But it can't be from Dolly Clackett. She gave me an Easter egg!

Yo yo YO. You guys. I have been having a sucky week. I don't know how to explain it really. I hurt my shoulder somehow on Sunday and was miserable and in pain for all of Sunday and Monday, and some of yesterday. Work has been as horrible as ever, but I've been struggling a wee bit more with it than usual because I'm tired and cranky. FUN OR WHAT. Anyway, it's Wednesday night now and I have a long weekend ahead of me if I can just get through tomorrow without going on some kind of rampage. Wish me luck, yeah?

Anyway, I'm trying to get my week turned around. I left work a bit earlier than usual and called in with the ladies at Berylune, and then I came home and ate the delicious halloumi that Nic cooked for me. Then he went to the pub and I cleaned my sewing machine. But all of that was refreshing and reminded me anew that work might suck, and indeed it does suck, but I have lots of wonderful things in my life that the soul-sucking things about work can't destroy. Sorry to be boring, but my head has been wrecked these past few days.

Anyway, looking back to the weekend, I have another finished object to show you! I actually finished this dress before the Stay The Course dress, but I managed to get the Stay The Course dress photographed first. These pictures aren't the best - I was both laughing at the silly jokes Nic was making, and wincing in pain because of my shoulder:

The Too Many Dresses dress

Now, this dress was the result of some soul-searching. My dearest Lauren and Rick bought me this beautiful small-print floral fabric in September for my birthday and I earmarked it for a shirt-dress. But, after the slight stress of sewing my Parfait dress I really wanted to sew something simple and fun. I got a bit torn between sewing what I wanted to sew, and worrying that I should be sewing something where I'd learn something new. I took the question to twitter and got the enabling I needed, and decided to sew the circle dress my heart desired.

For this, I went back to the lovely Eliza M pattern that Eliza sent me to review in January. I fear I gave this pattern a bit of a bad rap when I sewed it up in the first place. Well, no - I did say how much I liked the pattern and I do still feel that the instructions could be better, but it is cute AS. I mean, look at it. Still - I wasn't happy with the fit of the bodice so decided that this time, I'd make some adjustments and not fudge it. The back bodice piece is similar in shape to that of Simplicity 2444, which does fit well. So I compared the pattern pieces. The Eliza dress doesn't have any darts in the back bodice, but Simplicity 2444 does, so I just transferred those across. The only other change I made was to dispense with the all-in-one facing and redraft the facing pieces for the neckline. I used bias binding for the armholes. I also used an invisible zip, because that's what I had. And I ignored the instructions, which made the whole thing a lot easier.

CHUBBY FACE OF JOY

As you can see from the CHUBBY FACE OF JOY (and some pain) I am pretty damn happy with the dress. I actually wore it out for the first time last Wednesday night, to the pub. Our local is an old man pub, but it's the kind where you can rock up in a circle dress and crinoline on a Wednesday night and nobody passes any remarks. It was really too cold to wear this dress on Sunday, so after we went out for a walk and did the grocery shopping, I came home and put my pyjamas on. I'm in my pyjamas now. I know that might spoil the illusion, but like, I love my pyjamas.

Anyway, yes, the pattern. This all came together really easily and I'm very happy with the result. My experiment with the darts on the bodice confirmed that I need to do a bit of work on pattern drafting, so I'm getting that organised. It's sort of funny that I sewed this dress, needing it to be a straightforward and fun project and that is what has encouraged me to push my learning a little bit further. I suppose taking the pressure off myself reminded me that I want to learn a bit more.

As I say, it was cold on Sunday, so I wore this little green cardigan from Phase Eight. In this photo I'm laughing at Nic, who claimed to be trying to avoid getting our naked neighbour in the frame. To be fair to Nic, the neighbour might have been naked. I don't know.

Anyway, all, I'm pretty tired now. Bizarrely, my foot is twitching, so I think it's time for me to sign off. But I do have YET more sewing to show you later in the week, so I'll check your bad selves then. Night!

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a good weekend. I'm currently huddled up under a hundred blankets again, as the weather has turned so disgusting. Boo! Naturally enough I'm still pining for and sewing for the warmer weather, so fingers crossed that this snow clears off soon.

I had a really lovely long weekend, having taken Friday and today as annual leave. I really needed this after having an exceptionally terrible and upsetting day at work on Thursday. I'll talk about that more in a future post because I feel like I need to get it out of my system, but at the same time I'm not ready to go into it yet. So the long weekend was especially welcome, and we had a reason to celebrate as well, as it was Nic's birthday.

I had a very lazy day on Friday, and just chilled out in the house and did some sewing. We only went out to get groceries and ingredients for baking Nic's birthday cake.

Vintage dress and bowler hat, Hard Hearted Harlot 'Reply' boots and satchel by Max C London

This is a wee bit different from my usual style, but I love this vintage dress. I bought it a few years ago in a vintage shop in Birmingham, and I have no idea when it dates from, but it's handmade. The hat came from the same shop, strangely enough, but on a different trip. Anyway - this is all very matchy-matchy as the black and taupe go with my gorgeous Max C satchel. The satchel was a gift from Fuse Fashion, who got in touch with me a few weeks ago and offered me something from their site to review. I was in the market for a new bag anyway, so this seemed to fit the bill.

I've been using the satchel pretty much constantly since I received it a couple of weeks ago - it's a pretty big bag, in fact it's bigger than I had realised from the product shot - so of course it's totally practical for my work bits and bobs. The push locks are cute but are a bit fiddly to get opened and closed, but at least that means that a pick-pocket would have trouble getting into the bag!

Strangely enough, the last time I wore this dress was exactly a month previously, on Friday 8th February:

Friday 8th February 2013 - vintage dress again, this time with neutral court shoes from Peacocks

I do always wonder about this dress, and why the person who made it gave it away. I mean, I'm glad they did because it fits me so perfectly! But I do always think about it when I wear it and how it feels to give away something that you have made.

Anyway, that's enough of me dribbling on for one evening. I'm pretty tired and I think that shows. I will be back later in the week though, hopefully able to show you some more of the weather-inappropriate things I've been sewing. See you then, my dears!

Disclosure: I was not paid to write this post, although I did receive the bag as a gift from Fuse Fashion. As ever, all opinions are honest and my own.

Hola loves! So, more sewing from me this evening. So far this year my sewing output has surprised even me - I think it's all part of my drive to improve my life overall by having fun and also because DER pretty dresses.

Continuing with 2013's unofficial theme of 'why buy when you can sew', this make is inspired by another dress I have seen elsewhere. A number of weeks ago I noticed Stef of Diversions (one of my favourite blogs to lurk, I think she's awesome) wearing a rather adorable frock from I Know by Isabel Knowles. I was immediately charmed by the fabric and I recognised it as Fox Hollow by Monaluna. Don't tell me that lurking around fabric websites won't teach you a thing or two. Now, it's not my intention to be grabbing money away from hard-working designers, but at £130 the Isabel Knowles dress was just too rich for my blood. I'm not saying that it's not worth it, far from it. If you don't sew you're getting a dress made to your measurements in gorgeous fabrics. But that's something I could do for myself for a fraction of the price. So that's what I did. I should say at the outset this isn't a copy, and it's not even inspired by in the way my faux Bernie Dexter dresses are! I just liked the fabric.

I bought the fabric from M is for Make and their customer service was brilliant. I emailed Kate to ask if she had enough of the fabric in stock for a dress, and she emailed back to say yes, but to warn me that the fabric had no drape to it. I knew that, and that this would be fine for what I wanted, but I appreciated her email all the same. It shows that she valued good customer service over making a sale! But getting the fabric was a bit of a saga as the parcel being mislabelled meant that it got lost in the post. Kate was great but I kind of gave up on the fabric ever showing up, but thankfully it did a couple of weeks later. Hurrah for my postie!

After the success of my Stay The Course dress, I did exactly the same thing with the Fox Hollow fabric. I reckon I could sew the bodice of Simplicity 2444 in my sleep now, so this came together very quickly. The only real difference this time was that I didn't give the dress such a deep hem, and hemmed it instead with some red bias binding, same as the armholes.

Hounds of Love dress - Simplicity 2444 with a gathered skirt, made from Monaluna 'Foxy Too' fabric and worn with Carvela Assemble shoes

I wore this on Saturday to the pub to celebrate Nic's birthday, and before it turned properly bitterly cold again. Sadly, I don't think this photo does this lovely dress justice because I was so cold that I'm not even standing up straight or anything! But I'm sure I'll get lots of photos of it again when the weather warms up a bit. The blue of the dress doesn't really go with the blue of the shoes, but I wanted to wear them because they're mental and fabulous, and also they're reeeeally high, so are easier to walk in after a few glasses of wine.

Slightly blurry bodice view - how cute are those little foxies?!

After some back and forth in my head about what to call the dress, I settled on Hounds of Love. I know they're foxes, not hounds. Hounds of Love is my favourite Kate Bush song and I was listening to the album on repeat while sewing this dress. One of the lines is sort of relevant...

I found a little fox, caught by dogs
He let me take him in my hand
His little heart, it beat so fast I'm ashamed of running away
from nothing real, I just can't deal with this
but I'm still afraid to be there...

The video for Hounds of Love is wonderful in the way that only a Kate Bush video can be. There's lots of seriously awesome dancing, and the video itself is a homage to The 39 Steps, with a bonus reference to Night of the Demon. So that's cool. And I have a big old crush on Kate Bush and she looks incredible in this video. Anyway, Hounds of Love is a song that always makes my heart leap with delight. I love Kate Bush and I don't care if y'all think that's lame. She's amazing.

I'm not throwing these shoes in no damn lake, Kate.

And I think this dress is awesome, too. I wore it to work today (with more sensible shoes) and the cute wee faces cheered me awfully. That's what it's all about for me, really.

I'm going to leave you here with another Kate Bush reference. My love of her music has been both tainted and enhanced by this. Enjoy.

Heathcliff! It's me! Cathy! Come home!

Sometimes the need for a sewing pattern creeps up on you. You start seeing versions of it here and there, find yourself returning to look at the line drawings and pondering possible fabrics. I think this is probably how most of my pattern decisions work. Sometimes it's love at first sight, and that's the case with me and the Elisalex pattern by By Hand London. Funnily enough, it wasn't the website itself that made me want the pattern, but seeing a version Rehanon made of it that she put on instagram over Christmas. Gurl looked good. I knew at some point, the Elisalex dress had to get got.

What tipped the whole thing over the edge was an email from Vicki Kate alerting me to a mega Michael Miller sale at Fabric.com. She knew I wanted some more Michael Miller Ahoy Matey fabric, and while I was there and the shipping was cheap, some Wing Song fabric made its way into my order too. And so my Elisalex plan was born!

I sewed this up on Monday, having made a toile of the bodice on Saturday morning. I was a bit cheaty and instead of doing a full on proper toile, used my lining fabric. The pattern envelope of the Elisalex dress says there's not a lot of ease in the bodice. I cut a 12 and decreased the seam allowances all very slightly to 4/8 rather than 5/8 and got the fit I was after. I sewed the main body of the dress on my day off on Monday. DAMN IT WAS COLD. Nic was teaching, so I had a full day to sew, but the flat was utterly freezing. I could see my breath in the air in front of me. So my hands were a bit numb. That said, the dress came together like a charm. It's rated intermediate and I think that's fair given the fact that it has sleeves, but the instructions are clear and I had no bother at all. I don't think I've ever sewed princess seams before, but they were fine, and the sleeves were honestly a delight to insert. I wasn't initially sure if I wanted sleeves, but when it came to cutting out the fabric it was so cold that I thought it'd be a good idea.

Enough gabbing though, you want to see the dress, right?

The Feckin Birds Elisalex dress and Vivienne Westwood for Melissa Lady Dragon shoes

I am so gutted it's such a dreary day - I really wanted some sunshine to show this off properly. Because, and I'm being serious now, this is genuinely my favourite dress I have ever sewed. I love all of my handmade clothes (to varying degrees but still) but there's something so special about this dress. It's the best dress I have made so far in my sewing career. I can't even put my finger on exactly what it is, but holy shit, you guys. THIS IS LOVE.

For one thing, I feel like an honest-to-god bombshell in it. The tulip skirt is a really exaggerated shape - enough room with those pleats to accommodate a burrito baby (gonna be one of those later) but with the most feminine hourglass shape. I guess this has everything I like in a dress in that it has a fitted bodice and a full skirt. Check out my walkaway as well. Hot damn:

(Baby Got) Back view

So naturally enough I am already mentally planning out another frajillion of these - like, there really needs to be a polka dot one (and I don't own anything that is royal blue polka dots) I think also the pattern would make a cracking wiggle dress with some slight adjustment to the skirt pieces - but that will take some thought, I guess. No hurry. But I know what I'm going to be doing with the lobster fabric that I was given at the Birmingham meet-up. Yes.

Feckin Birds Elisalex dress - bodice view

Bodice view - that wrinkle is only because I am leaning forward...

The bodice is especially lovely and I can see it being a good base for working with lots of different kinds of skirts. That said, I am so enamoured of the box pleats on this skirt that I'd really have to convince myself to move away from them. I think my favourite thing about the bodice though is the neckline scoop at the front and at the back. I don't like low-cut dresses especially, and this just shows enough skin to be alluring without me having to worry about my unruly bosoms getting in the way.

The bodice is lined, although the sleeves are not. I liked the method for finishing the bodice lining by catchstitching it down at the sleeves and the waistband. So here's a little glimpse of the innards:

Insides - I may sew quickly but I love finishing everything neatly inside all the same.

Sleeve hem catch-stitching

How fucking adorable is the label that comes with the pattern?! It has convinced me it's time to spring for some Handmade by Dolly Clackett labels at some point soon.

If you've maybe been on the fence about the dress, or you're thinking about it, BUY IT. The By Hand London girls are holding a Sewalong. You could even go for a Reversalex - a reversible one of these! Honestly, this pattern is solid gold. I really love it. The Elisalex dress and me are going to run away to Gretna Green and get married. You're all invited.

I HEART BY HAND LONDON

Oh, and the name of the dress? Well, I have a lot of dresses with birds on by this point. It just made me think of this:

Try Hanratty's Ear Clamps. Fully crow-resistant.

Hello! And now we're out the other side of another weekend, isn't that sad? I didn't manage to get ANY sewing done over the weekend apart from cutting out my next Elisalex dress, that is. It feels weird to have taken a weekend off my hobby, but it was good and it made me even more keen to get down to it this week. I'm terribly, pathetically excited about my next couple of sewing projects!

It was a really excellent weekend. I was working at home on Friday and I started the day in a real panic. I'm having an issue at work at the moment and I'm doing my best to get it resolved, but it is very stressful and work is making me really anxious as a result. Even though I was at home on Friday, the thought of work was making me sick with anxiety. A call from my lovely line manager helped make me feel better and I was able to get through the day, but I hate that this is happening and that I am feeling this way again. The big difference is that I'm really happy with my life outside of work, which is giving me the strength to get through my current situation, but I just wish it wasn't so hard.

All of that just makes it more important to enjoy the time when I'm not at work. When I finished for the day on Friday, Nic and I had a wonderful, relaxing evening. After going to the shop to buy tasty food and wine, I put henna in my hair, cooked dinner and we watched Jean Renoir's French Cancan. I've seen this film a few times but I never tire of it. The music is brilliant, the colours make it look like a painting by Toulouse-Lautrec, and Jean Gabin is just wonderful. It's also good as part of our pre-holiday Paris film festival.

On Saturday, we spent time cleaning the flat and grocery shopping, before putting the feet up for the afternoon. The weather was miserable, but luckily we missed the worst of it.

Limb Retro tea dress, Vivienne Westwood for Melissa Lady Dragon shoes and vintage handbag

I broke my shopping ban to buy this dress when I was in London last weekend. I don't even feel bad because it was a ridiculously good price and I love it. I couldn't make it for the price - the fabric alone would run me about £30. It's a little big so I had to make some adjustments, but I love it. Nic really loves it too, so of course that is a bonus!

You see what I'm saying though, about having a buttload of dresses with birds on? I know I like to work with a theme and all, but still. But you see why I bought this, yeah?

On Saturday night, we went to our friend Greg's house for a party. I took my Feckin Birds dress out for a spin, and I backcombed my hair as high as I could get it to go. I felt awesome:

We had an amazing night of drinking and dancing. The dress held up to me shaking my stuff on top of the furniture, and I'm proud of that. The night in general was pretty cathartic - I suppose something in me really needed to get drunk and dance all night.

This lovely photo of me and Nic was taken by my friend Hayles. This was before the dancing all kicked off. We took our tired selves home at dawn. It was cool and weird to see the streetlights switch off, but it was good to see the sun come up. My cousin said to me on instagram - "It's good to party til the cows come home, and then party with the cows." My cousin is awesome.

The weir at dawn

As I said, no sewing was accomplished yesterday. I only got out of bed to have a shower, put on clean pyjamas and watch Star Trek: First Contact. Having a hangover sucks, but that's the cost of doing business. And First Contact is a great hangover movie, just so you know.

So, yeah. SNOW. Not impressed. Not impressed at all.

I hope this Friday evening finds everybody well. I'm grand, if cold. I'm bloody glad to have got to the weekend. I had a brilliant time last weekend what with all the drinking and the dancing, but I'm not so young anymore and it took me most of the week to get over it!

It has been a much better week though, despite the shitty weather. I managed to get that work situation that was bugging me out resolved, and that's a massive relief. I don't want to get into it too much here, but things are a lot better. The job itself still sucks, but at least that problem has been sorted out.

I wasn't in work on Wednesday and spent the day sewing (lobster Elisalex, when it stops snowing I'll get her on and model her for you) and saw my friends Dr. Hannah, Dr. Hayley and Dr. Lauren for coffee and a potter in town. Sadly it was too cold to take my coat off, so I couldn't show off my new dress to them, but I did get Nic to take some photos of me before I turned blue!

As you might know, I'm hopefully going to be teaching dressmaking at Berylune in a few weeks' time. I'm not sure how sales are going, but I rather suspect that the 'orrible weather makes sewing a summer dress less than appealing. Still, it can't stay like this forever so if you're local and you fancy giving it a go, you can book onto the course here. You could learn how to make a Colette Hazel dress, and even give it a little variation like this:

Etoile dress - Colette Patterns Hazel dress

This is my fourth Hazel dress and with the others, I stuck pretty closely to the pattern. However, as you might have observed, I am a sucker for a full skirt. A few weeks ago Tasia of Sewaholic sewed up a Hazel with a fuller skirt and I thought "Yessss! I need this!" I had this pink star-print cotton that I had bought a few days earlier while chatting up the owner of my local fabric store, Royal Fabrics, and it fit the bill perfectly.

This modification is ridiculously easy to do. Tasia cut the skirt pieces for the largest size, but I went with my own gathered skirt method, which is just using a dirndl. I cut the front piece the full width of my 45 inch fabric and the two back pieces half that width each. Simple.

Bodice view...

As I'm going to be teaching this, I decided to otherwise stick with the pattern instructions so I did not line the bodice. Usually I don't much enjoy faffing around with facings, but of course Colette instructions are so clear and simple that it's all very easy. I didn't put pockets in the skirt, although I had them cut out. I'm not sure why, I just decided I wasn't feeling pockets so gave them a swerve this time. The only other modification I made was to insert a lapped zipper rather than a concealed one, and I plan in my class to show my students how to do this too, if they like.

I was so taken with how Tasia's Hazel looked with a belt that I pulled out this blue belt that came with an Emily and Fin dress and I think it looks pretty neat! The waist in this dress has a fair bit of ease, which will be nice when it's lounging on the grass in the park kind of weather, but for now I wanted something with a bit more shape.

I'm pretty tough, but not tough enough to be dandering round like this all day so one of my million cardigans came to the rescue:

I'll probably still be wearing this dress with this cardigan come July, damn British weather!

It sounds a bit silly but until I saw Tasia's post, I hadn't considered adding a fuller skirt to the Hazel bodice, but I am really pleased with how it looks. It's partly the super twee fabric, but I think this dress is ridiculously cute. I'm looking forward to being able to wear it in warmer weather with these rather ridiculous sunglasses I bought on Wednesday:

WORK IT

Yes, I know there are five-year olds who would deem those sunglasses too immature. But I love them. Sadly, I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to wear them because:

There are no words for how unimpressed I am right now

So, yeah. The weather really needs to start playing ball because I'm really not into sewing winter stuff. HELL NO.

We're having some friends to stay this weekend and I need to bake them a cake. So I'm away to do that. Stay warm, everyone!

Oh yeah, and Google Reader blah blah Bloglovin...

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Hola pups! So, after prancing around last Wednesday in my lovely summery Hazel dress, the weekend looked like this:

Kenilworth Castle - Nic took this photo, isn't it lovely?

You could be forgiven for thinking I'd moved to Narnia, but no. (For real, I'm not sure I could find my way to the back of my wardrobe, so...) I know it's the same for most of you guys too so I'll try not to complain. The reason we were in Kenilworth was our friends JP and Han were visiting over the weekend and we thought it would be a fun outing. It turned out to be closed, so we went to the pub instead. Thankfully it was still open.

Anyway, I really have had my fill of this cold weather, so I'm going to show you an outfit shot from February when I was still hopeful that spring might be around the corner and that there was no such thing as ENDLESS WINTER.

Sunday 17th February 2013 - Ruby Belle Amsterdam dress, red cardigan from a local boutique and Topshop Lacrosse sandals

Remember the SUN? Remember open-toed shoes? Remember not wearing 73 layers IN THE HOUSE? No. Me neither.

But I do remember this day when I wore this pretty dress that's one of my spring favourites, and wore these Topshop shoes that I bought on ebay before Christmas. I also remember managing to miss my mouth when drinking a mug of coffee and spilling coffee all down the front of this gorgeous dress. I'm a spiller, what can I say? I had to take it off as soon as I got home and put it through a cold wash. Luckily for me, the people at Vanish got in touch with me and offered to send me some Vanish to test out.

Now honestly, I hate sponsored posts where the review product is being crow-barred in, but I genuinely am a spiller. I wore my new Limb dress to work last Tuesday for a big scary meeting and ending up doing my coffee trick again and getting it all down the front of my dress. I had to mop up the coffee stains with my scarf! Classy as always, me. I put the dress and scarf in the wash when I got home with a scoopful of the Oxi Stain Removal stuff in along with my washing powder and it came right out. I am a demon for dropping things - when Nic and I first started going out with each other I managed to drop chocolate down my pyjama top when we were eating breakfast and somehow ended up with chocolate on my bum. I am no Audrey Hepburn, safe to say. So the opportunity to sample the stain removal powder was very much appreciated and I have been using a scoop in every wash since - to catch the stains I haven't even been aware I've been making!

Anyway, now it's time for me to go because dinner is ready. Mashed potato doesn't stain, does it?

Disclosure: I was not paid for this post, but I was sent some Vanish Oxi Action to review. All opinions are my own, and expressed as classily as ever.

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you're all having a great long weekend. I'm having a lovely time, doing very little other than spending time with Nic, doing a bit of sewing, and watching DVDs. After a very tiring couple of weeks, it's really good to have some time to just rest and do things at my own pace. Seeing some blue sky has also helped a lot, of course.

The particular bit of the public sector I work in means I get an extra half day on Maundy Thursday. I worked from home in the morning and was up extra early for a meeting with Australian colleagues. This was fine, and it meant I could knock off a little bit early and spend the afternoon hanging out with Nic. We went to Kayal for Business Lunch and had a walk in town. It was finally my chance to wear a dress I made when it was still snowing - hurrah!

The Lobsterlex dress - another By Hand London Elisalex dress, worn with Vivienne Westwood for Melissa Lady Dragon pompom shoes

Now, I love a loud print. That's pretty clear. So, when I saw Karen's lobster print Hazel dress and Adrienne's lobster shirtdress last year, this fabric went firmly onto my wishlist. Lobsters kind of freak me out, to be honest. I don't have a phobia of them but kind of a morbid fascination - the lobsters and the crabs are the creatures I spent longest looking at when I went to Birmingham Sea Life Centre a few years ago. I'm kind of the same with insects - to me, they're basically aliens, you know? The other thing this fabric reminded me of was this awesome Charlotte Taylor 'Fire Ants' dress from a few seasons ago:

You can see the excellent Megan looking fabulous in that dress here. If I ever see this dress for a reasonable price on ebay I'll buy it. I probably won't though because it's from Anthro, and it's silk, both factors putting it beyond what I'm willing to pay for it. Anyway, the lobsters, right? So, at the Birmingham meetup and swap in November, Marie pulled the lobster fabric out and I was aaaaaaalll over that like a pigeon on sick. Can I just say that I love Marie? I think she's amazing, and not just because she gave me lobster fabric and because she looks like Kate Bush. She's just brilliant.

The fabric sat in my stash since then and I knew when the Elisalex pattern was delivered into my hot little hands it would be a perfect match. I had initially planned to make this dress before the Feckin Birds dress, but I got carried away with the Michael Miller fabric and lobsters took a back seat. It is the perfect fabric for this pattern though. There's a very slight stretch in it, which makes the bodice super comfortable, but it has very little drape so the skirt pleats sit beautifully.

It was dark on Thursday, so the flash went off in the first photo. Anyway, this one is without the flash.

I cut the skirt pieces shorter this time round as I had to cut about a mile off the skirt of the Feckin Birds dress. Still, I gave this dress more of a midi-length skirt than the last one and I like that. I still think I want to make one with the skirt just above my knee though, I have this vision that it will look really tulip-shaped. I just need to wait for the right fabric to come along. It will.

For some reason I found this dress slightly less fun to sew than my first one. This is nothing to do with the pattern, which is still my wife, but maybe more to do with the fact that I sewed it while feeling really tired and a bit stressed. So I had to unpick and resew one of the sleeves and re-do the pleats on the skirt. Nothing major and to be fair, it didn't make me feel stressed or anything, but I suppose it's funny the way that can happen. I do love the dress though, and it's honestly one of the most eccentric things I have ever made or worn. I like that, though. For me, that's one of the big attractions of sewing. Perhaps fortunately for me, Nic not only tolerates this gentle eccentricity but encourages it. He was inordinately pleased with the lobster fabric.

I can't remember why I was doing this face, but this is what I look like most of the time.

Anyway, I like it. It's surreal and the lobsters themselves are pretty horrible and creepy - their antennae are freakishly long. It made a small child stare at me for my whole meal in Kayal. But I'm going to wear it to work next week. Because, fuck it, why not.

Kayal's speciality is seafood. I don't eat fish, though.

So, I'm off to watch more season 2 episodes of The West Wing and think about how much I love Toby (I would seriously marry Toby Ziegler, the grumpy beardy git) and shout 'SHUT UP DONNA' at the TV repeatedly. Because seriously, Donna. Shut up. Be more like Margaret. Also, SHUT UP, SAM.

I've been sewing lots, so check back in soon. Happy Easter everyone!

p.s. I know Sebastian is a crab and not a lobster but...

Hey! So, I'm pretty happy to have reached another weekend, but I've spent today feeling pretty rough. I've had a cold and sinusitis all week and it got the better of me today, so I have spent it in my pyjamas and mainly asleep. GOOD TIMES.

Anyway, I'm fine and I'm sure a day of enforced rest will make me feel better. I hope so, because I'm off to London tomorrow with Nic, as he is giving a talk at the National Jazz Archive and a wee day out in London is always fun. So I'm taking it extra easy today to be on the safe side.

Our last wee day out was last Saturday, when we went over to Birmingham to a screening at the Electric Cinema that was part of the Flatpack Festival. They were screening 1971 Doctor Who serial The Mind of Evil, which I had never seen before, and which has just been fully restored. It's been ages since I've been to Birmingham, in fact I think the last time was in November for Marie and Kat's meetup. That's pretty silly because it's the nearest big city to us, and home to the weird and wonderful Rag Market and the just plain wonderful Fancy Silk Stores.

The screening was starting at 1, so we took the train over early to have time for me to do some fabric shopping and have a look around Selfridges in the Bullring (an activity I used to love, but not so much these days) and for Nic to buy some comics in Nostalgia and Comics. I took the new dress I spent Good Friday sewing out on the road...

Come Sail Away dress - By Hand London Elisalex bodice with a gathered skirt, made with Michael Miller Ship Shape fabric

Pairing the bodice of Elisalex with a gathered skirt had to be done, and it seemed to me to be the perfect way to use this beautiful Michael Miller fabric I bought at Fabric.com earlier this year. The orange of this fabric is pretty bright - even more so than the picture suggests - but I still found it impossible to resist. I already have an orange dress with boats on it, if you can believe that...

Ruby Belle Photograph Beach dress

So, you know, this wasn't about filling a wardrobe gap. No, the opposite, my logic here was "If you wear one orange dress with boats on, I bet you'd wear another" so, yeah.

Nothing much to say about the construction of the dress, it was all lovely and smooth and fun to sew. I went for the shorter sleeves and I think they look a bit dorky, to be honest, but I like them all the same. After wearing the dress round Birmingham all day, I decided also to take it up a couple of inches so now it hits me just below the knee, which is much more flattering. I like dresses that are a wee bit longer, but something about this felt a bit too 80s Laura Ashley for my comfort.

WOMAN LAUGHING ALONE WITH STEAM TRAIN

I did want to wear the dress with blue shoes, but all my pale blue shoes are open toed so instead I opted for Refreshers Chic. These pink Topshop shoes are so comfortable and cute, and I do like the clashing effect. Anyway, I think my next Elisalex modification will involve adding a circle skirt into the mix... I just need to find the perfect fabric!

We had a great day in Birmingham. I enjoyed acting the dick at beautiful Moor Street station to have these photos taken (many commuters understandably giving me side-eye) and I stocked up on haberdashery and a few bits of fabric in the market. The screening of Mind of Evil was excellent - The Electric is one of the oldest working cinemas in the country and it's really lovely, the serial itself was great (you can read a hilarious write-up of it at Wife in Space, but they saw it in black and white) and it was fun to see it in a room full of Doctor Who fans, and with many cups of coffee and a blanket (I brought the blanket with me. I always get cold in the cinema.)

Now it's time for me to do some more reading and napping. But I'll be back before long. Have a happy weekend, everyone!

PS, 'Come Sail Away', if you're wondering...

It’s been a while since I blogged about TV, but last week saw the broadcast of a series that I was very excited about watching.

I’m not actually talking about The Great British Sewing Bee (no disrespect, though. I just can’t handle these competition style shows.) No, I’m talking about the third series of ITV police procedural drama, Scott and Bailey. Over the course of the first two series, I went from being cautiously pleased with it to being an actual fan, so I was super excited when series 3 began last Wednesday night on ITV. I’ve actually written about the show before, and if you’d like to read my review of the first series you can here.

Weirdly over-saturated picture. Janet never wears coats this nice in the show, either.

I thoroughly enjoyed series 2 of Scott and Bailey, despite a few reservations about some of the plotting. The final episode ended on a weird note of surprise as Rachel went to a country pub to meet her estranged mum, whose identity wasn’t revealed to the audience. It turns out that, sadly, Rachel’s mum is not actually Nicholas Gleaves in a dress. This is what Nic and I predicted and hoped for following Andy getting the boot from MIT, but I suppose you can’t have everything. The other slightly irritating, but more understandable plot point was Rachel agreeing to marry Pound Shop Robbie Williams, also known as Sean Maguire. His character, also called Sean, is SERIOUSLY boring.

Character name same as actor name - clearly there is a reason for this. BRAINIAC ALERT.

So, it was interesting that the first episode of series 3 opens on Gill Murray being attacked in her car after leaving the Costco carpark. This is setting up something for the rest of the series as the identity of the attacker and the outcome of the attack aren’t shown – instead we go back to 8 months earlier, which is presumably shortly after the end of the second series. Now, I enjoyed this scene with Gill because I really like a bit of WTF in this kind of show. I’m going to enjoy figuring out who it could be, and why they felt moved to attack her. Right now I think the motive could be that the attacker objected to Gill’s wispy fringe, because I know I did.

This episode also did a bit of setting up on behalf of the other characters. This is something Scott and Bailey is good at – giving you enough shorthand that you can build up a picture of what’s going on for each character. So we learned that Chubby Bob – Pete Readyough – has got some mysterious beef with Rachel, but we don’t know what yet. We learned that, understandably, Janet is getting pissed off at doing Andy’s job without being paid to do it (I FEEL YOU BRO). We learned that poor old Kevin failed his sergeant’s exam and is at risk of getting the boot from MIT unless he starts to impress Gill. We didn’t learn anything about Baldy Mitch or Lee, but maybe we will in episode 2. Oh and we also re-learned stuff that we already know in that Sean is a boring bellend and well below Rachel’s consideration, and that Rachel hates her mum. Also, we've learned that overall everyone's hair is better in this episode. Rachel was having a shitty time in the second series and this was reflected in her hair. I'm curious to see if this trend continues.

The crime itself was standard Scott and Bailey fare. Nic and I were really thrilled and amused by the synopsis on the ITV player, which read: “Rachel struggles to adjust to living with Sean. Admitting their marriage is over, Janet and Ade put their house on the market. Then Janet discovers a severed head at a crime scene.” I mean, how could you fail to be excited by a synopsis like that?! This is pretty usual for Scott and Bailey– a gruesome death with a weird twist, and some horrible abuse thrown into the mix for fun. It’s in the crimes that Scott and Bailey feels at its most ITV drama-esque, although in fairness I suppose Inspector Morse and Sherlock had their own fair share of weird crimes too. I must admit, the lurid nature of the crimes does add to my overall enjoyment of the show even if it means that it sits weirdly with the otherwise naturalistic feeling of the show.

Rachel interrogates Helen Bartlett. But what is Chubby Bob's beef? That's what I want to know!

On first watch, I was a little bit surprised by the crime. Well, not by the crime. It was obvious as soon as George Costigan made an appearance that he was up to something. Rather, I was surprised by the (relatively) circumspect way in which the show handed the abuse storyline. However, on a second watch the degree to which Rachel both sympathised with and seemed to even identify with Helen Bartlett made me think that this episode was setting up something for a future episode. Indeed, Scott and Bailey on the whole seems to be interested in bad or disinterested or even just ineffective mothers, and this certainly chimes with Rachel’s experience of allowing her mother back into her life. This is something that sits a bit strangely with me, if I’m honest. I’m a little bit uncomfortable with the idea that it might go down the route of BAD MOTHERS ARE BAD. But there again, it might not.

What this episode did, and what Scott and Bailey has always been good at, is allow Janet and Rachel to be good at their jobs. I always enjoy the scenes in the interview room because this style of dialogue is unique to Scott and Bailey. You get to see the methodical way the detective approaches the task of gleaning information from the suspect, and this was true in Rachel's sensitive and thorough interrogation of Helen.

I’m interested to see where the series progresses. The teaser for episode 2 shows a return to the death of Nick Savage, and it looks as though Rachel is going to be investigated again for that. YAWN. That was one aspect of series 2 that I disliked because the whole thing was so completely implausible and the scenes with Sally Lindsay were a shocking waste of her considerable talent. Still, I think the show will continue to be interesting and entertaining. Even when Scott and Bailey isn’t at its best, it is consistently well-written and engaging. So, check back next week for my post about episode 2.

Scott and Bailey is broadcast at 9pm, Wednesday night, ITV 1.

Right, so you have had my thoughts on Scott and Bailey, so time to get back to my regularly scheduled programming! The last few weeks seem to have sped by in a bit of a blur as I’ve been busy at work, and have had busy weekends as well. I can’t believe how quickly this year is speeding by, and how soon our holiday to Paris is – just over two weeks away now! As I did last year when we went to Florida, I’m sort of trying not to think about it too much so I don’t build myself up into a frenzy of excitement that makes everyday life unbearable, but it’s not working just as well. To the extent that I bought yet more Michael Miller Eiffel Tower fabric over the weekend. Because, come on, I only have eleventy Eiffel Tower dresses. I clearly need that figure to reach eleventy one. Obvs. I’m an idiot, but at least I’m an idiot with pretty clothes, right?!

And although I’m looking out the window at yet another overcast sky, at least the weather is starting to improve enough that these pretty clothes are getting a proper airing. Today I was able to wear my spring coat and everything. I had cold hands, like, but nothing a cup of coffee couldn’t solve when I got into the office!

I woke up to sunshine on Good Friday, although it was still bloody freezing and the sun had gone in by the time I was ready to go out. BUT STILL.

Friday 29th March 2013 - Stephanie Cambie dress and Poetic Licence The Right Stripe shoes

It has been ages since I’ve been able to wear this dress! It still has a glue stain on the skirt, though, which is a shame. As you can see, I’m going to wear it anyway and I don’t think anyone would be able to notice the glue stain unless I pointed it out? I think this ensemble is a lot of look what with the gingham and the stripes and the cherries on the shoes, but I like it. I’m just glad to find things to wear with these shoes because they’re both comfortable and fairly ridiculous. When I was in London on Saturday I saw the new season designs of these, which were a strange combination of raffia and glitter – in true Irregular Choice style, and they were beautiful. Maybe I can get them on sale.

I was a bit chilly on Good Friday but I find gingham to be a great mood lifter. I haven’t overcome my gingham fixation from last summer and there are definitely more gingham dresses on my horizon for this summer – another red gingham dress of some sort, and I never did get around to making a lilac one! I will, though. In fact the more I think about it, the more enticing a lovely lilac gingham dress becomes. Purrrrrr…

I woke up to sunshine again on Sunday and it was the first day for ages when I could forget about tights and wear open toed shoes! I know having so many open toed shoes in this climate is probably a bit foolish, but whatever. I had given myself a wee pedicure on Friday evening as a way to cheer myself up when I was feeling ill, so I was pretty pleased to be able to dig out some summery shoes. It was cool in the shade, but it did make me happy.

Sunday 7th April 2013 - Hounds of Love dress and Irregular Choice Mermaid shoes

I think this dress looks awesome with a petticoat underneath it, although looking at these photos has made me decide that I definitely need to buy a red one at some point. That’s all there is to say really about this outfit except that my red Irregular Choice shoes are among my favourites because they go with everything, and I was so happy to be able to show the cute little foxes on this dress some sunshine!

One of the nice things about stepping my sewing up a gear this year has been that it’s made me much more keen to wear my handmade clothes on a regular basis. My sewing might seem a bit repetitive – like, oh wow, ANOTHER printed dress with a full skirt SNORE – but I really know what my style is now, and what makes me tick, and I’m achieving this in my handmade wardrobe. It feels good, and it keeps me going back to my sewing table, and that’s good too. I’ve had a bit of a break – last weekend was the first weekend all year where I haven’t had my sewing machine out – but I feel like it was needed. I have fabric cut out for my next project, that Eiffel Tower fabric on its way to me, and I’ve booked Friday off to indulge myself. It’s a good feeling.

So, with all that in mind, I have decided to sign up for Me Made May 2013

I hesitantly signed up last year, fearing that my handmade wardrobe wouldn't get me through the month. I pledged to wear at least two handmade garments a week and to sew at least two more, and I far surpassed that and thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience, so I'm keen to do it again! I honestly credit taking part in Me Made May 2012 with getting me excited again about sewing a fabulous wardrobe. Here's my pledge for this year...

I, Roisin of But It Can't Be From Dolly Clackett, She Gave Me an Easter Egg!, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '13. I endeavour to wear one handmade dress each day for the duration of May 2013, with no repeats. In addition, I pledge to sew at least two more garments during the course of the month.

I'm super excited about it, partly because the first few days of the challenge are when I'm going to be in Paris, so I think I'm going to get the month off to a chic start. I'll have to try to make the photos in the rather less glamorous locations of Coventry and Leamington Spa more interesting, somehow!

You can read more about the challenge at So, Zo, and read the other Me Made May-ers' pledges there, too.

Now, it's nearly time for me to head out to the chippy for a little Tuesday treat. Catch you all later!

You know sometimes there are dresses that you get a bit obsessed with? Well, this is me and most of Bernie Dexter’s range. This isn’t as financially harmful as it could be because, as we have seen, the dresses aren’t desperately difficult to recreate as she often uses fabric that the likes of me and you can find and buy.

One of her dresses that is high on my wishlist is this one…

I’m not sure what the proper name for it is as Modcloth give everything these cutesy names, but on their site it’s the What A Dahlia dress. You never know, at some point I might just cave in and buy it because it’s adorable and I have, as yet, been unable to track down the fabric. But I did come close – this Anna Maria Horner cotton isn’t immediately similar, I grant you, but it does have a recurring graphic flower motif. I love the colour, but my heart is still yearning for the deep red of the Bernie Dexter fabric.

Anyway, I pinned this fabric and got on with my life until a few weeks ago, when the lovely Vicki Kate sent me a voucher to spend at Fancy Moon! I dithered for a bit – I’m not great at buying fabric without a plan – and then bought 2.5 metres of the Anna Maria Horner. I thought, why not. When it arrived I spent a bit of time trying to figure out what to do with it, and then both Cynthia of Dapper Duds and Sinje of Strich und Faden’s awesome Cambie dresses popped up on my radar and BAM! That was it. Cambie is my girl, and with another make I was clocking up my 6th one. And I’m not even done yet, and I don’t care. At this rate my wardrobe may end up being just Cambies and Elisalexes, right?

Anyway, yeah. I got down to sewing on Easter Monday afternoon. I know what I’m doing with the Cambie dress so despite the fact that it is fully lined so there’s a lot of skirt to gather and to hem, I was able to make this in around four or five hours that afternoon. I do love this pattern quite a ridiculous amount and there’s a very good reason why I have made it so many times – it’s a lovely one to sew and to wear.

Saturday 6th April 2013 - Flood Meadow Cambie dress and Irregular Choice Swallow shoes

I wore it for the first time on Saturday for a day out in London with Nic, who was speaking at the National Jazz Archive. It was grey and dull when we left Leamington so these photos were taken in Dorset Square, which is just around the corner from Marylebone station. I love this little square because as well as being pretty, it’s home to two blue plaques for writers whose work I admire – one for George Grossmith, and one for Dodie Smith. I’m a bit crumpled from being on the train, but check out this new front step action! I only wish my usual front step was this fancy.

As usual, I cut the pattern in a straight size 8, and the dress is lined with some more of that bright pink cotton I have lined all of my recent dresses with. It started life as a 100% cotton flat sheet that I bought (brand new, in the packet) from a charity shop for a whole pound, and it has lined four dresses. Pretty neat, eh?! The only changes I made to the pattern were to use a lapped zip instead of an invisible one – I learned this the hard way after my Cowgirl Cambie stresses, and also I just prefer the way they look. I also omitted the pockets. I did this with the full-skirted Hazel dress I made a few weeks ago too. I love the idea of pockets, and I’m glad to be able to make dresses with them in, but I find I just don’t use them. I’m not really a hands in pockets kind of girl, and I always have a bag with me. That’s obviously not to say I won’t ever put pockets into a dress again because I think they are a nice design feature, but I didn’t this time.

I’m really pleased with this make, particularly the skirt. The fabric has a bit of drape to it, but not much, and this works well with a full gathered skirt – it holds that bell shape really nicely even without a petticoat underneath, and that's partly to do with the fact that the skirt is fully lined and has quite a deep hem. I love how the lapped zipper looks and, as always, one of the great things about the Cambie pattern is how nicely it is finished on the inside. Yes, even after 6 of these I'm still looking forward to sewing more!

A little back view - wrinkles are mostly train-related

The fabric I chose is called 'Field Study Cell Structure' but I named this dress Flood Meadow. Nic and I had a long walk on Easter Sunday morning and were surprised to find one of our favourite fields almost totally under water, despite it having been pretty dry recently. Anyway, apparently it's meant to flood, and it's a wildlife reserve, and that's called a Flood Meadow. The name stuck with me!

This dress was just the thing for a wee day out in London, as were the shoes. The National Jazz Archive is always lovely to visit, and Nic's talk went extremely well. Afterwards we headed back into central London for dinner in Soho and to enjoy the sunshine. It was a glorious spring day, and I couldn't help but feel happy and hopeful. This helped:

Meet Thor...

...but you already knew I was Wonder Woman, right?!

I have tomorrow off work and so a nice long weekend of sewing and sleeping and socialising ahead - just what the doctor ordered after a busy week at work. So, I'm off to get that started with a glass of wine.

So, it all got a bit clever in this week’s Scott and Bailey, I must say. It was a bit Scott and Bailey does The Usual Suspects, if you like, as the episode played with its own internal timeline as well as with the timeline of the final episode of series 2. It did this fairly successfully, I think, and it’s admirable that the writers were keen to try something new with the format. When I saw the teaser for this episode, I did a massive groan at the idea of Nick Savage’s murder being reintroduced, but I mostly take that back. It was fine.

So, what happened? Well, the episode jumped around in time, starting with Janet, Rachel and the rest of Syndicate 9 knocking on a skel’s door to track him down. He wasn’t at home, and this gave the episode a loose structure as Janet and Rachel drove round Manchester trying to catch up with this poor sad sack who accidentally murdered a tramp by pushing him over. I think that following Crimer Show on twitter has actually sort of ruined me for crime shows, because I found it a bit irritating that this was the only crime in this episode, and it didn’t involve melk or anamoles. This episode, despite its whizzy format and its setting, was much more like an episode of a soap opera than anything else because it was largely about feelings. I appreciated knowing more about Rachel, but the episode did feel a bit overbalanced as a result.

Rachel confesses to Janet that she picked up some saddo and took him back to a hotel room for a boink and, surprise surprise, she’s not happy in her marriage to dickhead Sean and she married him for all the wrong reasons, at which point we cut back to 12 months earlier. Back to the scene where Rachel confronts Dom to tell him that Nick Savage has died, and lets him go. That’s all we see in the first go-around, but what this episode shows us is Rachel calling it in, and having Dom arrested. Having watched the episode twice now, I can’t decide if this was reshot afterwards or shot at the time, because Rachel’s hair looks A LOT better. But it’s good, and it makes more sense given that Rachel knows that he would be caught eventually.

The men in Rachel's life are dickheads.

Having turned Dom in, and given her statement, Rachel gives Gill the fingers over the phone when she can’t come straight back to work. This bit made me laugh in recognition. I’ve given people the fingers over the phone plenty of times before. Poor old Rachel finds herself getting arrested on suspicion of murder after Dom says that she put him up to it, and you know, things aren’t good. Rachel consults with Janet over what to do and this scene made me laugh, a lot. When I first started watching the show I disliked Janet, and I disliked Lesley Sharp, but I found myself really warming to both the character and the actor as the show progressed. This scene reminded me why I didn’t like the character. It’s not that Janet is unsympathetic to Rachel, but she’s almost totally emotionless and even pretty judgemental. With that said, I liked the scene because you don’t really see this kind of friendship on TV usually, so this is quite refreshing. Still though, Janet. A smile wouldn’t kill you! Also, this scene made me take back what I said last week about everyone’s hair looking better this series because, hot damn, Janet’s hair was bad. Wispy and crispy and just BAD. And this isn’t even the worst it looks during the episode.

Anyway, Rachel decides she’s going to meet her mum after all, and again we see her telling Sean she’s going to marry him, and then we see her in the pub with the mum who is not Nicholas Gleaves in a dress. I’m still a bit upset about that. Anyway, I won’t recap the conversation except to say that I think Suranne Jones is just brilliant. She’s hilarious, and she’s still as scary as she was when she was Karen in Coronation Street. In this scene she was brilliant at expressing irritation and attempted contempt and nervousness and vulnerability in a sniff. Just as she identified with the daughter of a bad mother in the previous episode, she was clearly able to empathise with her mother’s reasons for leaving them when she was a child.

Rachel meets her sister Alison to discuss her arrest, and the meeting with their mother. Hilariously, Alison fears Rachel’s flat has been bugged so they go to sit outside at a pub to discuss things. This bit made Nic snort, saying “I love going to sit outside at a pub in the freezing cold and not buy anything.” Like, come on, it’s meant to be March in Manchester! Anyway, Alison is dismissive of their mother’s claims that she has changed, but she agrees to be Rachel’s “Best Woman or whatever” so it’s ALL GOOD.

By this point in the episode I think it was starting to feel a bit weird – we had a few cuts to the action happening in the present, which all felt a bit perfunctory. You get a bit of Rachel ranting about how the CPS will probably drop the case, and then we’re back in the past and learning that the CPS are dropping the case. But whoops, there’s going to be a disciplinary hearing and maybe she’s going to lose her job because, while a court case has to determine guilt beyond reasonable doubt, one of these things can do whatever they want. Rachel goes into wedding planning mode, trying on a gorgeous and classy dress that makes Alison angry because it’s plain. Janet is once again totally disinterested all “It’s a bit plain but it’s fine do what you want FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP TALKING TO ME” Anyway, then it’s time for her hearing and Gill says nice things about her in a very angry way and then Rachel is wearing a sparkly vest top and dancing with Sean in a disco. So, yay?

Back to the present and Rachel is saying to Janet that her shag in a hotel wasn’t even that good, and that she really knew on the morning of the wedding that she shouldn’t be marrying Sean but she thought that was how you were supposed to feel. We see Rachel and Sean in bed, and it’s raining, and Sean is being a goon with the brainwave of putting a kilt on Kevin. Then Rachel is getting ready with Alison and Janet. Alison’s hair looks immense in a great big backcombed bob and an ugly fascinator, but she looks brilliant. Poor old Lesley Sharp – they have Janet in a disgusting cobalt blue lace dress with a sad crunchy top knot with bits hanging down – think Denise Royle on the morning of her wedding but less stylish – and so much black eyeliner I wanted to reach through the screen and smack the kohl pencil out of her hand. Lesley Sharp is really attractive, but the whole thing made her look like Skeletor and that made me a sad panda. Rachel is expressing concern, the two married women in the room are telling her it’ll be fine and Janet is babbling about making a commitment in the least convincing display of support ever. Poor Rachel.

This photo isn't from the show, but of Lesley Sharp and Suranne Jones when they were on BBC Breakfast or something. Anyway, this top knot is basically what I described, but it looks fine. Imagine this but 72 times shitter. Then you've got it.

The wedding is in some grubby pub, Sean looks like a bellend in his kilt and Rachel’s mum is comprehensively embarrassing on the karaoke, ending by flashing her bra while Baldy Mitch, Chubby Bob and friends cheer. Future Rachel tells Janet that she spent her whole life trying to get away from that shitty, grubby scene and now she’s put herself right back in it, and it feels like it. Her resignation is palpable. While she is thanking Gill for speaking up for her at the hearing, Sean is mooning everyone on the dancefloor. It’s genuinely dispiriting. Meanwhile, boring old Ade – who looks even MORE like Father Dougal than usual, it must be the suit – gives Janet the elbow. I can’t blame him. I couldn’t live with that hair either. She reacts to this with as much emotion as she did to Rachel’s wedding dress. Is Janet secretly on Prozac?

Alison I love your hair and your angry, angry face.

Still though, we do find out why Chubby Bob is beefing with Rachel – or we get some clue anyway. On leaving, Gill hears some grunting in the carpark and, grabbing her flashlight, catches Chubby Bob giving one to Rachel’s mum on the bonnet of a parked car. It is so grim, you guys. Gill is raging – she chases Sharon away, hilariously calling her Tina Turner like that’s a term of abuse, and then giving old Chubby Bob a talking to. He’s up in her office first thing on Monday morning, so he’s in trouble. Understandably, Gill didn’t see the funny side.

Ewww, Chubby Bob. You don't know where she's been!

So, Rachel and Janet arrest the estate agent, and when he says he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, Rachel says “join the club, mate.” Fair play.

On balance, I enjoyed this episode. I’m sad there wasn’t more of the rest of the team, and I’m definitely disappointed in the lack of crimes (CRIMERRRRRRRR) Janet seemed to be on some sort of mind-holiday in this episode, too, which is maybe why it felt so flat. She was phoning it in. Still, though – I liked the attempt at a different format, and I just love Suranne Jones so I’d be happy to watch a whole 45 minutes of just her facial expressions, so I enjoyed this.

Lovely, lovely Suranne Jones

NEXT WEEK ON SCOTT AND BAILEY: Chubby Bob is on thin ice. Rachel’s shag bandit phones her up. Sean is suspicious. I didn't know you can get suspicious with only three brain cells. And the guest star is only Doctor Laura Bloody Hobson of Morse and Lewis fame – YESSS! See you then, crime fans!

Scott and Bailey is broadcast on ITV at 9pm on Wednesday.

I took the day off last Friday to spend the day sewing, which is what I did. It was lovely – I had a lie in and breakfast in bed in the sunshine before settling down to my sewing machine. I had everything prepped to spend the day making Butterick B5882 – that beautiful new pattern by Gertie that Sew Busy Lizzy had sent me from Australia. And that’s what I did, but I found myself with my first proper wadder of 2013. It’s sad because it’s a lovely pattern, and I love the design, but it just looked wrong on me. I didn’t photograph it, and to be fair I’m sure I could do some adjustments to the pattern to get it to fit my body type but I decided I just didn’t want to. That lovely shelf bust design, instead of it giving me excellent Regency Boob, cut me off in the wrong place and gave me bifocal boob. Not a good look, my friends. Not a good look AT ALL.

Still, though. It’s all learning. And instead of being upset I went to the pub and reflected on my lovely day – a day I got to spend sewing in the sunshine, talking to Nic, and we even went out at lunchtime for a walk and lunch in Wagamama. It was good! So, after getting back from the pub I got back on the horse (chair) and made another dress. Another Elisalex dress. Another Michael Miller dress. ANOTHER PARIS THEMED BLOODY DRESS. I’m becoming a caricature of myself.

So the fabric was more of the Michael Miller Eiffel Tower fabric, which I bought from Fabric Inspirations last week. I woke up one morning with a need to buy it in red that I can’t explain, and lots of places are sold out of it. Fabric Inspirations sent it out good and quickly and with very cheap postage too, so that was good. Now that this is my fourth Elisalex dress, I knew what I was doing with it and it came together in basically three hours. I omitted the sleeves so the bodice lining is all encased – I love the way the instructions are worded for this, describing the lining as ‘profesh’ – and this time I decided to make the skirt shorter than I would usually so I measured it quite precisely. I wanted it to hit me just a fraction above my knee, and that’s what it does.

Il Fait Chaud dress - By Hand London Elisalex dress in Michael Miller Eiffel Tower fabric, worn with red wedges from Primark

Obviously I can’t say ANYTHING about this pattern now that I haven’t already but, wiping away a tear here, I just love it so damn much. I really do. I went out and bought fabric at lunchtime on Monday to make another one, which I did on Monday night. I bet you’re all sick of the sight of them on this blog now but I don’t care. The dress is comfortable and cute and sassy and easy to make and looks totally different in each of the versions I have made so it’s totally versatile. Plus, I can make this slightly shorter version out of 2 metres of fabric, so it’s nice and economical as well.

The idea of taking this photo along the canal was better in my head than in real life. It's a bit skanky down there.

I wore this on Saturday to go out for a walk along the canal with Nic and then later to Rick and Lauren’s house for champagne, pizza and Doctor Who. Because of the black in the print, I can see this being wearable into the later part of the year with tights too, so that’s a winner!

It’s not important to me to be able to sew a dress quickly, but it was satisfying to be able to put this together on Friday afternoon. I think I have come a long way in my sewing, not just in that I am getting better and learning new things all the time, but in my relationship with sewing. When I started, a dress not going well would have totally disheartened me. In fact, I started last year in a total funk because of a couple of projects not going my way totally throwing me. So, yeah, I make some mistakes. And maybe I could push myself more to learn new techniques with each project, but I enjoy sewing a lot and I really enjoy wearing the things that I sew! When I decided that the B5882 wasn’t going to be for me I started to pout, and then I considered telling Nic that I didn’t want to go to the pub after all because I wanted to sulk, but I couldn’t even work up a good pout. I was just feeling too happy. Also, I think my hit rate is pretty high. Since January I have sewed 16 dresses – including the wadder – and only one of them is properly a wadder. I like those numbers!

Anyway, ever onwards – I have fabric shopping to look forward to at Rachel’s meetup this weekend, and in Birmingham in June and oh did I mentioned I’m going to Paris, Paris France, in less than two weeks?! YES BOSS.

Nic tweeted to me on Friday to say "Il fait chaud", to which my friend Lucy interjected "No it bloody isn't!", and she was right. It wasn't terribly warm on Friday. But "Il fait chaud" is a phrase guaranteed to make me laugh, and Nic knows that, and it's because of this. Anyway, I'm hoping that before long, it will in fact be true.

Hey! So, yeah. It’s Monday and it’s been a hell of a weekend. I think it’s probably going to take me the rest of the week to recover from it! Saturday was the day that 45 or so sewing bloggers hit the V&A and Goldhawk Road HARD. It was awesome. Awesome in the true sense of the word, in that it was magnificent and awe-inspiring to see such handmade finery and to spend the day with such amazing women. It was a blast.

My day started at 6:45 when I was woken by the sun streaming through the blinds, and before long I was on the train using my coat as a bib in an effort to avoid coffee and chocolate stains on my new dress. It worked. ME SO CLASSY. I was miffed again by Marylebone – which is the sweetest and cutest station in London – who have replaced their branch of Paul with a Patisserie Valerie. Valerie sucks BAWS. When I was working in London I relied on the morning pick-me-up of the coffee and a pastry deal from Paul, made even sweeter by the handsome French men that worked in there. Sigh.

Anyhoo, slight digression there. Having eyed one another up on the southbound platform in Marylebone underground, Amy of Sylkotwist said hello to me on the platform at Piccadilly Circus. She was wearing a rather fetching Simplicity 2444 and carrying a red satchel that broke my resolve not to buy a satchel from the Zatchels sale (I bought a green one on my train journey home.) We got to the V&A early and chatted in the sunshine for a bit, and then the mass of seamstresses descended. I was excited to meet everyone but I have recently been chatting lots with Rehanon, Jo, Janene and Lizzy, so I was extra excited to meet them in the flesh. There was much excited squealing and hugging, and lots of catching up with familiar faces as well. I have been to lots of meet-ups now and I am always humbled by the amount of love and kindness in the room. Taking up sewing was one of the best things I have ever done. Not only for the very important creative outlet it provides me with, but the truly amazing women it has enabled me to meet. Getting a bit emosh here but fuck it. SEWISTS RULE.

The other MAJOR excitement of the day for me was getting to meet Charlotte and Elisalex of By Hand London. I was wearing a new Elisalex dress, so I felt like a bit of a stalker, but it was amazing. I fell pretty damn well in love with those two gorgeous, fabulous women, and we made plans for lots of fun sewing!

So, yeah, the photos! True to form, I was too busy gassing to actually take any photos but the incredible Rachel had organised a professional photographer to come and capture us all looking splendid against a stunning backdrop. I love Rachel, she is the bomb. These photos are all by the very talented Digpal Singh.

Rachel - THE BOMB

Would you look at Janene and Rehanon? I DIE.

Here's me with the beautiful, blooming Amy and Nicole Needles

Me and Lizzy

Here is the darling Lizzy surprising me with a piece of fabric. I could actually cry a little bit at this photo. The fabric was a gift, a little reminder to keep on smiling even when things are hard at work. It’s a little drop of Aussie sunshine, much as Lizzy is herself. She’s a total doll, every bit as gorgeous in real life as you could hope for someone to be. I can’t wait to sew something wonderful with the fabric.

Rachel and Janene ably shepherded us to Goldhawk Road, where I confess to feeling slightly overwhelmed by the sheer range of shops and fabrics. I played it safe though, in the knowledge that I’m going to be spending a week in Montmartre, so I limited myself to buying some royal blue polka dot cotton and some haberdashery bits. The royal blue polka dots have been on my shopping list for a while but had proven surprisingly difficult to get hold of. Then that temptress Janene seduced me into spending my lunch money on some rose print cotton-elastane, but I’m glad she did. It’s lush, and I have plans for it already. After all that me and Dibs took ourselves to a nearby coffee shop, where we caught up with Karen and Jane. Hurrah!

I could only stay for an hour of the epic lunch at the Cedar Village Lebanese restaurant as I was booked on the 16:36 home (which I made with literally two minutes to spare) and so I missed the swap. But to be honest, I think it would have blown my mind – which was already pretty well blown by the day!

Nic met me off my train in Leamington and listened to me chatter excitedly about my lovely day out, and took a photo of my outfit in the fading sunlight…

The Extraordinary Garden dress - By Hand London Elisalex dress and Vivienne Westwood for Melissa Lady Dragon shoes

I bought this Amy Butler Paradise Garden fabric in Hobbycraft last week, when I popped in at lunch to buy some glue. It was on sale for £6pm and I knew 2m would make a fabulous one of these dresses. So that’s what I did. I love it! And that’s basically all to say on that score. You’ve all heard it all before! But I love it, and so did Elisalex, and here’s a meta photo of me in an Elisalex, with Elisalex, and the funny thing is that Charlotte was standing there wearing an Elisalex skirt. Woo!

In Elisalex, with Elisalex - honestly, have you ever seen someone so glamorous? I wanted to put her in my handbag and run away with her.

I must thank Rachel for organising this day. It was outstanding, and she never stopped smiling and being charming. She’s a treasure, and I feel pretty damn privileged to know her. And all of this lot. Look at them – aren’t they amazing?

Is that not an awe-inspiring sight?! You can see all Digpal's photos from the day here.

There’s another meetup in Birmingham on 15th June, which I’m definitely attending. And if I can get away with it, I’m leaning heavily towards hitting London on 3rd August as well. It's just too much fun not to. Now, I'm away to sew!

Oooh serious faces this week because of all the CRIMES...

This recap of episode 3 is a little bit late this week - episode 4 is just around the corner! Still, maybe it will whet your appetite.

So anyway, after episode 2's timeline jiggery pokery, episode 3 was back into the serious business of investigating crimes. Well, mostly. There was some fun personal stuff, too.

So, the CRIME. I was complaining last week about the lack of criming. This week the major incident team are investigating the death of man found with his throat slit in his kitchen. In typical Scott and Bailey style, we get a good look at the bloody carcass on the kitchen floor, complete with bright red blood splatters on the ceiling. It's a brief moment, but enjoyable in how lurid it is. You have to love ITV drama for this.

Anyway, Carcass was found by his son, Inexplicably Welsh Danny. The kid who plays Inexplicably Welsh Danny is absolutely brilliant, all twitchy and paranoid and a totally believable suspect even before you find out that he's been knocking his mum about. His mum is played by Clare Holman, better known as Laura Hobson from Morse and Lewis, which made me do a big yay. I think that actress is top, and because I am such a massive saddo, I love when character actors from my favourite shows turn up in my other favourite shows. Case in point - when Phil from Early Doors shows up in a series one episode of Scott and Bailey as a cop? Classic casting.

Yeah, I decided to move away from Oxford because of the high crime rate... Oh.

Anyway, poor old Hobson. She immediately suspects her Inexplicably Welsh son and, really, who can blame her? He's a fucking twitch. And why is he Welsh? She isn't. There's a bit of back and forth when a neighbour identifies Inexplicably Welsh at the crime scene, but it turns out Chubby Bill got it wrong, and it was some other rando in the house that night. Hobson reveals that Carcass liked cruising the gay scene on Canal Street, and the team trace fingerprints back to one Andy Ibbotson. I'm sure I know someone in real life who is actually called Andy Ibbotson.

Anyway, Ibbotson is one of the best skels they've had on Scott and Bailey in a long time. He is stupid enough to park a stolen Aston Martin on his shitty street, and his excuse for having it - after supposedly mindblowing sex, Carcass was so happy he let Ibbotson borrow the car to drive to Wolverhampton to visit his family. RITE. Lee isn't buying, and a brainwave from Rachel about DNA on a Rolex (super classy, right) gets old Ibbotson bang to rights. He cut Carcass's throat with a kitchen knife after not having sex and then parked his stolen car on his street while letting his girlfriend buy things on ebay with his stolen credit card. Brains. Genuinely, Ibbotson was a class act. When Lee asks him to describe the way in which he and Carcass had sex, Ibbotson answer is "in the way you'd expect". Look, it's not funny on paper but it made me LOL.

Rachel and Janet go round to Inexplicably Welsh's flat to lay the news on him, and to arrest him for beating on his moms. Job done!

So, um, you're Welsh then?

There was LOADS of good character stuff in this episode that brought the happy. Poor old Janet is fed up of Ade gallivanting with his new bird, so tells him to move out. Eleanor is a good influence on Ade - this is the first episode where he hasn't looked like a less charismatic Father Dougal, because now he has a trendy haircut, hipster glasses and an anorak! It seems like Janet has given up on any excitement in her life, so she asks her mum to move in in the most tragically awkward way possible. It even makes Rachel roll her eyes. I wonder what they're going to do with Janet. I like that they've put her in a rut, and I'm really hoping that they're going to jolt her out of it by bringing Nicholas Gleaves AKA Andy AKA ROBBO back into the show. Come on guys, it's not the same without him! Janet tells Rachel she's too long in the tooth to care why Crimers do Crimes - I think something is going to happen to make her care, eh?

Meanwhile in Rachel land, is Sean accidentally going to stumble on her infidelity? It'd have to be an accident, he is still too dopey for words. When the useless plank she shagged in a hotel rings looking for Susie, Sean answers. He later wonders whether to ring the guy back, but then loses focus. Dingbat. Rachel is spending her evenings on the sofa eating Weetabix and drinking red wine. This isn't going anywhere good, lads. At least she's enjoying her job, though.

Gill is having a fun episode herself. Sammy is engaged to Orla, which she's a bit like "OMGWTFBBQ but it's okay I really like her" about it. Hilariously, it doesn't even occur to her that Orla might be up the duff until the coroner suggests it. Like, Gill, investigation is your job, yeah? When Rachel congratulates her, Gill snaps "Are you taking the piss?" which, yeah, made me laugh a lot.

"That wee bitch better not be pregnant."

Elsewhere in the squad, Chubby Bob done fucked up with his bad information and he is "walking on thin FUCKING ICE" according to Gill. He tearfully confesses to Janet that he got caught slipping the beef to Rachel's mum, and Janet advises him not to tell anyone, but wonderfully asks if this is why he has been "shitting on Sherlock" YEAH NICE IMAGE THERE JAN. Kev is busy eating lollipops and wondering why criminals are so stupid, and Baldy Mitch and Brummy Lee are being good PO-lice. I'm so happy to see Baldy Mitch and Lee bringing it. Lee is awesome in the interview room and Mitch is werking it in the squadroom. Keep it up, lads.

Drawing down the veil of SERIOUSNESS

NEXT WEEK ON SCOTT AND BAILEY: Yes! Rachel Bartlett is back. I totally predicted that this was going to be some kind of House of Horrors Fred and Rose style scenario, so I'm very pleased that I was right. Also, more George Costigan, which makes me happy. Also, Slap's back too! I fucking love this show. See you then, friends.

Scott and Bailey is broadcast on Wednesday at 9pm on ITV

Hey YO. It's Friday afternoon and I'm on HOLIDAY, which is awesome. It's also very much needed, I have had a super-intense week at work and I am ready for the break. I still need to pack, but I have narrowed down the important choices of which dresses I am actually going to bring, so the hard work is really all done.

Anyway, yeah, it's been a busy week. I think I was still spending some of it getting over last Saturday's major excitement. I loved the polka dot fabric I bought on the Goldhawk Road so much though that I sat down to sew it up on Sunday afternoon. It's the funny thing about sewing, but the dress itself only took a few hours but the skirt took absolutely FOREVER because it's a circle skirt, and I hemmed it by hand, and I put horsehair braid into the hem too. But it's all good because I've had a lot on my mind this week and I find hand-sewing genuinely restful and therapeutic.

So the story with this dress is that I love my red polka dot Vivien of Holloway dress a LOT, and my royal blue anchor print Vivien of Holloway dress an equal amount, but I wanted to somehow combine this into a royal blue polka dot dress with a circle skirt. Oh this story is gripping, is it not?! Anyway, it turns out that the perfect royal blue polka dot fabric is surprisingly difficult to find. I mean, I probably could have bought some online but I was afraid of it turning out crap, so I decided to hold out until I could touch it. Luckily Goldhawk Road came up trumps, hence the lack of waiting!

So, here it is...

Shepherd's Bush Sweetheart dress and Irregular Choice No Place Like Home shoes

Soooo... ANOTHER polka dot dress. I did briefly consider making this a closer replica to the Vivien of Holloway dresses and I have some boning in my sewing box. But I opted to go for comfort and the ability to wear a proper bra. These things are important to me! So what I did was take the bodice from my by now much beloved Elisalex dress and altered the neckline to make it a sweetheart. I did this using the highly scientific method of holding the pattern piece up against the Vivien of Holloway dress and cutting a bit off! If I'm being totally honest, my preference would be for the neckline to have ended up slightly higher. It's not immodest, but I am pretty uncomfortable with too much cleavage and, being a shortarse, anyone taller than me (everyone) has a decent view of my rack.

I bought three metres of the fabric which was more than enough for a circle skirt. As I had about half a metre left over I decided to self line the bodice, which makes it look all neat inside! The skirt is long enough for me to wear a petticoat underneath it, but as this isn't always practical I used horsehair braid in the hem to give it a bit of shape. It's fiddly as shit to sew in, but I love how it makes the skirt look.

Anyway, that's basically all there is to say about this make - it was straightforward and fun to sew, and the hand-sewing was a nice bit of escapism in a busy week. Also, this colour combination always encourages me to wear these shoes - which, tied jointly with my Vivienne Westwood Melissa cherry shoes, are my favourite shoes. Wearing red sequined shoes always lifts my spirits!

Now, it's Friday evening. I'm away to get into the holiday spirit. Have a good weekend everyone!

BONJOUR MES AMIES, which is what they say en France, you know. Heh! Well, Nic and I got back from Paris on Friday and I have tons to catch up on blogwise, not least my Me Made May outfits and catching up with Scott and Bailey recaps and also, you know, around eleventy thousand and three photos of Montmartre. But I'm going to get started with the juicy stuff and tell you all about the fabric shopping. I did a lot of big talk before I went about how I was going to buy loads of fabric, and I had been saving up. But I suprised even myself. I came home with a lot of fabric. Paris was absolutely wonderful for lots of reasons, but staying in the garment quarter was definitely one of them!

Nic and I stayed in Montmartre when we visited Paris in 2010, and completely fell in love with the area. It's just so charming, you know? So this time around, although the rational bit of my brain thought maybe we should stay in another arrondissement, we both felt a really strong emotional pull towards the 18th. We found a studio apartment on Rue Feutrier through airbnb, and as well as being gorgeous, it was five minutes walk away from Place Saint Pierre. It was also five minutes away from comic shops and awesome bars, and it had a view of the Sacre Coeur, but that's a story for another post. Today I'm going to tell you what I bought and where I bought it!

Now, having visited Paris a few times before, I knew exactly where I wanted to go when I got to the fabric district. THIS gorgeous place:

Dreyfus - Marche Saint Pierre, on Rue Charles Nodier. I was weird enough to take this photo both at dusk and at night because I loved the lights.

This was the only place I bought fabric from the last time we went to Paris. Although I didn't buy anything from there this time, it's not because it wasn't awesome. There are five floors of fabric here, every single thing you can think of. Unlike lots of the other shops nearby that sell only coupons (pre-cut lengths of fabric, usually 3m but sometimes less) fabric is sold on the bolt here. Type of fabric is arranged by floor, and it works on a system. You find your fabric, you get someone to cut it for you, they give you a coupon, you pay for it at the little box. You can only pay for fabric on the floor you're buying it from, which could potentially mean lots of transactions! But it's fine, and my experience was that the people in there were really patient with my halting French. On the street outside, you'll find the special deals of the day, which is also pretty neat.

While Nic was browsing in comic shops, I found a little independent comic by Dominique Corbasson about Montmartre. I bought it because it was beautiful, and because it had a few pages about the fabric district. This is the one of the pages about Dreyfus - Marche Saint Pierre:

"Le temple du tissu" - "The temple of fabrics"

Almost directly across the street from Dreyfus - Marche Saint Pierre is the delightful and bizarre Tissus Reine. I didn't take a photo of the front of the store, but my Montmartre comic has this beautiful illustration:

"Promo royale sur le blanc." - "Royal discount."

Reine works along the same lines as Dreyfus in that fabric is laid out by type and across several floors. It's a bit brighter and fancier than Dreyfus and correspondingly a bit more expensive! But it's really fabulous and I may have skipped around in joy when I was in there because I'm a dick like that. My favourite thing about Reine is the half-sized mannequins that they have, dressed in clothes handmade by couture students. They're weird, but I love them and would kind of love one in my own house. The best thing was that we went in twice, a few days apart, and the mannequins had MOVED. It freaked Nic out.

This lady was by the ginghams - I loved the way her shirt dress was cut on the bias and had that hem!

This one was wearing a little petticoat!

In the printed cottons section on the ground floor, Reine had an Eiffel Tower section, and I'm a twat so I made a beeline for it.

What's French for twat? Is it 'Roisin', by any chance?

It won't surprise you at all that I bought some Eiffel Tower fabric. I mean, how could I not?! The people in Reine were very charming and didn't even laugh that much. Here's what I bought:

I can't remember the designer of the blue and white Eiffel Towers, but it was too lovely not to buy. And der, when I saw the Michael Miller in green it was a no-brainer. I had actually seen it across the street in the craft and haberdashery branch of Moline, but it was like 23 euros a metre! In Reine it was 14 euros a metre, as was the blue and white. This was by far the most expensive fabric I bought on the whole trip! One of the seriously cool things about Reine, apart from the mannequins, is the sheer range of people shopping in there. It was packed out each time we went in, and with all sorts of people. I loved that.

I bought a good bit of fabric slightly away from the main cluster of fabric shops. The little branch of Tissus Totoon Rue Clignancourt was right around the corner from our flat and was totally awesome in every single way. The wee man who ran it came to know me by sight, and I think he found me quite a curiosity! We also visited one of the bigger branches on Rue Barbes, but I only bought fabric from the Clignancourt branch. Toto sells a huge variety of fabrics and haberdashery, as well as towels and household linen, and it specialises in African fabrics. You can buy fabrics on the bolt and in coupons, and I stuck to the coupons.

I bought 1.9 metres of this beautiful printed cotton from the bargain bin at the door. This was the first bit of fabric I bought in Paris and I majorly heart it - it was 8 euros I think, and it's 60 inches wide. The photo doesn't really do it justice!

I went back for the dog fabric on our last full day in Paris, having spotted it on my first trip into Toto. Like, it was too ridiculous not to buy it. You can't see in this photo, but some of the dogs are wearing signs that say "I love you". This is a 2.5 metre piece and was 8 euros. The night-owl fabric is a 3 metre piece and was 10 euros, I think. They're both 100% cotton - in fact, everything I bought was. I was really tempted by all of the beautiful waxed cottons but thought that I probably wouldn't realistically sew from them. If you're visiting Paris for fabric shopping, don't miss Toto. It's awesome.

It probably isn't helpful to get too specific now about all of the other fabric shops in the Marche Saint Pierre - there are so many, and lots of them are really small! Most of the little shops on Rue d'Orsel, Rue Dancourt and Rue Sevestre sell a combination of fabric on the bolt and coupons. A number of the shops will only sell coupons, but this system is pretty clear. The fabrics are organised in bins by type, and each piece is labelled with the fabric content and the price. Job done. There are lots of these shops and, to be honest, lots of them have similar stock, but it's fun for a rummage! The remnant stores of both Dreyfus Marche Saint Pierre and Reine are in this area too, and that's where you'll find the coupons from those stores. In Coupons Saint Pierre, at 7 Place Saint Pierre I bought:

3 metres each of 100% cotton - the strange sea-chart fish print one, well, I can't really explain that other than it made me laugh. The stripy floral is a bit different to my usual style, but I thought it was sweet. These were each 9 euros. This place was also great for silks and designer fabrics, if that's your bag. The other great big coupons shops in this area were La Folie des Coupons on Rue d'Orsel and Au Bonheur des Dames on Rue Stephenson, both of which were pretty awesome. I didn't buy anything in Au Bonheur des Dames (which made me sad because it's the name of one of my favourite novels) but I did in La Folie des Coupons:

You thought my gingham fixation from last summer was over? Yeah, no. Lovely pinky purple small gingham and the perfect turquoise fat gingham, both 100% cotton, both 3 metres, both 9 euros. I did a little dance of joy when I happened upon the blue one because this is another one of those fabrics that I've been looking for that should be easy to find but isn't. I also LOVED the fact that the bag has the Eiffel Tower because I'm a dick like that.

That's all the fabric I bought, but that's only because it's basically all my arms could carry. I'm sure there are lots of other places in Paris to buy fabric but we were staying right here and there is so much choice. It's also a great area for general haberdashery and also for yarn. I'm not really a button person, but Dam Boutons on Rue d'Orsel had a gorgeous selection. Caverne d'Ali Baba, also on Rue d'Orsel, had an amazing selection of trims and pompoms. Laines on Rue Cazotte is a beautiful place to buy all manner of yarn. You can buy all sorts of haberdashery everywhere - even the giant discount chain Tati, which has numerous branches along the Boulevard de Rochechouart - carried a decent range of haberdashery. They also had some awesome comic book printed bed linen which I'm sort of gutted I didn't buy.

If you ARE going to Paris and you're planning on doing some fabric shopping, seriously don't miss the Marche Saint Pierre area. It's just a lovely area, as well as having lots of excellent fabric shops. Try to speak French if you can - mine is pretty basic but actually, that's all you need. Most of the shops are used to tourists and will help you out in English if you need, but it's good manners and good practice to speak in French anyway. I had nothing but positive experiences in all of the fabric shops I visited, and I am really excited to sew up some of my treasures! And Nic and I are already planning our next trip back to Paris.

But don't just take my word for it. Karen of Did You Make That? has written a guide to Paris Fabric Shopping, Melissa of Fehr Trade wrote a lovely guide here, too. In fact, talk to Melissa about cheese shopping in France while you're at it.

I will come back in the week and tell you about the other things that we did in Paris! But for now I'm going to leave you with a few more pictures...

I loved this mannequin's stripy dress

Upstairs in the home linens department of Reine

I took this photo while walking home from Autour de Midi on Rue Lepic - feeling tipsy and sentimental.

Hey all, happy bank holiday! I hope you had a good day - I spent it in the sunshine with my friends, having a picnic in the park. It was bliss! It's going to feel strange to go back to work in the morning, and I think I've forgotten my work computer login details but it's all good. I have a few more hours of holiday left.

Anyway, I'll post about our holiday later, because I know everyone loves looking at people's holiday photos, right? But for now, it's Me Made May up in here, so here's what I've been wearing:

Wednesday 1st May 2013 - Me Made May Day 1

Wednesday 1st May - Nana dress - worn on the steps above Rue Paul Albert in Montmartre

So, yeah. I took a couple of Paris themed dresses to Paris. NO SHAME. Actually I was kind of expecting the chic Parisians to think I was a twat for dressing to a theme. Maybe they did, but this dress got me lots of compliments in shops and bars, and not all from tourists So that was pretty nice! I love this dress a ridiculous amount, but I need to take the straps up a bit. They flop around a wee bit - nothing serious and I wore this cardigan all day - but you know, annoying. Now, on this trip to Paris we didn't go to the Eiffel Tower because we went the last time, so there are no photos of me posing in an Eiffel Tower dress at the Eiffel Tower. But if you look closely, you can see it in the background:

I could have posed with the Sacre Coeur, but it's not on the dress, so no deal.

Thursday 2nd May 2013 - Me Made May Day 2

Thursday 2nd May - Foux du FaFa dress - photographed in Place Saint Pierre

I wore this dress for a spot more fabric shopping - I'm standing here opposite the wonderful Tissus Reine - and for wandering in Montmartre in the sunshine before cocktails, champagne, dinner and an evening in a jazz bar. It was a truly wonderful day.

Friday 3rd May - Il Fait Chaud dress - photographed by the carousel in Place Louise-Michel, which is at the foot of the Sacre Coeur

This was our last day in Paris, and we had the morning before getting onto the Eurostar to come back to London. The weather was beautiful, and I wasn't too sad to be leaving. Earlier in the week I'd had an email from several estimable ladies, Debi among them, suggesting a meet-up in London. Drinking in the sunshine with sewing friends - what could be better?

Debi, So-Ha, Alana, Jane, me, Clare and Sally

Widescreen faces

FILM STUDIES REPRESENT

It was back to normal on Saturday - but as the sun was shining, I couldn't complain that much...

Saturday 4th May 2013 - Me Made May Day 4

Saturday 4th May - Amber Hazel dress, worn with Irregular Choice Mermaid shoes

I'm looking a bit crumpled here, I'd just come back from having my hair cut, and this fabric really creases! I did receive a few unsolicited compliments in this too - and you know I'm all about the seal claps! I love these shoes and I wore them with this dress during Me Made May last year, too. I'm just happy to be able to wear open-toed shoes again.

Sunday 5th May - One Good Turn dress and Vivienne Westwood for Melissa Lady Dragon shoes

This dress is so comfortable, and I don't have much to say about it or about Sunday. Apart from doing some grocery shopping and going for a little walk in town, I did very little on Sunday. I'm still getting over all the relaxation on the holiday, I suppose!

Monday 6th May 2013 - Me Made May 2013 Day 6

Monday 6th May - Sewaholic Lonsdale dress and Schuh Garda wedges

I wore this for a picnic in the park with some of my loveliest friends, and it was perfect for lolling around on the grass. I was covered in sunscreen though - I don't tan, I just burn, and I think the neckline and the straps on this could result in some very interesting sunburn marks! God I hate wearing strapless bras, though. Seriously.

And that's the first couple of days of Me Made May. It's going well so far - but most of my sewing is with good weather in mind, and we've been having good weather. I hope it doesn't get much more challenging than this! Right now, I'm tired and I have to be up early in the morning. I'm away.

Hey dudes! I'm still not blogging about Paris yet, or about the last two episodes of Scott and Bailey ('cause I know you're all hanging out waiting on all that stuff) but here's what I've been wearing for the last two days of my Me Made May challenge. Getting photos is a bit more difficult now I'm back at work - but my darling friend SJ offered to take photos of me again, so that's cool.

Anyway, the weather was glorious yesterday - although, I was having a busy day so I hardly even managed to look out the window! But when work finished, I took to the park with Nic for an ice-cream, before going for a walk to visit Lysy and The Scientist to eat rhubarb crumble and drink red wine. It was a good day!

Tuesday 7th May 2013 - Me Made May Day 7

Tuesday 7th May 2013 - Calamity Jane dress, Love Me Tender shoes from Office and sunglasses from Magpie Mexicana in Leamington

I fupping love these sunglasses. They're too ridiculous for words - which, to be fair, you could describe this whole outfit in that way.

I don't look nearly as polished in my photos for today, all. Today was a long and very busy day. But it was a good one! I had a job interview this morning for a promotion, and after lunch they told me I'd got it! It's a job in my current team, but it's a new position, and it's a significant increase in responsibility and in pay grade. Which is awesome! My job stresses me out often, and that's often down to the administrative burden - but this new job means that bit will be taken away from me and I can focus on other things. I'm really happy about it, so on the way home I bought some champagne. Oh, and a Zatchels satchel from Berylune...

Wednesday 8th May 2013 - Me Made May Day 8

Extraordinary Garden dress, topshop shoes, Zatchels 16" satchel in cornflower blue, oh and I see some champagne there, yo...

Don't look at my face too closely - I look like ass, but the dress looks nice. Look at that! Today was pretty intense as I was in work at 7:30 for a meeting, then straight into my interview - which was conducted by two people I work closely with, which added to the weirdness - and then into a basically wall-to-wall day. So, I decided to treat myself to this satchel, which I had spied when I called into the shop on Saturday to wish them happy birthday and drop a present from Paris off to the girls. I actually ordered an 11.5" green satchel from the Zatchels birthday sale a few weeks ago, but I fell in love with this one, so made it mine! If you're in the area, pay a visit to Berylune, they have a gorgeous range of satchels all organised in rainbow order (very important) and it's just the sweetest, funnest, prettiest shop to visit. You'll leave lighter of wallet and lighter in heart, too!

I call this the IMMA GET SO DRUNK TONIGHT face...

And speaking of Berylune and on the subject of why I'm so great - more workshop dates have been booked in. I'm going to be teaching the Colette Patterns Hazel dress over two Sundays - 26th May and 2nd June. Included in the cost of the workshop is your own copy of the pattern to take home, your zip and interfacing and notions and also, most importantly of all, CAKE.

Right, now I have to get down to drinking this champagne and putting stuff in my new bag. Paris and Scott and Bailey soon, honest.

You know what must have happened? My hot and foamy must have exploded!

Look in the mirror. How do you think it'd go over if I came into work one day wearing a cowboy hat? You think I'd get away with that?

It's in the trees! It's coming!

Pensioners! Tired of CROWS stealing your glasses?

Well suit yourself, but my son Spiderman turned out just fine.

Blackmail is an ugly word, Miss Mountshaft.

Don't swear, Jerry. And don't bleed in the sink, I've just cleaned it.

Ariel, listen to me. The human world is a mess. Life under the sea is better than anything they got up there.

I'm sorry, I can't help myself. That movie has warped my fragile little mind.

Janet and Ade put their house on the market. Then Janet discovers a severed head at a crime scene.

And he just finished writing the sequel. It's called "Urban Fervor"

He's a weirdo and he's hard enough to rollerskate on.

It's a wonder we stay sane, working with these buggers all day.

Hunting season on me is over. And the chemical formula for table salt is NaCl!

Happiness is my default position

You need to go to Wolverhampton to visit your family? Why not borrow my Aston Martin?

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to say “yes!” Yes to love, yes to life, yes to staying in more!

You take care of that detail in France. I hear they got some pretty dangerous mimes over there.

I'm going to make a suggestion which might help you out, but I don't want this gesture to be mistaken for an indication that I like you.

I'm so gorgeous they want to put me under arrest.