70s Aztec Knit Dress

I made this on a whim and it has turned out to be a winner - whim to win!

I ordered a meter of this fabric on eBay and I was delighted with it.  The colours are fabulous, the knit is soft but not thin, it washed like a dream and has no static.  De-LIGHT-ed!   It sat in my shopping basket for about a month and I'm so glad I hit "Buy".

I've had my eye out for a patterned fabric, I wanted to make view A from the pattern for a while.  The illustration is in a print and I am not terribly imaginative.  The pattern calls for a contrast hem, a contrast neckline would be nice too, but I was not about to go about fabric matching online so I made the whole dress from the same pattern.  My 1m order generously came out at 1.25m so, with 150cm width, I had enough for what I needed and (mainly) matched the pattern.

The biggest issue I had was skipping stitches.  I believe it helped to go as slow as possible so the fabric didn't bounce on its way through the dog feet.  Sewing slowly was a real challenge.  I'm not super fast but I was going as slowly as the needle would move.  I also didn't do any kind of zig-zag.  My machine doesn't have a lot of stitch options and my basic zig zag was causing the most bounce so I just stuck to a straight stitch.  This was a problem on the hem in particular, which has already broken.  Perhaps also due to the 100% cotton thread I used. I was rushing to finish it in time for our holiday so I machine hemmed the sleeves and the hem.  I might go back and hand stitch these hems - it will hopefully give them a bit of extra stretch too.

The pattern is the other one that I purchased for the navy spot sundress and I knew I would be using it before too long.

I took 1.5cm off both the side seams and the sleeve seams.  I need to figure out how to do this without reducing the armscye.  There I was, sitting in my underwear, 45 minutes before the taxi was arriving to take us to the airport, frantically going as slowly as I could, reducing the seams for a better fit.  Don't tell me I am the only sewer who had ever done that!  I was so pleased I reduced the fit, especially with a knit, less ease makes it look so much better.

Other fitting notes/changes: I made size 12 all over, eliminated the zip (and have plenty of space to pull it over my head), took out back seam (and seam allowance), raised the waist by 2ins (should have done the whole 3), shortened the back darts by a lot to eliminate the ballooning at the back (raising the waist more will help with this) and lengthened the hem.  I skipped the elastic on the sleeves.

Costs:

Fabric: £4.84

Tools: ballpoint needle: £5.45

Pattern: £7.67

Total: £17.96

Rating: 9.75 out of 10.  I really love this dress.

Here's me, being delighted, on the way to the airport!

More fabric!

This lot is a series of knit fabrics.

Grey: (1 yd) was intended for a pencil skirt but I am re-thinking it.  The dots are silver paint and the fabric is thin so not my style.  The kids won't like the grey.  The little one might but she already has a cute knit dress in grey so I am mulling over what to do with it.  I saw a lovely Mathilde on Pinterest in a grey knit, otherwise maybe a t-shirt for me based on my Aztec dress.

Turquoise hearts: (1 yd) kid t-shirt?  Skirt? T for me?  6yo saw it and instantly claimed it (I was thinking of her when I bought it)

Brown 70s pattern: (1yd) Will I get a dress out of 1yd? I'll never get the pattern matched.  Maybe a tunic.  No, it was made to be a dress, definitely busting out the pattern from the Aztec dress and making a short sleeve version.  Seam matching?  What's that?

Pink feathers: (2 yd) was going to do a knit dress but now I think it is best suited to a long sleeve jersey top, 2 layers.  Mathilde with gathers? Trusty Aztec pattern?  It would look great with a navy trim, must look for some.

Mustard: (2 yds) got to try a cardigan a la CINO.  The fabric is thick so would look great in this.  I think I'll have one too.

New fabric #2

Chiffon top

Here's my first make from the new fabric stash: a sleeveless chiffon top.

The fabric is from Clothspot, the pattern from Burda.  Both are detailed in my earlier post.  The camisole is not part of the top.

As I said earlier, I don't really think my skills are up to working with chiffon but it has come out better than I expected.  It is a very forgiving style: loose, gathered and flowy.  I really like the style, I love the gathers at the neckline, and the turtleneck shows off the chiffon nicely.  I wore it to work and then out that evening - I got compliments both times!  

I resized the waist for my own measurements but, as a note for next time, I should have left everything as a size 12. Cutting out was an absolute pain, the fabric moved if you breathed on it, but the rows of flowers were extremely useful and served as a guide to make sure it was straight before I cut.  Thank goodness for my rotary cutter, it really proved its worth with this project.

For the sides and shoulders, I did French seams at 1.5cm width, I wasn't up for trying anything smaller.  If I was really keen, I could hand stitch each seam in half again (but I wasn't).  I set my machine tension to almost zero but the seams still gathered.  I didn't backstitch the ends so I smoothed out the gathers then tied off the ends.  I didn't follow the pattern instructions for the sleeve hems (zig zag finish), I did a sort of rolled hem: stitch one row near edge, fold in, stitch a second row on top, fold in, stitch a third row.  The great part about the chiffon is that I could stitch with the right side up and get a nice seam finish on the right side.  My bobbin thread never looks as nice as the top thread.

Total cost: £7.64
Fabric: £4.25
Shipping allocation: £1.85
Pattern (1/3 allocation w shipping): £1.54

PS: Apologies to Burda for my comments about the missing size guide and pattern layout.  I found both in the pattern sheets.  I had only looked in the instruction sheets.  I also easily found a Burda size guide online. 
 

Butterfly biscuits

I made these sugar cookies for the school cake sale.  

I got the butterfly shaped cookie cutter from the front of a cake decorating magazine and I used the recipe inside too.

I carried on with the magazine advice and went all out, piping the outline in thicker icing (too thick: I should have gone for soft peaks and not stiff peaks, as it turns out.)  I tried the idea of "flooding" the inside of the piped lines with runny icing but my icing was running all over the place so I just spread it inside with a small knife.  I took the easy option of decorating with sprinkles and the pink bodies were the only colour I could manage from the remains of the pale blue icing.  I just drizzled them in place.

I have a love/hate relationship with cake decorating and it probably shows in my results.  I would rate that I am fairly happy with them: they look acceptable and they taste great.

Cath Kidston knock-off childs dress

Remember the pile of old shirts?

Well, I made something with one of them.

Inspired by this dress...

...I took this shirt (note the stains on the front)...

...and made this!

I drafted a pattern from the dress and laid it out over the shirt.  I had to make a centre back seam to avoid the stained fabric (I still almost didn't have enough).

I used some plain white fabric I have in my stash for the collar, the piping and the pockets.  I love the white elements and hopefully they disguise the fact that this dress is made from a shirt.

I had a lot of trouble with the V-neck and the upwards V at the front of the bodice.  I didn't follow a pattern or even do any internet research and ended up with fabric that had extra ease through these two areas.  I couldn't get it to lie flat at the front at the top of either the skirt or the bodice.  

It wouldn't have mattered in a four year old's dress, except that I didn't reinforce the neckline.  At all.  I didn't even stay stitch it.  Here's the result...

Next time, I'll avoid the inverted V, make a proper Peter Pan collar, following a tutorial, and reinforce the neckline with binding and topstitching.

The next chapter for this fabric is going to be a dressing up nurse's apron.

Inspiring icing

This is not one of my makes but it is so inspiring I just had to share.

These are the decorations from a birthday cake that was commissioned for someone who works as an engineer.  It was professionally made and these decorations are made of solid royal icing (with some bamboo skewers to help where needed).

The detail is just incredible.  Each of the worker's faces is sculpted out of icing.  Check out the eyebrows, and the ears.  Tiny works of art!  The rocks are really simple but really effective, just balls of icing.  Don't make them too perfect.  The tyre treads and track marks are long strips of icing that have been stamped with horizontal grooves.

The cake itself was delicous too - one half chocolate and one half lemon.  Yum!