Last week you got to see the newest Patrones that tg33 sent over, but you all have been far too good to me, because last week I also got a surprise parcel from Daisy!
She did some awesome detective work and worked out my size and style and picked out Simplicity 2754 and Butterick 5317 for me! And she did a great job, because I really like them both! I always have a hard time seeing the potential with the Project Runway patterns because the pattern covers are so horribly done that you can’t see any details at all, and Simplicity’s site makes it really awkward to browse by technical drawing (what I do as a general rule with Burda magazine previews). Anyway, as it turns out, I really like the details of this one, and doing some research myself, I remembered that Trena made it a few months back and I absolutely loved it! And she’s so got the right idea with those back view enhancements! And the Butterick Maggy London dress is just screaming out for a border print, as far as I’m concerned – the skirt is just a rectangle with pleating, so anything with a border or lace at the edge would go perfectly as you don’t have any cut, curved hem or side seams. So it actually is as easy as it’s labelled, seeing as how you’re really just making the bodice…
These patterns all came at the perfect time, because not only did I finish the second bridesmaid dress this weekend (photos coming later this week), but London has stumbled into a mini-heatwave which always gets me raring to sew! After spending the last two months solid on these dresses for my girls, I’m more than ready to sew for myself now, and I’m not scheduled to start on my wedding dress muslin until July.
Sooooo, how much can I cram into the next month, eh? Granted, I’ll still want to make a few things here or there while I’m working on my gown, but I thought it’d be a good idea to get all the things I want to sew together in one place. I’m not calling it a wardrobe or SWAP since they don’t all go together, and I don’t want to commit myself to ALL of these since I tend to get bored easily, so let’s just call this a shortlist so I can choose from these at will…
The FehrTrade Summer 2010 Sewing Shortlist!
From the top:
- Stretch denim skirt (#13) from Patrones 292 (you’d better believe I’m colour-blocking this!)
- The Sew Stylish summer tunic (Simplicity 3867)
- A modified skort from the mid-1990s OOP Simplicity 9686
- The tie-front teeshirt (#2) from the May 2010 La Mia Boutique
- Colette Pattern’s Beignet skirt
- The bias satin cowl top (#19) from Patrones 292
- A short-sleeve knit cowl dress (Simplicity 2754)
- Another crossover knit dress, but this time without sleeves (Burda WOF June 2009 #129)
- A dolman sleeved cropped jacket (#9) from Patrones 289
And not pictured (because I have to still sketch them out) are also self-drafted leggings (I know, I know, but there is a reason there!) and an assymetrical draped sheath dress, which are both already drafted up but need further testing.
The goal is also to use up as much of my stash as possible in the next month (with bonus points for using up those awkwardly small <1m remnants!) because…
We’re going to Paris!
Aaaaaaahh! I’m so excited. While all of you have been galavantic around to places here, there, and everywhere, I’ve been tethered to the hospital, feeling very grumpy and in a state of Extreme Holiday Envy. I mean, the last time we went anywhere was Dublin, in February 2008. Yeah. It’s still not a great idea for me to fly (anything that increases the chances of me getting sick is bad. Like recycled air.) so we’re driving down for the weekend at the end of June and staying with a friend of James’s.
We’re both excited because the last time either of us were there it was with/because of disastrous exes so we’re keen to exorcise the Paris demons and visit the markets and eat ourselves silly. We’ve seen all the museums and tourist spots before, so I’m particularly keen to visit Isabelle’s fabric shops and I’ve also been reading back through Not Martha’s recent comprehensive series of posts gleaming picks and ideas and finding really good iPhone apps and podcasts to help me brush up on my (what was one really very passable) conversational French.
So between our upcoming dirty weekend in Paris and our honeymoon in NYC in September (plus all the relatives and their suitcases coming over for the wedding), I’ve got a lot of fabric acquisition opportunities in the next year so I need to make some room first! So even though I like all of the patterns above, if I can’t pair them with fabric I’ve already got, I’m afraid they’ll have to wait for later…