I’ve found myself at the end of yet another extraordinarily busy week, one where we’ve been out pretty much every single night, and we’ve had a friend over from the States, too. However, I have managed to make progress, albeit slow, on my swirl sheath dress in a series of 10 minute segments snatched here and there.
Since I bought my silver stretch lining fabric on Goldhawk Road last Saturday, I’ve managed to sew and press all the darts (the lining uses the original base pattern so no swirls inside), attach it to the facings, sew the side seam, and attach it to the invisible zipper.
Here’s the back of the dress hanging flat in my sewing cave:
I did the lining hem by machine, but the coral fabric hem needs doing by hand, possibly in the car this weekend. The right side strap also needs a little bra keeper snap strap to keep it in place as it’s a pinch too long. Otherwise it’s done!
It doesn’t quite fit as well as the muslin did when I made it last summer though, but that’s down to me rather than the pattern – I’ve got a big track race next weekend in Sheffield for the British Transplant Games and my trainer has put me on a training diet to shed as much excess weight as possible before the race, as this translate directly into seconds on the track.
She and I were both taken aback by how successful this has been – I’ve lost 4cm (1.5 inches) off my waist and hips and 4.5kg (10lb) in four weeks! If it wasn’t for the hours of running up hills I’d suggest she sell it as a diet plan (the running would reduce its popularity somewhat!). And really, don’t be concerned, as I’ve been stuffing my face with fruit and veggies and lean meats pretty much continuously all month, so I’m not on some idiotic juice cleanse starvation diet or something.
The downside of this is that all my trousers and skirts are hanging off me (my poor Beignet skirt has a cinched paper bag waist now!) and I’m in desperate need of new bottoms. I was planning on sewing up a few pieces for our upcoming Mexico trip next month(!!) but now it’s clear I need to sew as many bottoms as possibly and just pack tops I’ve got already.
I’m still mentally putting together a nice travel wardrobe plan (which I shall reveal in good time), but my immediate sewing plans are thus:
- Hem my swirl sheath dress
- Sew up the Jalie sports bra & running shorts in orange wicking fabric & tribal lycra offcuts
- Sew a Cake Hummingbird skirt in the swapped terracotta sateen
Also very high on my sewing list is the Christine Jonson Travel Trio Three skirt in the blue neopreney fabric I bought at the weekend, but it was drying after a pre-wash and wasn’t to hand for my photo this morning!
But it’s all traced and ready to go (as are the Jalie and Cake patterns), and I remembered what an awful time I had tracing out the tops from this pattern a few years ago, because the pattern sheets are tissue (ugh) and abso-freaking-lutely enormous! They’re literally bigger than the floorspace I have, and Nishi took this as a sign to attack the invader!
Luckily she just stayed in her tissue paper den for a few minutes and didn’t rip anything!
Anyway, the upside to having several projects in my immediate queue before those Burda jeans is that they may not need any enlarging if I hang on for another week or two!