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Manequim silk birthday blouse

I love this blouse!

It all started in Paris last June when I saw this amazingly gorgeous silk satin (charmeuse) in Tissues Dreyfus that I just had to have. But it was €22/m (zoot alors!) so I only bought 1 metre. But even now I still love it love it love it love it so it was worth it worth it worth it!

Ever since, I kept my eyes open for a good blouse pattern that only needed 1 metre of fabric, and along came Manequim Feb 2011 #158, which called for exactly the amount I had – 1 metre long and 150cm wide!

These two were clearly meant to be together! I don’t often do prints, but this one is just so gorgeous with the psuedo-floral/paint splatters of silver, black, orange, and fuschia that I wanted it to form both the centrepiece of my March Mini Wardrobe as well as be my special birthday garment this year!

Bits and Pieces

Ok, so to take a brief break from reading material, I thought I should update you with what I’ve been up to in the sewing room…

Bridesmaids dresses

I had the first fitting of P’s muslin, and there are surprisingly little changes to be made – raising the neckline and armscye, pulling up the waistband by a centimetre, and that’s about it.

So I’m doing a second version of the bodice for her to try on this weekend, and then I unpick the skirt off that muslin and attach it to G’s bodice (the skirt is enormous and I didn’t have enough knit muslin for two!) and have her first fitting while I get down and dirty with the waistband pleating. I’m anticipating the pleating to be the most time-consuming part of both the dresses… (Earlier post about the dresses and colours here)

A spring dress

I finished a nice Springy version of BurdaStyle’s Heidi dress yesterday (finally!).

It was just waiting for a hem for nearly a week, which is a long time for me. It’s nice timing as Spring (or maybe even Summer!) arrived this weekend and it was gorgeous outside on deck with the barbecue going and everyone hopping from boat to boat. I’m hoping to do a photoshoot tonight now that we’ve got daylight for longer in the evenings…

Bridal Couture

I’m in downtown Muslin City at the moment, between the bridesmaids dresses and the very belated birthday dress for my (future) sister in law. So far I’ve made the FSIL’s muslin, had her try it on, and altered the pattern pieces according to the two changes we’re making (which was a pleasant surprise – it fit really well!). And on the bridesmaid front, I’ve completed both bodices and attached one to the skirt in preparation for Pip to try it on this weekend. Since the skirt is so enormously long, I actually didn’t have enough muslin fabric to make a skirt for each muslin. So I’m just going to swap the skirt out and attach it to the other bodice after fitting the first one (it’s a very loose design so the fact that it’s 2 sizes off doesn’t matter much!).

Can you believe I’ve gone through 8m of white viscose knit muslin fabric, between a top, my birthday dress, the FSIL’s dress, and the two bridesmaids dresses?? Wowza.

Anyway, while I’m sewing up muslins, there isn’t much to show off (I don’t mind putting photos of myself up in little more than a bedsheet, but it’d something else to subject your friends to that!) but I’ve got a ton of good sewing books to report on, so you’ll be enjoying a few good books with me over the next week or so…

So to start things off, we’re going to stay on the wedding theme with Susan Khalje’s Bridal Couture, a book so amazing that it fetches RIDICULOUS prices online. It’s been out of print for years (also contributing to the resale value), but the copyright has just reverted back to Susan Khalje, and she is is self-publishing this on CD – you can preorder it here for delivery next month.

Bravo, UK Vogue!

I don’t read many mass market magazines, but when I feel the itch for something glossy, I nearly always reach for Vogue. Sure, I can’t afford to buy anything in it, but I never fail to take inspiration from the designs, and the articles are generally of a higher intelligence level than “eww doesn’t celeb X look fat??” you find in most fashion mags.

So I was utterly, utterly thrilled to discover that the November 09 issue of UK Vogue is almost entirely about DIY fashion, sewing, and customising. Quite literally, Make Do and Mend, though Vogue for some reason insist on using their awful “More Dash Than Cash” tagline (ick). In any case, this is seriously the best issue of Vogue that I’ve ever seen, and is a must buy for anyone with even a passing interest in sewing or DIY fashion.

30th Birthday Dress – completed!

Happy birthday to me!!

Today is my 30th birthday, and as such, I’ve made Burda WOF 03/09 #116 in emerald green silk charmeuse (satin) to wear to my big party on Saturday night!

I tested this pattern a few weeks ago and wrote all about the fitting and muslin work here, and thanks to popular opinion, I did indeed take a wedge out of the back seam to get rid of the swayback wrinkles. Apart from that, I kept the fit the same!

Splish Splash

Looking at this week’s London weather forecast, it seems for once, rather than being really late to the summer swimsuit party, I’ve actually timed this all rather well. We may actually get some nice summer temperatures in the high 70s/low 80s F (upper 20s C), which will actually feel really hot after the summer we’ve had again!

So I’ve finally been given some impetus from the weather on top of my recent confidence-boosting forway into sports gear to finally tackle one of sewing’s ultimate challenges – swimwear! I’ve been wearing two piece suits since I lost so much weight a few years ago, but I was so smitten with the one piece suit in KnipMode 06/2008 that I just had to try this as my first bathing suit: