Monday 31 December 2012

Painting the town red (and blue and yellow)

Its been about 40 degrees in these parts since Christmas day.  I was feeling seriously in need of a light, cool, easy to pull on dress.  I managed to sneak a visit to Spotlight a couple of weeks ago.  Its an hour away and it was my 1st fabric buying trip in over 3 months.  I found this lovely painted cotton voile in the clearance rolls.  I really don't have much in thse sorts of colours but I loved its boldness, and was looking for some voile so $12.50 later I had 2 1/2 meters of it.  Its by an Australian company called Wenzel. Most importantly it also matches my new red salties.

 This dress from the cover of Burda 11/2012 looked like it would fit the bill.  I liked the ruffles and the dropped waist and its pull on comfy easyness.




In the background you can see hordes of people trying to cool off at our usually quiet beach.

My lovely new shoes!




 I really like it and have worn it 3 times already since I finished it just after Christmas.  I made a few changes to the pattern.  Infact the top part is the same as the tank I made just cut a bit shorter.

Changes:

  • I didn't twist the shoulders as my fabric didn't have 2 good sides.
  • I took the sides in at the waist.  The pattern flares here and I tried it on before I added the elastic and it just gave me an extra kind of roll around the middle that I just didn't need.
  • I accidentally cut the top without a seam allowance at the bottom so its a bit shorter than it was meant to be.  I also forgot to prewash my fabric so i'm hoping it won't shrink too much.  Fingers crossed.
 Thats about it.  It was easy to make.  I did french seams and bound the neck and arms with bias binding.  I've started under-stitching it and it make it sit much better.

Happily its just started to rain.  All that heat was getting a bit too intense for me.  Still a pom at heart.




Monday 3 December 2012

Fishy Dress

My daughter is pretty cool.  Definitely cooler than me.
She might be only 2 and a half but she knows what she likes.

She picked out the material in Spotlight.  I was looking for something for me and she picked it up from somewhere and asked for a dress out it.   Its velour with fish printed on it.  Certainly wouldn't have picked it out myself but there you go.  She was adamant and we got a meter.



I also happened to have Burda Style 12/11 out of the library and it had a sweet sweatshirt dress in it.  I really like the pocket with the gathers round the edges and the pocket all the way through.  Its kind of sweet how it means it stretches nicely over round toddler tummy.

As if she wasn't cool enough whe then found the glasses as we were paying for some christmas lights.  At her height she picked them off and put them on.  The co-ordinated perfectly with her dress in both colour and style and at only $6 I couldn't really say no.  She was very good and put the large bag of sweeties back on the shelf. 


I hope I grow up to be half so cool!