As explained a few days ago, I was very lucky to be invited to attend a catwalk show at London Fashion Week on Saturday morning. After fretting over what to wear, I settled on this ensemble, which was entirely Fehr Trade, just in case someone asked (they didn’t. Awww.).
But, as I soon found out once the models hit the catwalk, apparently I was right to decide on a cowl top!
I’m going on holiday very soon, and even though I’m not a “beach person” (try getting me to sit still long enough, my freckly pale colouring nonwithstanding), I know we’ll be going to a few pools and a municipal beach while I’m away. So I aimed towards making a beach coverup that I wouldn’t mind wearing out and about, and I’m pretty happy with the results!
I’ll have another update very shortly (as soon as I can arrange the photo shoot), but until then, I know some of you have been asking how the Glastonbury dress held up to the deluge of mud…
And the answer is, surprisingly well!
Back when I got the pillowcases for the famous IKEA skirt, I also bought a Tanja shower curtain that caught my eye from across the store and was conveniently marked down to a fiver.
It’s stayed in my fabric stash ever since, just waiting for the perfect project, which presented itself in the form of this Burda WOF 60s dress from the May 2007 issue. It turned out to be the perfect fabric for this dress, considering that Glastonbury is coming up in a few weeks and I’ve been wanting something special to wear (and let’s face it, if the famous downpours happen again this year, this dress is ready for them!!), and because the pink piping matches my hot pink wellies perfectly.
The April 2007 issue of KnipMode magazine had a section where they took a bunch of catwalk looks and replicated them with one of their patterns. I loved the easy lines of the John Galliano dress, but so much of my wardrobe is already black and white and I thought I’d prefer a colourful dress for the summer.
Once upon a time in London there were two girls suffering from sewing distress. The first girl loved to create and dreamt all day about creating beautiful garments. But alas, she was imprisoned in her true love’s family’s home and her sewing tools were all locked away in a dungeon of cardboard boxes. The other girl had all the tools imaginable, but lacked the experience to turn pieces of cloth into wearable gowns and the language to understand the foreign tongue of patterns. So one fair day the girls hatched a plan to combine forces and each create a dress using the resources of the other.
After seeing celeb after celeb wearing Roland Mouret’s fantastic Galaxy dress and spouting the true wonders of its inner spandex core, I was very excited to see that Vogue produced its own version of the Galaxy dress, Vogue 8280, and I bought it immediately.
Fast forward several months and I finally had the time (and the small waist!) to make this dress using the gorgeous grey tartan wool I’d bought especially for it alongside the pattern. It took me two days of sewing after quite a bit of prep work, but I thoroughly enjoyed making this dress and I absolutely love the end result! It may not have the magical spandex core, but it does have a fully lined bodice and a neat skinny belt I made to further acentuate the nipped-in waist.
Why is it that we have to stop playing dress-up once we reach a certain age? Sometimes it’s good to have a special dress that makes you feel like the prettiest girl in the room, the one all eyes are on — like a princess, really.
I’ve finally finished the 1930s Day Dress and debuted it at The Big Chill music festival last weekend. My boyfriend is rather fond of crisp linen suits and his beloved authentic Panama hat, so I thought we’d strike the perfect couple pose strolling around the Malvern Hills…
I’m terribly excited to finally have begun work on Folkwear’s 1930s Day Dress! I bought the pattern and both the vintage-print crepe de chine and the contrasting teal crepe de chine (which you may recognise from the kimono top a few months ago, but I set myself a goal that I wouldn’t make the dress until my measurements matched that of my dressmaker’s dummy, unpadded (yes, I realise it’s adjustable, but bear with me here). I’m happy to say that I’ve lost the 4 inchess off my waist that held the biggest discrepancy between myself and Susan (said dummy), and I’m headlong into a new project, thankfully with enough summer left for a vain hope to still wear it before the first frost!
