner from my house (actually this is both a good and bad thing). Anyway I found a bunch of super looking 90s celestial fabric at that op shop and celestial cinema seemed the perfect occasion to make something with the fabric.

The pattern I used for this dress is Colette Peony , I've had this pattern for a while, but just haven't gotten around to making it. I've seen a lot of cute versions of this dress around the internet, so I thought I'd give it a work and this space fabric just seemed like it would work.

 On the evening of the movie I wore the dress with my ouji board cardi as it seemed to fit with the whole mystical celestial theme. I bought this cardi from cosmic corner in Wellington, just because I think ouji boards look cool - ok?

I had a bit of a nightmare with the neckline on this dress, it was originally way too high for me so I just kind of hacked it and added bias binding. Perhaps not the best and most measured approached. I'll tackle it differently next time for sure.

Despite the hacked neckline, I'm pretty happy with this frock and I will make it again for sure. I really like the shape as the skirt isn't too much for me (I'm not really into huge circle skirts these days) and I like the fact it has sleeves, because I'm pretty much always cold in Wellington, even in summer.

I hope you guys all had a fun weekend - I'm been having a quiet one, but I did get some sewing in.

"Turning Japanese" Dress

So I made another dress recently from Japanese style print fabric and it makes me think of this song.

I bought the fabric from a New Zealand fabric destash group I'm part of on facebook - isn't it pretty.

I decided to use a tried and true pattern and make another Salme Patterns pussy bow dress with the sleeves from the Colette Laurel dress. It's the same franken-pattern I used for my Hearts and Anchors dress, the only difference was I added a little bit of length to the skirt of the dress.

It's getting dark earlier and earlier at the moment, but Rich was still able to take a few photos for me in the courtyard before the sun went down for the day.

The dress is pretty simple, I've not put in the darts as I wanted a more blouse type fit. It has elastic around the waist, but the best part of the dress is the bow. Because obviously bows rule.

I hope you've all had a good week, I've been off work with a spider bite that got infected. It was a bad times, but at least I can sew and have a courtyard.

Hope you all have been having a good week and an even better weekend!