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A Skeleton Tuuli dress

I made a Tuuli dress made out of jersey with tiny bats right after I got sick in 2023 and I loved that dress SO MUCH but I hardly got to wear it at all before I gained too much weight from being long covid bedbound.

That bat fabric was the Art Gallery Fabrics 2023 Halloween print so there’s no way I could get more, but I was able to get their 2025 Halloween print – the same super soft cotton elastane jersey but with little skeletons all over! It’s called “Mister No Body” and I bought mine from Goldstitch for £35.00 total for the 2.5m (now out of stock, but do some googling as other retailers seem to have it).

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A test Denver lips bra

I bought the new FibreMood “Sports” special issue and there’s quite a bit in it that I want to make, but I thought I’d start off with something simple that I don’t have to buy special fabric for. “Denver” isn’t really a sports bra – there’s zero support there – not even a lining! – just one layer of lycra. It’s called “cropped top” in the magazine and I’d agree with that.

I need an extremely basic sports bra for low impact stretching, walking, and e-biking, so my favourite supportive Jalie Coco pattern seemed like overkill here. I figured Denver would be something quick that’s better than just wearing a cotton Axis tank, and I could use up a bit more of my Lycra scraps drawer in the process.

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A looming head Lara sweatshirt

I’ll be honest – I sewed this sweatshirt mostly as a vessel for a bit of heat transfer vinyl I cut out way too big back in the summer. I wasn’t really thinking of the measurements on a shirt when I cut it out, and was more thinking to just make it as big as the vinyl roll, forgetting that my roll was nearly 24 inches wide instead of A4! So I ended up with a Lestat head (same as on this grey shirt), but absolutely huge – way too big to put on the front of a teeshirt. But I didn’t want to throw it away either, so I figured it’d go nicely on the back instead.

I’ve been meaning to sew the FibreMood Lara sweatshirt for a while now. It’s from the fabulous FibreMood “Essentials” magazine that I’ve sewn so much from already! It’s an oversized sweatshirt with great sleeve seaming, and the option to either sew the fronts and backs as one piece each, or each with princess seaming and a kangaroo pocket. I chose to have the princess seams and kangaroo pocket in the front, but no seaming in the back (so that no seams would interfere with the big vinyl). I selected Size XL based on my bust measurement, but tbh it’s so oversized I could’ve easily gone down a size or two and still been fine.

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My Lestat tribute outfit – By Night

Even though I’ve shown you daylight details of the blouse, the pleather trousers, and the bondage necklace I made in tribute to the Lestatc looks seen in the teasers for the upcoming The Vampire Lestat show, I really wanted to do some fun, styled nighttime photos too!

A friend and I did a night shoot when I sewed a full Wolfkiller cloak last fall, and it was so much fun! Plus I ended up loving the night photos even more than the day ones, and it made me wish I’d done a night shoot for the Claudia tribute outfit I sewed in 2023 (maybe I will when I can fit back into it again!)

So my friend Ann and I did my hair and makeup (complete with blue contact lenses and gold hair spray you can barely see!) and traipsed around the neighbourhood one evening…

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Rockstar Lestat pleather trousers

Following on from my Lestat lawyer blouse, you may have noticed the pleather trousers I wore with it… well these are another homage to Lestat in his rockstar phase in season 3 of Interview with the Vampire (now titled “The Vampire Lestat”, out next year).

I needed something to wear with the lawyer blouse for Halloween, but he’s sitting at a table in the footage so you can’t see what trousers he’s wearing. So I took artistic liberty and decided to sew some tight red trousers similar to ones seen on set and in the press photos.

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A bonus camisole from scrap fabric

This feels a bit strange to post the leftover make before the intentional one, but I want to keep the other garment’s post together with the rest of the outfit over the next week or two… so you get the “scrap” camisole first!

I had less than a half metre of custom fabric leftover from the Lestat lawyer scene blouse I designed and printed up especially for it, so it seemed a waste to just let it marinade in my stash. I figured I could make a little camisole from it, even though there wasn’t much left. I thought that surely I must have a simple little woven cami pattern in my pattern stash somewhere, but nothing came up in my pdf patterns, so I started looking through my books…

…and I found the perfect pattern inside the Great British Sewing Bee “Fashion With Fabric” book! I actually worked on this book ten(!!) years ago, and sewed a lot of the “perfects” seen in the book, but the Camisole Top Hack (of the jumpsuit pattern) wasn’t one of them.

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Leather upholstery level up

In the Saloon of our barge, we have two gorgeous ring stools. They’re perfect for sitting, putting your feet up, and moving around to other rooms and we use them ALL the time! But we’ve had them for almost ten years at this point, and the fake pleather covers on the tops started flaking off and looked awful. So J prised them apart (the tops were only just glued to the base!), removed the staples, and kept the fabric as a template.

With the template as a handy measurement guide, I found a leather Nappa hide big enough for both at New Craft House for £40. This was a piece of deadstock leather leftover from the fashion industry, with a big seam running down the center. It might’ve been a problem for some uses but it was perfect for this because I needed to cut it into two pieces anyway!

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Wild cat Duathlon Shorts

Now that the LDN medication is actually giving me some energy (see this post if you missed my recent health update), I can finally start rebuilding my body, regaining my fitness, and losing the huge amount of weight I’d put on while being stuck in bed.

But I have zero activewear shorts or leggings that still fit me. Zero. Since the medication started making me feel a little better in June-July-ish, I started off doing a strict “10min only” of stretching every day, which I’ve gradually now increased to about 30min daily, plus the odd walk and e-biking (and some rest days too, because this is not my first rodeo).