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

Afternoon, everyone! Remember me?! I ended up taking a bit of a blogging break after my last post - I was a bit burnt out by January madness at work and I ended up getting sick. But I'm back now: back and badder than ever! It's not that I have had a bad start to the year - far from it - but January was full of all-day meetings lasting for multiple days, pressing work deadlines, hotel stays in London and busy weekends. I'm glad that it's over and that spring is edging ever closer!

I did manage to see January out in style, however. Our good friend Rick's parents invited us and some other friends to spend the last weekend of January with them in Saddleworth so that we could visit The Old Bell Inn: a pub that has broken the Guinness World Record for the number of gins on its menu - an astonishing 600 different gins. When Rick's parents invited us to visit, I was naturally pretty keen:

It was BRILLIANT.

Here's me and Lauren with one of the pub's three walls of gins. We were very well looked after by Sam, the gin expert barman. I tried four different gins, Nic tried five... and, well, I couldn't keep track of what everyone else tried, but there were definitely happy faces around the table.

This was my last gin of the day - Two Birds Cocktail Gin with tonic, lime and strawberries. It was very good but not my favourite. Both the name and the garnish matched my dress, though!

It was a wonderful treat to end an intense month. This weekend I have been celebrating the end of all-day meeting season (I had another week of all-day meetings this past week, you see) It hasn't been as Juniper-based: just Nic and I going to Birmingham to have lunch in Bistro 1847 and see a film in the Everyman cinema. Good times!

I have been fitting in some sewing where I can - mainly trying to sew the fabric that I am more inclined to buy when I am tired or stressed. This dress is the product of fabric such as this, bought in a weak moment when looking at the Village Haberdashery's instragram feed:

Nope Octopus dress - Sew Over It vintage shirt dress, worn with Irregular Choice Oz shoes

The fabric is Bluebird by Cotton and Steel, and it is fabulous. It's my first Cotton and Steel fabric and it will not be my last. The quality and drape is beautiful and it was wonderful to work with. Also. OCTOPUS. I didn't buy it with the intention of making another Sew Over It shirt dress, but as I was so happy with my last one, it seemed like a good pairing.

As with the Brownstone dress, I lengthened the skirt on this dress by two inches and I left the side seams to the last. I needed a bit more ease with this one, possibly because the fabric doesn't have the same loose weave of the barkcloth. This was an easier dress to make - the collar behaves itself better, not being quite as bulky - and I sewed most of it while Nic and I watched an episode of Rebus.

I figured out the button placement myself and I could have done a slightly better job but, eh, I'm still very happy with this dress. When you're covered with octopuses, worrying about buttons seems a little bit foolish.

It's sadly a little bit too cold to wear this dress right now - I took advantage of a brief window of sunshine earlier this afternoon to get some photos of it (right now, as I am writing, the wind is howling and the rain is blowing sideways outside) but it will keep beautifully until spring. Practicality be damned: when I made this dress I wanted to sew for spring!

The weather really is shocking at the moment. Yesterday in Birmingham a freak gust of wind - forced between tall buildings and underneath a flyover - broke my umbrella and almost lifted me off my feet. It was horrible and it isn't much better now. I have to go out later and the weather got me like

Time now to huddle under a blanket, start balefully out the window at the rain and watch an episode of Law & Order. See you later!

Hello! Happy Valentine's Day, if that's your thing. It's not really mine, or Nic's - although we did drink champagne last night. Although it's not like we ever really need an excuse to drink champagne. Today we got out into the cold sunshine and had a long walk through some muddy fields and a drink in one of our favourite pubs. It's been a really good day and a lovely weekend too. It's very cold, but the sky has been blue and it feels like spring won't be long in arriving.

This weekend I've managed to fit in some sewing and, because of the aforementioned sunshine, I've been able to get some photos of completed projects. Here is one that I made last week - a dress from a pattern that came free with Love Sewing magazine - Thread Count 1501. I've never sewed from any of the Simple Sew patterns that come with Love Sewing magazine, mainly because I had issues with the one pattern I sewed from their sister company, Eliza M patterns. Anyway - I was intrigued enough by the Dior dart on the bodice of the Thread Count dress to buy the magazine. The paper copy that came with the magazine was not in my size range but it was enough to convince me that this could be a quality pattern so I broke my no PDF pattern rule (I fucking hate taping that shit together, you guys) and downloaded the smaller size range. Look, I still hated taping it together, but I think it was worth it - or at least, it will be once I work at it a little bit:

Gin Soaked Girl dress - Thread Count 1501 in digital rose print cotton sateen, worn with Vivienne Westwood for Melissa Lady Dragon heart shoes

So, okay, I didn't use use the skirt pieces that come with the pattern - mainly because, you know, fuck taping together PDF pieces for a full skirt when I have lots of other skirt patterns that will work. That skirt looks cute and all, but no.

I didn't follow the instructions that came with this pattern, so I can't give you a full review of those, although I did skim read them. They seemed to make sense and are more along the lines of what you would find in a Simplicity pattern than an indie - which is grand for me, I like Simplicity patterns, but also I knew what I was doing when it came to putting the bodice together. One gripe I had was that it seemed a bit difficult to find the finished garment measurements, and this is what I usually work from when choosing what size to sew. The bodice, helpfully, has different options for different cup sizes and finished garment measurements are provided for these but I couldn't find them for the waist measurement. I ended up sewing the size 10 with the smaller cup size and a quick toile indicated that this would be okay. And this is okay, but it's not quite right, so I think I need to rethink which size to go for.

Here's the bodice. It's actually hard to see in this photo, but I have a bit of excess fabric under my bust and under my arms. I think that I possibly need to take a bit of the ease out of the back of the armscye that is there for this pattern's sleeves - there are sleeved and sleeveless options, but there aren't separate cutting lines for a sleeveless bodice. I'm also wondering if I need to sew the size 8 bodice in the next cup size up. Or, what might be better is to take a little bit of excess out of the princess seams at the front and out of the seam allowance at the side.

And here it is from the back, where the fit doesn't seem so bad! Oh, I should probably say that I shortened the bodice by about an inch and a half.

Basically, I think I need to toile the bodice again - the other thing that is making it difficult for me to establish what I need to do is the knowledge that stretch cotton sateen - as this fabric is - fits differently to non-stretch cotton. But anyway - I'll get around to that at some point. It's not going to stop me from wearing this particular dress.

While I might be aware of the fit issues, which I think make me look kind of rectangular, the fabric is so bright and cheerful and fabulous that I will wear the dress anyway. Nic loves it - he told me that he thinks it's the coolest dress that I've made for a while - and this is because of the fabric. If the fabric looks familiar, it may be that you saw it on Marie, who made a beautiful Belladone dress from it. I was shopping with Marie when she bought her fabric and, about a year later, she was with me when I bought mine! I'm emotional about fabric and this print is full of happy memories of a good - if somewhat hungover from gin - day out with friends.

I was listening to The Divine Comedy while sewing and that, coupled with the memory of a gin and prosecco-based hangover that only halloumi sandwiches could chase away is what inspired the name for this dress:

That's a very underrated song, I think. And Neil Hannon has been my number one crush since I was about 14, and I still would. If anything, I think he's improved with age. Luckily for me, Nic understands.

So, that is the craic there. A qualified success, I would say, but a success all the same as I have ended up with a pretty dress that I will quite happily drink gin and get up to mischief in. Sure, isn't that the whole point?

Now, it's Sunday night and Nic has the dinner on (we're making white bean and lentil burgers and sweet potato fries from the Thug Kitchen cookbook - I'm fucking excited) so I'm away here. A happy Anna Howard Shaw Day to us all!

Hello boys and girls, whasssssup?! What is up here is that I have had a long day and I am tired. It was shaping up to be a busy day anyway, and then it all went a bit mad after lunch. Everything is in hand now, and it's all good but tonight is all about pyjamas and comfort food, I think!

Things are pretty good at the moment. I don't have as much time to blog as I would like as work is keeping me very busy. Still - my new job officially starts on Monday, so that's cool! My day to day job will change a bit - in the shorter term, until my replacement starts, I'll be continuing to do my current job as well as the additional responsibilities of my new role. I'll have another project to be responsible for so at the moment I'm trying to get my head around that too. It's all a bit full-on! It's good, though. It occurred to me the other morning that there isn't a single area of my life in which I feel dissatisfied at the moment. I mean, yeah, I'd like to have more volume in my hair, but I can't really count that as a source of dissatisfaction. I know it might not always be like this - everyone experiences trying times - but it's a good place to be in and I am trying to savour it. I mean, there are brand new episodes of The X-Files. WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE.

It's easy to feel that way when spring is nearly here. Although it is still very cold, I am appreciating the longer, occasionally sunny days. I have tentatively started to unpack some of my spring clothes but I'm not totally foolhardy: it's still definitely coat weather. I have a lovely new coat, though - one that I bought in the Collectif sale on a trip to London at the weekend:

A nautical coat! I'll probably only have a few more weeks of wearing it before I pack it away until the autumn, but I guess this is the best time of year to buy a winter coat. ALSO LOOK AT IT. How could I not?!

I've been squeezing in sewing when I can, although it is more difficult to find time to get photos of finished items. Here's something from a few weeks ago now - a cardigan and a dress:

Miette cardigan by Andi Satterlund

Heeeey, it's another Miette cardigan. Now that I have sorted out my difficulty with the raglan shaping, I've been loving the Miette pattern. I have a blue one that's nearly finished - I'm on my second sleeve. The yarn is more Malabrigo worsted and the colour is called Sauterne. I bought the wooden buttons and the yarn from Wool Warehouse.

Despite having knit two yellow cardigans in the last few years, this did fill a gap in my wardrobe. My first one - a yellow Agatha cardigan - is a bit too big, and I ended up not really wearing my yellow Audrey in Unst as it was a bit more drapey than I wanted it to be (I should wear that more, though, because the colour of it is so lovely). I've worn this cardigan a fair bit since I finished it - the bright, warm yellow is surprisingly flattering.

I think it looks pretty good unbuttoned, as well! My little bee charm comes from Berylune.

As I was finishing the cardigan, I bought a Bernie Dexter dress cheap on ebay. It was originally a halterneck dress - the same style as this one. I just can't do halterneck dresses, though, even with a ridiculously scaffolded strapless bra - and I have one of those! The knot in the straps always ends up dragging on my neck and giving me a horrible headache, and I'm not convinced that they suit me. I knew that it would be easy to convert this dress into a strappy sundress, though, so that's what I did:

Altered Bernie Dexter daisy swing dress, worn with Swedish hasbeens peep-toe sandals

Ignore the fact that my face looks goofy as shit in this photo (I'm not sure WTF was happening the day we took these photos...but, there we are) and look at the dress. So, okay, the fit is definitely not perfect but whatever. It's grand for RTW, I think! This dress is unlined but it has a wide facing around the top of the bodice. I unpicked the straps completely and moved them in at the front - straps for a halter neck dress generally seem to be set a bit wider than if the straps are stitched down at the back - then I got Nic's help in pinning them to the right places at the back of the bodice to cover my bra straps. I unpicked openings in the facings at these points, fed the straps through and then stitched it closed underneath so that no stitching shows on the outside. All in all it took about half an hour.

It made a nice, quick and satisfying sewing project last month when it was cold and dark and I was in London the whole time. I'm pretty happy with it and if I spot a similar dress going cheap I'll consider doing it again.

So that's the craic there. I am going to mosey on here now because I'm tired and I'm in danger of starting to babble. I've finished a few great projects over the last two weeks though so I will be back soon. Goodnight now!

Hey everyone - happy Leap Day! I didn't spend it doing anything wild or crazy, sadly. I worked from home and I woke up with a cold, so this is coming to you from the depths of a blanket fortress on the sofa with ER on in the background. If real life can wait until March, I wish this fecking cold could have too.

THANKS, LEAP YEAR.

Complaining aside, things are grand. We unexpectedly had my dad here visiting from Thursday night until yesterday afternoon, as he had work stuff to deal with in Manchester. It was great to see him but it was pretty intense family time and work is super intense at the moment too. Daddy woke up early on Saturday morning, cleaned the kitchen and decided that he wanted to build us shelves. So this is what he did and our kitchen has some new shelves, which is pretty cool. It meant a lot of Saturday was taken up with that and then Sunday was clearing up from all of the sawing of the wood that went on in my living room!

That's the craic there anyway. I'm already tired of coughing and I'm currently trying hard not to give into the temptation to buy a pair of shoes that are too expensive because it's payday, I'm sick and it's officially the first day of my new job today. Also I got paid overtime for working a Saturday in January...none of them good enough reasons, of course, which is why I am trying to resist! So instead of lurking online shoe shops I'm going to show you a new dress that I made recently. And, SURPRISE SURPRISE, it's another By Hand London Kim dress. Maybe there is a limit to how many times I can make and blog a variation on this, I don't know. But also, I don't care. Here is the dress:

Starboard dress - By Hand London Kim dress with a pleated skirt, worn with Office 'Love Me Tender' shoes

Oh, yeah, and it's more fabric with anchors on it. What can I say? It's spring (almost) and this always seems to call for nautical prints. Fuck it, this is me, I just can't turn them down regardless of what time of year it is.

The fabric is by Dear Stella and the range is called Seaworthy. I bought it from The Village Haberdashery on one of those days when I was having a tiring day and fabric shopping seemed to be the only way to deal with it. I bought 1.5m especially with this dress in mind and it was the perfect amount, along with half a metre of navy lawn to line the bodice.

It is obviously too cold to wear the dress like this - before you ask, Leamington does not have some freakishly warm climate - but, I was able to wear it before the cold snap really hit on a weekend in London. As I was going to be doing a lot of walking, I wore it with my red cowboy boots. Here's a slightly crappy mirror selfie to prove it:

The boots were more from necessity than style, but I think they look pretty cute with the dress so I might revisit this combination at some point!

I wore this on Friday to go out for lunch with Nic, obviously paired with a red cardigan and a coat (guess which coat)

Cardigan is 'Paloma' from Hell Bunny

I'm honestly thrilled to bits with how this dress turned out. It's kind of a do-over of the Endeavour dress, which I made before I had Mrs C's tip for how to get the bodice to fit. I like this dress better anyway - that pale green was kind of hard to wear - and I'm really looking forward to wearing it more when the weather is warmer. If the weather ever gets warmer. COME ON WEATHER I HAVE SANDALS THAT NEED TO BE WORN. MANY MANY SANDALS.

This picture adds literally nothing to this post at this point but fuck it. It's Leap Day. Real life can wait for March, or something!

So yes. That's a little nautical Kim dress there which, by the way, I named Starboard on the suggestion of my friend Lauren because, according to her, "It's right on." I like your style, Lauren!

Now. I have had quite enough of sitting up for a little while. I have urgent lying-down that needs to be done. Bye now!

Hey guys! What is the craic?! I have basically minus craic at the moment. When I last wrote I was getting sick and, since then, I have been properly sick. I had the flu and then I got sinusitis. The flu has gone but the sinusitis and a horrible cough are definitely outstaying their welcome. I was back in the office today though, and apart from the cough and the fact that basically everything tastes and smells like vinegar (fuck you, sinuses, seriously) today was the first day that I felt well again. You know you've been properly sick when you're actually glad to get back to work. On the plus side, I did watch some amazing TV - I discovered that there are around 5000 episodes of Homes Under The Hammer on the BBC iplayer. So that was awesome.

Illness aside, last week wasn't totally terrible. I dragged myself into work - not an exaggeration lads, it was pitiful - last Tuesday for a very important meeting. I felt like kind of an idiot for doing it - you know, like one of those macho Lemsip ads where the Lemsip drinker is morally superior for working through illness while the other sick dickhead misses the important meeting - but it was important to me to be there. Even through my fever, it went well and I rewarded myself by going home almost immediately afterwards and sleeping for 22 hours. It was my first big meeting in my new role and I'm glad it went well, even if it did make me one of those Lemsip twats.

That's the craic there anyway. I've been wearing mainly pyjamas due to illness but as the sun came out yesterday, I got some photos of a dress I made a few weeks ago. Look at the dress, not the face. The dress is great: the face, not so much. Just thought it would be fair to give you some warning.

So it's another Emery dress with a pleated skirt. Maybe it's not worth blogging these at this stage but, humour me, here. I've been coughing up a lung:

Little Jazz Bird dress - Christine Haynes Emery dress with a pleated skirt, worn with Swedish hasbeens Mimmi sandals

As always, when I find a beautiful fabric, I immediately want to sew an Emery dress with it. It's such a great canvas for a fun print such as this one. This is a Michael Miller print called Flock, and I bought it on ebay. Yeah, I spend a bit too much time lurking Michael Miller fabrics on ebay, what can I say?!

This is pretty twee, which I guess is standard for me. I was attracted to this print because I loved the colours. It comes in other colours, I think, but I love the way the colours of the birds look against the French blue of the background. Also, you know, I have so many pairs of shoes in various colours that it appealed to me that I could wear this with lots of them.

I did choose to pick out one of the colours in particular by using another lovely lace zip from Berylune:

Turquoise! Where is the heart-eye emoji, blogger? I still have a few different colours of these lace zips and I love the dresses that I have made with them so I'm sure I will make more.

So anyway - that's the craic there. It's another twee dress in quilting cotton. I must be feeling better, eh?! I just can't wait until it's warm enough to actually wear this properly - when I took these photos yesterday it was warm in the sunshine but very definitely coat weather. Come on, spring. Come on!

Now. I'm away here. We have last night's episodes of The People Vs OJ Simpson and The X-Files to watch. It's all class in this house.

YOUR UNCLE JUICE IS A GOOD MAN.

Please, Juice.

Juice.

HOLA LOVERS! How is everyone? I am grand. Still bloody coughing, but grand. Since I last wrote, spring put in a brief appearance, which made me very happy. It's gone a little bit chilly again but on Saturday it was actually warm and sunny and I was able to parade around town in sunglasses, sandals and no tights. Clothes too, needless to say!

Look at this happy idiot

I've been having a really busy week or so at work. I had two all-day meetings in Slough last week and a lot of deadlines to meet. Then, you know how it is, deadlines seem to breed deadlines. Last week was sort of a weird week, work-wise. Something I work on made the news, but not in a positive way. It was frustrating because the reporting on it was just plain wrong - and by that I mean majorly factually inaccurate - but, that's the way it is sometimes in my field of work. It's fine now but it was kind of a tough week - I was still ill, having to work very long hours and experiencing the weird sensation of having my work discussed and criticised publicly, sometimes by people that I know (but who don't know what I do) and not really being able to do much about it.

However, It was Nic's birthday at the end of last week too and we had some fun obligations as well with a big birthday meal in one of our favourite pubs and some friends to stay. Life is a bit of a blur at the moment, but the sunshine certainly makes that easier to bear. Work is set to become a little less hectic too as the person we recruited to fill my role while I do my new job is starting on Monday, so that will take the pressure off me a little bit!

I haven't had much time to sew since I wrote last but, as usual, I have a bit of a backlog to get through. And hey, it involves an Emery dress because LOL. No, seriously. You guys don't seem to mind that much, though. Evie said to me in the comments on my last post that if you make what you wear, you wear what you make. TRUTH, Evie.

So, this dress was inspired by a lovely lady that I follow on instagram, whose name is Vicki. Like me, she loves to sew with wax cotton and recently she made a Sew Over It Betty dress in some glorious wax cotton. The Betty dress has a lovely circle skirt and I don't know why I haven't used wax cotton more often for circle skirts, because it's kind of perfect - the body means the skirt sticks out delightfully even without a petticoat, basically.

Rather than do a straight-up copy of Vicki's dress, I decided to pair the Emery bodice with my self-drafted (lol) circle skirt. So, yeah, here it is...

Trouble Is dress - Christine Haynes Emery dress with a circle skirt, worn with Swedish hasbeens braided sandals

Isn't the fabric FANTASTIC? I bought a five-metre length of it from an ebay seller. I'm not sure if the print is fans or dandelions or seashells or what, but I love the shapes and the colours. I bought it earlier this year but it took a while for me to decide what I wanted to do with it as the scale of the print is so large. So, as soon as I saw Vicki's dress I went straight to this print as both the circle skirt and the lovely Emery bodice really show the print off to perfection.

I cut the bodice on the straight grain and then the skirt separately with the selvedges running parallel to one another. I had loads of the fabric - 5 metre length, after all - so I have enough left to do something else with, although I'm not sure what yet. It was great to have so much fabric to play with: I didn't need to worry about pattern-matching (although that's not something that generally concerns me too greatly unless there are stripes or something) but I was able to choose the pattern placement on the bodice and I love the way the motif runs across the top of it.

I was really happy with the length of the skirt when I tried the dress on before hemming it, so I used some pink bias binding to hem the skirt. It's shop-bought and a little bit stiff in the way that shop-bought bias-binding usually is, but it actually works well with the weight and hand of the wax cotton. I know from experience that both will soften up a little bit through washing, too.

I like this pattern combination so much that I might use it to make a dress from another length of wax cotton that is sitting in my stash - this fabulous stuff that I bought when we were in Paris last August:

It's loud and sort of awful, so obviously I love it but again, I have been holding off on using it because of the scale of the print. This may have solved that particular problem! Well, defining the word problem in the loosest of terms, that is!

So, that's the latest with me. Now, as ever, I'm going to sign out here and go and watch a cop show. We've run out of Rebus, sadly (Ken Stott I love your face kthxbai) but luckily the second season of Bosch is on Amazon Prime. This is a sort of ridiculous show, but the casting is fantastic. Titus Welliver is the eponymous Hieronymus Bosch (NOT EVEN JOKING, but also do you like what I did there) and he's brilliant. His partner is Jamie Hector, whose character loves shoes, and his boss is none other than Lance Reddick. Happiness.

No, mate, it's not. It's awesome, is what it is. You're just too good at playing angry police dudes who are also smooth as fuck and can play the piano. Don't blame the man because you're so good at your job.

Jamie Hector in a three-piece suit. DOLLY LIKES. Look the part be the part, motherfucker.

Okay. I really do have to go now. It's all jumping off in Bosch. Ten four. Over and out.

Hey everyone! Happy Easter! I hope everyone has been having a relaxing weekend. After a very busy few weeks at work I was really REALLY hanging out for the long weekend, especially as it was going to be slightly longer for me because I had booked Tuesday off as well.

I know I'm constantly saying how busy work is, which might be getting old, but it's because it really and truly is right now. Luckily, the lady who is replacing me while I do my new job started last Monday, so before long I can start handing some of my workload over. There's a lot for her to learn and last week we had a couple of big deadlines, so I was juggling inducting and training her (and sorting out all of the HR things that come with being a line manager like getting her a buildings pass and sorting her out with payroll) with getting the urgent work done. Luckily for me, she's pretty awesome and she was able to get going on some key things pretty much straightaway. By Thursday, though, I was exhausted. I had a massive spreadsheet to check, my end-of-year review self-assessment thing to write up and about seven other things on my to-do list. When I finally busted out of work at 4:30 I was really ready for a break:

So, it's been a really lovely and relaxing weekend. I have been sewing, sleeping, watching silly films and generally just being pretty lazy. I made two dresses, which you can see on my instagram, and I have plans afoot to maybe cut another one out tomorrow if I have time. None of this is helping with the blogging backlog I have, but there we are. At least there has been a little bit of sunshine so blog photos are a possibility - storm Katie hasn't (yet) hit Leamington, so even if my hair is being blown sideways by the wind, at least I'm not being hit in the face with flying recycling bins or whatever.

Here's a dress that I made last week. It was the result of a sanity-saving impulse purchase on the weekend when my dad was visiting. We were in Coventry to see an exhibition of wildlife photography at the Herbert art gallery and museum and had stopped into Hobbycraft so that Daddy could buy some upholstery pins for his grand kitchen shelving plan (don't ask). Anyway, I bought some fabric to make a gift for a friend, and I bought myself a metre and a half of some turquoise floral cotton poplin. Here's what I made with it:

Bosch dress - By Hand London Flora dress with a pleated skirt, worn with Swedish hasbeens peep toe sandals

I love this print. So much so that I have made two other dresses with its different colourways - the Elaine dress in pink and the Crush With Eyeliner dress in red. I had eyed this up in Hobbycraft a few different times, but only ended up buying it when I needed some retail therapy! It was £5 per metre and, I have to be honest, the quality isn't amazing! I mean, it's fine and everything - it's just a little stiff and with very little drape. It's grand, though. I can forgive it with this pretty print.

I haven't made a Flora dress in a little while but it was all I could think of when it came to this fabric. This is one million percent because my lovely friend Lauren made a Flora dress from this fabric and I am a massive single white female. I know that making a copycat dress is enough to get you scorned and cast out with sticks and exiled from all polite society, but Lauren and I don't work that way. We have a lot of the same stuff because we have very similar taste in clothes and shoes and suchlike and we have frequently been known to split lengths of fabric. Anyway, Lauren is cool and was cool with it. So, yeah.

Me and Lauren. I definitely haven't murdered anyone.

So, after I had sat outside Lauren's house until she switched the lights off... I mean, I didn't do that, what are you talking about, I pulled out my copy of the Flora pattern and I cut it out. I had only bought 1.5m of the fabric so didn't have enough for the pleated circle skirt that comes with the pattern. Instead I used a pleated skirt pattern from my stash - probably New Look 6776; I can't remember.

I cut the size 8 Flora bodice. I curved the waist darts to make them a bit more wedge-shaped - a tip that Liz once gave me and an alteration I often have to do on patterns. I think that I could do with shortening the bodice a little bit and possibly dropping the bust darts slightly, as well as taking some excess fabric out of the back neckline. I have lost a bit of weight recently and it always shows across my back and the top of my torso, for some reason!

These are - to me, anyway - fairly minor things and I've already worn this dress a few times since I made it. The fabric is so bright and cheery that it's been hard to resist and, of course, the mixture of colours in the print mean that it's easy to accessorise with a variety of things. That's always a draw for me because of my life philosophy of 'one in every colour'.

I went for the yellows when I wore this on Saturday, wearing it with this yellow cardigan that I bought from a boutique in Leamington called Lilac Rose and this cute necklace that I bought from my friends at Berylune:

The beads are made from Fimo clay and are so tactile. I'm not usually into jewellery but I've really been attracted to chunky necklaces like this one recently. It has got me thinking that I might like to have a go at making my own at some point...possibly!

So, anyway, that's the Bosch dress. So named because Nic and I were watching S2 of Bosch while I was sewing it. So it's named for Titus Welliver as Harry Bosch not, you know, a washing machine. While that would be fine too, it would be a bit disloyal to my actual washing machine, which was made by Indesit. I live in a rented flat. Bosch is a wee bit high end for me, like.

Bosch is all, "Roisin. What the fuck are you talking about."

Now, I have to go and make some pizza dough. We have friends coming over for dinner later. Bank Holiday funtimes! Also, I have some Easter egg that still needs to be eaten...

Hello! How's the form with everyone this Monday, eh? I have had a pretty good one, to be fair. It's been some time since I had that back-to-school feeling on a Sunday night, but I did last night for whatever reason. I tackled it by figuring out my to-do list and heading into work early this morning to deal get some extra work done - right, that sounds a bit shit, I know BUT it meant that I was able to arrange my week so that I could book a day off on Friday. Hurrah! You have to love a four-day week.

Part of the Sundayishness was the fact that the weekend had been so very lovely. The sun made an appearance and on Saturday, Nic and I spent the day with some friends. We did a little bit of shopping in Banbury - by no means the most exciting place in the world, but home to a really good secondhand record shop and an even better independent book shop - and we had our first outdoor ice-cream of the year:

Sleazy ice-cream face. I was very happy because I bought proper, full-size flakes in the pound shop to put in our ice-creams. Immense.

Afterwards, we drove up into the hills to have a drink in a lovely pub and a picnic lunch at Burton Dassett. It was so lovely to be able to sit outside at a pub garden and even better when the pub in question was in an actual castle.

On Sunday, Nic and I had a lie-in, pottered around a bit in town, went for a walk and some cake with Rick and Lauren and watched a film. I did some sewing, too. It was basically all of my favourite things!

The forecast is for a rainy week, but that's fine. I found the sunshine and blue skies of the weekend to be very sustaining and now that we're officially into April, that means that our holiday is next month. So, that's very exciting! It's more than a month away - not until the end of May - but STILL. I'm sort of hanging onto that thought.

So anyway, that's the life update. Now for a dress. Longtime readers might be aware of my fascination with landscape border prints. I have a beautiful Bernie Dexter dress made with one. Here's me wearing it with my green Chuck sweater in November of last year:

A few years ago, I made a dress with another Michael Miller landscape print - the Green Ginger dress. Sadly, this became too big and I gave it away:

The fabric is called Park Landscape, in case you want to try to find some for yourself.

Last year, I made the Rural Juror dress. And, holy shit, I love that dress:

Yeah. I like a landscape print and I clearly need more than one in my wardrobe. So, when Sian posted a picture of landscape fabric on her instagram, I was curious to know where it came from.

It's the fabric on the left. The fabric on the right is In Theory by Jessica Jones barkcloth from The Village Haberdashery that arrived on the same day. Good post day, right?

It's a Michael Miller print called Meadow Path and, when I couldn't find it, Sian very kindly offered to pick some up for me from her local fabric shop. She has since started stocking it in her own shop and she makes dresses to order, so if you sew and you want some - she has it, and if you don't sew - she can make you a dress from it!

So anyway, yes. THE DRESS. I bought three metres of this fabric and, unlike other border prints I have seen, this had the pattern running selvedge to selvedge rather than parallel to the selvedge. This was a good thing, because it meant that I could sew a dress from it with the pattern pieces on the straight grain. It meant a little bit of pattern matching, but because I had bought plenty of fabric, that was no problem. I pondered a while on what to make with it and decided to go for V8998, mainly because I have been loving the panelled, gathered skirt option.

Urban Fervor dress - Vogue V8998 in Michael Miller 'Meadow Path' fabric, worn with Swedish hasbeens peep-toe sandals

So, yeah! I am pretty happy with this dress. The bodice is self-lined and, while the width of the skirt pieces and the width of the design meant it was difficult to pattern-match completely across the front of the skirt, I think it looks pretty good.

Because this wasn't a traditional border print, or at least - it isn't like the ones I have sewed with in the past - I wasn't sure how to work out the balance of the print across the bodice and the skirt. I settled on focusing on the sky for the bodice.

Well, Roisin. That's not exactly the sky. No, what happened was that after I had cut out the pieces for the bodice lining, I decided that I liked the green better. So that's what I did. Either way, I couldn't quite work it out so that it was all sky across the bodice and waistband, and I liked how this looked. Also I think the green works better for my colouring so looks better up near my face than the sky blue would have.

I've sewed this pattern quite a few times now, so the most challenging part of this dress was figuring out the print placement. I used twill tape to stabilise the neckline front and back - I don't have a photo of the back of this dress, but it has a low scooped back neckline. The twill tape keeps the back neckline close to my skin and stops it from stretching out. I blind-hemmed the skirt by hand - this is something I often do because I enjoy it, and in this case it was no different. I thoroughly enjoyed sewing this dress and couldn't wait until the sun came out at the weekend so that I could wear it!

So, I have a couple of landscape prints now in my wardrobe and no plans to resist buying any more such fabrics I can lay my hands on. I love them! I have a couple of unicorn-like rare prints that I would love to make dresses from - Serenity Bridge and Primavera by Michael Miller are two such prints. Ah, a girl can dream...

Serenity Bridge

Primavera blossom

I don't think I love this dress as much as I love the Rural Juror dress - I just love the trees in blossom on that print - but as it felt like a companion to it, I deemed it a sequel. It's nice to have another dress in my wardrobe that has me humming songs from 30 Rock all day.

So that's the craic anyway. I'm away here to spend the rest of my Monday night chilling out. Bye!

WELL HOWDY HO! Well, it's dismal as flip here today in Leamington, but it's hard to be too gloomy. I have pickled onion monster munch, tea, and Monday is over for another week. Can't be bad. I had a busy week last week, as usual, but I took Friday off and had a three-day weekend. I chilled out with Nic, went for a lovely long walk, watched some films, drank some gin and did a little bit of sewing. All pretty standard stuff, but it was good. It's taking me a while to adjust to my new role so being able to take a break is really helpful for my sanity. So is the fact that Nic and I are re-watching the early seasons of South Park. It might be wrong to identify so much with an angry eight-year-old, but I love Cartman.

I also love cheesy poofs

Anyway, that's the craic there. Cartman isn't the only angry TV asshole that I've lost my heart to. In fact, most of my favourite TV characters are angry assholes: Andy Sipowicz, Robert Romano, Dale Gribble, David Lee, Raylan Givens and Al Swearengen. Maybe I'm an angry asshole. Probably. Anyway, today I'm sort of writing on the topic of Al Swearengen because the dress I'm sharing with you tonight is Deadwood-themed. No, seriously. Check this shit out:

So, this amazing fabric is called Deadwood Saloon and it's by Alexander Henry. A few weeks ago, Alice from Fabric Yard got in touch with me and offered to send me some fabric to be a guest maker for their blog. I've shopped with Fabric Yard before and was more than happy to collaborate with Alice, especially as the business is based in Northern Ireland. When Alice offered me my choice of fabric, I was initially going to go for one of the Frida Kahlo prints as I have had my eye on these for ages. But as soon as I spotted this fabric I was totally smitten. It's Deadwood, but with skeletons!

Alice sent me 2.5 metres and it was pretty obvious that I was going to use the Emery bodice for this dress. I mean, come on. Let's be real. I decided this time to pair it with the panelled skirt from V8998 - the slight bustle effect that the side gathers gives the skirt made it seem appropriate:

Peaches dress - Christine Haynes Emery dress with skirt from V8998, worn with Swedish hasbeens peep-toe sandals

Not too much to say about this combination. I haven't paired these together before, but it works really well. I think the flat front of the skirt is really flattering, but the panelling and the side gathers gives the skirt lovely volume. But, you know, this dress is all about the fabric. Check it out:

Here's a card game in progress. I reckon the dude with the beard and hat must be Wild Bill Hickok, right? And in the background, that's possibly Seth Bullock. Well, actually - probably not. He's wearing the sheriff's star but that dude is much too laid back to be Bullock:

My friend Amy and I were buying a few bits in a sewing shop in Banbury last weekend and the guy serving us asked us what we were sewing. I told him, "Well I'm making a dress out of a fabric that has a wild west saloon on it, only everyone who is in it is a skeleton." He nodded slowly and then changed the subject. Not everyone gets it, I guess.

Of course, the skeleton theme of this fabric is not necessarily immediately obvious. I like that. Stealth skeletons.

I think the skeleton on the right is possibly Richardson. Yeah, it totally is.

Look, this whole blog post could basically just be Deadwood gifs, because there are so many great characters and great moments in that show. When I was mentally composing this post, I started to think about listing my favourite characters but that would be totally impossible. There are only two characters in Deadwood that aren't awesome - the one played by the Borg Queen and the one played by Sarah Paulson.

I didn't even know that I needed a Deadwood dress until I found this fabric. So, a big thank you to Fabric Yard for making this happen by sending me this fabric free fucking gratis - tonight I will open a celebratory can of peaches in your honour.

As well as sending me this fabric, Alice has given me a free postage code for you guys. If you use the code MYPALDOLLY on an order from Fabric Yard you'll get free postage to UK addresses and, during April, you'll get a surprise gift as well. How good is that?!

Right lads. I'm away here. The west isn't going to win itself now, is it?

Hey guys! Happy Friday! I am having a very chilled out Friday night with pizza, gin and episodes of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Yeah, don't laugh at that last one. Or, laugh if you like. I don't care. This show is weird but I still like it.

It's been a less hectic week this week - with the exception of a middle-of-the-night trip to A&E last night. Everyone is fine, thank goodness, but today Nic and I have been mainly resting and feeling grateful for the NHS. As the weather has been so dismal, staying indoors and watching DVDs seemed pretty appealing anyway, so it could have been a lot worse.

Here's a flashback to a few weeks ago and some sunnier weather with a dress I made last month. Actually: two dresses! But I'll get to that in a moment. So, one day about a year ago, I wore my Poppy Heather dress to work:

You can read about this dress here if you'd like!

My lovely friend and colleague A commented on how much she liked it, saying that it reminded her of a book - The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle - which happened to be her daughter's favourite book. Her daughter M loved the book so much that her first birthday party was Hungry Caterpillar themed. I knew that Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric existed, so I resolved to get some of the fabric and make M a dress from it. I wanted to wait until she was a little bit bigger and, when it came time for A to go off on maternity leave with her second, I thought it would be a nice gift for M. Luckily, my local branch of Hobbycraft had the fabric in stock so I was able to make this:

Very Hungry Caterpillar dress for Little M

I bought half a metre of the caterpillar fabric and two metres of the dotty fabric - which I knew would be far more than I needed for a little girl's dress, but enough to make myself a dress from it too! The pattern I used for M's dress is the Flo pattern, which was a free multi-sized dress pattern from the December issue of Love Sewing Magazine. I made the age three size - M is two and a half and I wanted to make sure that she had room to grow into it before the summer. It was a very easy pattern to sew, although I think the lack of markings would make it unnecessarily challenging for a total beginner. I didn't use the recommended amount of fabric for the skirt - it seemed like a lot for such a small dress and I was concerned that it would swamp M. Anyway - it sewed up very quickly and easily and both A and M were thrilled with it. I so rarely sew for other people but it felt good to make something that I knew M would love.

And, as I said above, I couldn't resist that awesome print so I made myself a little dress too...

The Very Hungry Caterpillar dress - By Hand London Kim dress with a pleated skirt, worn with Swedish hasbeens Kringlan sandals and Ollie and Nic apple bag

Literally nothing left to say about the Kim bodice now, is there? I still totally love it. Now that I know which alterations to do to it, I can sew it pretty quickly and with no stress. I actually made this dress and M's dress while I was still pretty spaced out with the flu and watching Homes Under The Hammer. Both of those things really tired me out! I took this dress on its first outing on Good Friday, when it was warm and sunny enough to justify it.

As it was a sunny bank holiday, I decided to run with the theme and accessorised the dress with a bag shaped like an apple and this Tatty Devine cherries necklace. It's what the hungry caterpillar would have wanted.

Someone on instagram told me that to be a real hungry caterpillar, I had to wear this dress with a red cardigan. But I'm contrary as fuck. No-one tells Dolly Clackett what to do. So I wore it with my yellow Miette cardigan. Ha ha! But also I will clearly wear it with a red cardigan soon, because that suggestion was legit.

A few people expressed disappointment that my dress didn't have the actual caterpillar on it too. I can see why - it seems like something I would wear - but I like that it's not immediately obvious what the reference is in this fabric. Also, maybe I'm getting serious in my old age, but I'm not sure that I would actually wear a dress with hungry caterpillars on it...

Yeah. I know. I just made a dress with wild west skeletons on it. There's probably no limit to what I would actually wear. I just liked the spotty print more.

I was in John Lewis there a few weeks ago and, while I wouldn't have bought anything from the ladies' section, there were so many cute little party dresses for babies that I was all, yeah, I would totally wear that. So now that I have a matching dress with a two and a half year old I guess it's official. I have the dress sense of a toddler. We just need to make sure not to turn up to any parties wearing the same dress.

Right anyway, it's Friday night and I have gin to drink. Goodnight!

Evening boys and girls. Happy Friday! I am very happy to have reached Friday. This week didn't get off to a brilliant start and it took a rapid nosedive at around Wednesday lunchtime. Something went wrong at work in a pretty major way and it has been stressful as shit. It's not over yet, either. Things are in place to address the issue, but it's going to get worse before it's over. As ever, I'm very grateful for the people that I work with and even more so for Nic, who has kept me sane.

So, yeah. It's been a pretty shitty week. All things considered, it could have been a lot worse, though. This weekend will be eased with a gift that Nic bought on Monday to thank me for looking after him after his accident last week:

Celebrating surviving a bad week isn't as good as celebrating something actually good, but I'll take it.

So, onto something positive. I haven't had the time or the mental energy for anything other than work this week, but I am still sewing faster than I can blog. Here's something I made on my long Easter weekend and - prepare yourself, lads - it's a pattern that I haven't sewed before!

I didn't buy Tilly's book Love At First Stitch when it came out. I don't really sew things from sewing books, you see. I ended up giving away my Colette book and my copy of Gertie's first book. However, I was flicking through a copy of it one day in a bookshop and was drawn to the Megan dress pattern. Specifically, I was drawn to the combination of the high-waisted skirt and the cute tucks on the bodice. My friend Amy lent me her copy and I was able to have a little go at it.

Chateau Rouge dress - Tilly and the Buttons Megan dress in wax cotton, worn with Swedish hasbeens braided sandals

My measurements suggested that I should sew a size 2, so I traced that and did a quick toile of the bodice. I thought I might have to shorten it, but as the lines of the dress mean that the bodice is short anyway, this wasn't an issue, so I went on ahead and cut into my fabric.

The fabric is a wax cotton that I bought last summer in Paris. It came on the bolt, rather than in a pre-cut length and I bought it from Moline in the Marche St. Pierre. I think it was around six euro a metre and I bought two. I like it a lot but wasn't overly attached to it - it seemed like the perfect candidate for a wearable toile. Although I was sure that the dress would broadly fit, I wanted to test the wearability of it - as it's a bit outside of my usual style, I wanted to make sure that it's a dress that I would wear!

The fit is fairly good, but not perfect. I'm happy with it in terms of size but I think the bodice needs a little bit of work. There was some gaping at the back neckline, which I addressed by tapering the zip in from a larger seam allowance at the top to a 5/8 seam allowance everywhere else. The neckline is still standing up a bit on my shoulders, which I think would be easy enough to fix. I didn't get a photo of the back of the dress, but the back bodice is a fraction long so I might think about a swayback adjustment. Well. I will definitely think about it. I will almost certainly not do it, because it's only a fraction long. Part of me wants to bring the dress in a tiny bit at the waist - it's looser there than my usual style but I won't, because that's how this dress should look.

As experiments go, I didn't take a massive risk, like, but I'm very happy with the dress. I think this style works much better with the fabric than the full-skirted dress I had in mind when I bought the fabric and I have worn the dress multiple times since I made it. Nic loves it and, interestingly, he loves the one bit that I'm still not sure about - the gathered sleeve caps:

I also had a haircut the day I made this dress so I was feeling pretty cute.

Nic thinks that they look cute and retro, and I think he's right - but I have been flip-flopping on them and also think that they look a bit extreme on me! But they haven't put me off the dress, and anyway, it would be easy to remove the ease from the sleeve caps so that the head was a bit flatter.

All in all, I like this pattern a lot. I didn't really look at the instructions in the book so I can't speak to their quality but this dress came together with no issues. It's unlined, so it was a nice quick make, and I am really taken with the bodice tucks. You can't see them in this busy fabric, but they give the bodice a really lovely softly structured shape. I think it's a gorgeous detail.

I've since made a modified Megan dress, inspired by this dress that I tried on in Cath Kidston. The dress itself was not for me - it had ridiculously tight sleeves and the fabric was sort of horrible - but it had tucks on the bodice and a pleated skirt. I messed around with the Megan bodice a bit and had a go at making my own... I haven't got proper photos of it yet, but here's a little preview:

Proper photos to follow, along with a blog post at some point. Probably!

So, yeah. I think it's good. I've always thought that Tilly's patterns aren't my style and - well, mostly they're not. I might be the only sewing blogger out there not to have made a Coco dress or top and I'm fine with that. But I really like the design details on the Megan dress, so it was certainly worth a punt.

So that's the craic there. Now I need to go and put some pizza in the oven and the champagne in the ice bucket and get this weekend started. Have a good one, everyone!

Hey guys! To my readers in the UK, happy May Day holiday! I have certainly appreciated having the day off work today, although the unseasonably cold and windy weather has meant that all I've wanted to do is chain-drink cups of tea and watch DVDs with Nic.

That, however, is exactly what has been needed. The bad week I was having last week? Well, it didn't get any better. My uncle Hugh - my dad's brother - died on Sunday night. He was 55 - a year younger than my dad - and he had been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer on 10th March this year. So, while not unexpected, his death was very, very sad. Nic and I flew home to Northern Ireland on Monday night so that we could spend time with family and go to Hugh's funeral, which was on Wednesday.

Hugh was a remarkable man. He was quiet and fair, but wickedly funny. It was desperately sad that he grew so ill so quickly but I can't help but be grateful that his illness wasn't longer. His wife, my auntie Marie, is a nurse, and she nursed him faithfully over the last few months. He died at home, with his closest family and his dog Scooby by his bed.

It's actually too sad to write any more but I am glad that Nic and I were able to be at home with my family last week. It wasn't all tears and sorrow, as we were able to spend time with my siblings and our nephews. It's hard to be sad when you're chasing imaginary dinosaurs with a hilarious toddler!

So... yes. That's been the past week. Nic and I came back to Leamington on Friday night and, while I haven't been at work, I was still in need of a long weekend! I went shopping in Birmingham on Saturday with some wonderful sewing friends and then I spent Sunday sewing. I'm back at work tomorrow, but now that we're in May our New York trip suddenly seems deliciously close - it's just over three weeks away - so there is a lot to look forward to.

I spent last Sunday sewing as a way of taking my mind off what was happening at home. I've been in the mood to sew dresses with a scoop neckline and, having toiled the Sew Over It Betty dress and experimented with the neckline on the Emery dress, I remembered that I had Butterick B5748 in my stash.

I sewed a few dresses from this pattern when I was far less experienced, and I struggled with getting the fit right - I guess this is why I had put it out of my mind. The shape of the bodice was just what I was after, though, so I pulled it out of my stash to inspect it. I decided that I needed to cut a few sizes down and to shorten the bodice by about an inch. I made a toile of the bodice, which I was delighted to find fit beautifully. I put a Christy Moore CD in the player, cut into my fabric and cracked on.

Burning Times dress - Butterick B5748 in Hill-Berg bird-print cotton poplin, worn with Swedish hasbeens Suzanne sandals

This dress is basically straight from the envelope, with the only real adjustments being that I shortened the bodice and I moved the zip. The pattern calls for a side zip but the bodice has a centre back seam, as does the skirt. I don't like side zips - I find them awkward to do up - but it's easy to have moved the zip to the centre back. I can see why it's a side zip in this pattern as the scoop is quite low, so some people might struggle to do up the zip... but I rarely find this to be an issue! Do you want to have a look at the back?

Yeah. I'm super happy with this dress. I must be, if I'm showing you a picture of my back, right?!

The fabric I used is a cotton poplin by Hill Berg fabrics, which I bought on ebay.

I sort of bought this by accident... no, seriously! I was looking for it in another colourway (the pink that I sewed an Anna dress from in 2013) and when I clicked into the listing for this shade my finger slipped on the 'add to basket' button. Laugh if you want. It genuinely was an accident! Anyway - who was I to argue? It was something stupid like £3.49 a metre so I went on ahead and bought 3 metres. I'm glad that I did because I really like the colour. In 2013, I wasn't sure what sort of birds that these are. I still don't know in 2016. Someone - I have a notion that it was Evie - told me that they are terns. They might be hummingbirds. Whatever they are, they're a pretty colour. So sorry, so not Bill Oddie.

I wish there was more to say about this dress. It's always going to be a little bit bittersweet because of the timing of when I made it, but I daresay that won't stop me from wearing it. If we ever get a summer, it'll be lovely on hot days.

Here's a little close-up. I got some new glasses! They're Red or Dead and they're from Specsavers. I got the same frames as sunglasses last year and liked them so much that I wanted to get them as glasses. So that's what I did. I hope that they're more Janine from Ghostbusters than Dame Edna but to be honest, I'll take either.

Well, that's it from me for this evening. I have to be up ridiculously early tomorrow so a hot bath and an early night are calling to me. See you later, possums!

Hey guys! It's been nearly two weeks since I've been around - do you all still remember me? The last two weeks can only be described as chaotic. I've had some absolutely lovely days - last weekend was pretty perfect - and some super, SUPER shitty days as well. Work has been pretty horrible - after getting through something majorly bad happening a few weeks ago, something very similar happened again this week. This more recent one was simultaneously less bad and much worse, which I appreciate is difficult to explain. Anyway - for the moment, it seems to be sorted out, so that's something. I have been angry and discouraged, and pretty fucking stressed. It think that, in a weird way, I would have coped better if the issue was one that I had caused, rather than being one that I was subject to. At least then I would have the comfort of knowing that it wouldn't happen again. As it was, I got to Thursday like:

Anyway. I'm mostly feeling better now - I feel less stressed mentally, although my body hasn't quite caught up yet: I have ridiculous facial twitches (both eyes, one eyebrow and my forehead) and trembling hands. I need a holiday. Luckily, I have one coming up!

I did reach the end of the week feeling much more positive. This week was very difficult but I was able to get back to having a sense of perspective by the end of it. It's difficult not to take unfair and ill-informed criticism of your work personally. I love my job - I work hard at it and I'm good at it. I enjoy it. I'm lucky to have a job that revolves around thinking about things, being creative and solving problems - I even enjoy, somewhat perversely, all of the damn spreadsheets. So I celebrated regaining that feeling on the journey home from London on Friday night with some high-class train booze:

I've been sewing here and there - it's hard when your hands are shaking - but obviously I haven't been blogging it! I will have to try to catch up at some point. Here's a dress that I made a couple of weeks ago and wore to my friend Amy's birthday party last Sunday. It's another Butterick B5748 and longtime readers might find the fabric familiar...

Mr Pinchy dress - B5748 in lobster cotton, worn with Swedish hasbeens Merci sandals

Yessss. Lobsters! It's not the same piece of fabric that my Lobsterlex dress was made from. Having refashioned that dress once, I didn't have it in me to do it again when it became too big. Kerry alerted me to the fact that Shivani was selling a length of it on her instagram destash account, so I jumped on it. How could I not? It was time to get lobsters back into my wardrobe!

I had three metres of this awesome fabric and it's 60 inches wide - more than enough for a midi-length circle skirt. Having been so pleased with the Burning Times dress, it seemed like the obvious choice. The fit of this dress turned out a little bit different, though. This is partly because of the fabric - this is a cotton spandex blend, so it has a little bit of stretch to it. Also, I lowered the waist darts slightly as I thought they came up a little bit high on the Burning Times dress. I should have left them where they were - you can see some wrinkling under the bust - but it's no biggie.

The skirt as drafted on this pattern is pretty long - it's a vintage re-issue - so I went with the longer length this time. Swishing around in a circle skirt is so much fun and it's even more so when it is covered in lobsters. Wearing it on Sunday made me bite the bullet and order myself a Tatty Devine lobster necklace, which arrived during the week with some other things I bought on ebay...

The cornflower blue Zatchels saddle bag was brand new and ridiculously cheap on ebay - it was under £12! The anchor buttons are for another McCall's 6696 shirt-dress in the red version of the polka dot cotton sateen that I made the Encore Tricolore dress from. I like a bit of repetition, as is evident from both this blog post and also everything else that has ever been on this blog. There's a good chance that the lobster necklace will be totally invisible on the dress, or that it'll be just TOO MUCH - especially if I wear it with my lobster sandals. But, if less is more... think of how much more more will be.

The lobsters go brilliantly with my new orange clogs of deep joy:

I think they also went pretty well with this crown, which I was briefly able to steal from the birthday girl...

So, all in all, I think that a working lobster dress is going to fit very nicely into my wardrobe.

See? TOTALLY PRACTICAL.

Well, I'm going to go now. We're up to the end of S9 of ER and Very Bad Things are happening for Kovac and Carter in the Congo, so that kind of needs my attention. Have a good week, everyone!

Hey everyone! Hello!

Life hasn't been much less chaotic since the last time I was here. Well, no, that's not strictly true. It's been slightly less chaotic but the chaos has been a little bit more organised. Work has been flying at me from every angle. I got an email on Tuesday that tipped me over the edge into having to go and have a stress-cry (the email was totally fine, too, I was just tired and totally fed up) and then I had two days of very intense meetings in London.

Aaaah. I've been working really long hours and feeling pulled in all directions. I had a big and unexpected piece of work land on my desk a couple of weeks ago on top of all of my business as usual stuff and all of the extra chaos that has been happening recently and it just about put me over the edge! The good news is that I finally cleared it today and - even better - tomorrow is my last working day before a three-week holiday. THANK FUCKING FUCK FOR THAT, LADS. Now seriously.

So, all of the delightful twitching and all that I described in my last blog post is still there and is even worse, in some ways. Ugh. But holiday time is nearly here so I'm holding on.

That's the craic with me. I've been sewing, too, so here's a dress that I made recently.

Last week I wanted to spend Saturday afternoon sewing, so I had a wee hoke around in my pattern stash and found this one that looked likely...

I have absolutely no memory of buying this pattern. None. Seriously. Don't know when or where I got it. Worse than that, when I opened it to cut the pattern I discovered that I already had cut it. It meant that past me had made present me's job easier... but, yeah. I don't know when I did that or what I was thinking when I did. Because, you know, this pattern envelope isn't as heinous as some New Look envelopes (looking at you here, NL6776) but, like, you'd hardly sew this based on that envelope. As with so many other New Look patterns, though, this is actually pretty cute - which you can see from the little polka dotty drawing of view D - so, maybe that explains it. Like I said: no memory.

I had cut it out in a size 10 - past me had - but present me's measurements more closely matched the size 8. So I did have some cutting to do - I trimmed it down and made a bodice toile. I was also experimenting with an adjustment: the pattern is drafted to have a side zip and I hate those, so I needed to add in a centre back seam allowance. Also, the pattern instructions said to sew the bodice with a 3/8 seam allowance so I wanted to check that out. The 3/8 seam allowance was no bueno, but moving the zip to the back worked. I tried the bodice out again with 5/8 seam allowances all over apart from at the side seams, where I needed to use a 1 inch seam allowance and I was good to go.

I had this pretty cute Michael Miller fabric that I had bought from Modes4U when I was having a crappy day:

The print is called Meadow Daisy and Bernie Dexter has used it in one of her dresses. I had only bought 2 metres so I didn't have quite enough to sew the panelled skirt of the pattern. I decided to make like the Bernie dress and add a gathered skirt to it.

Prospect Park dress - New Look 6020 in Michael Miller Meadow Daisy fabric, worn with Swedish hasbeens peep-toe sandals

The gathered skirt is closer to the inspiration dress but in this small-scale print, it's definitely not the most flattering. My waist is totally lost in this photo but I promise it is actually there!

As well as changing the skirt and moving the zip to the centre back... and all of the stuff with the seam allowances, I also lined the bodice. The pattern doesn't call for lining, but I would nearly always prefer to line a bodice than to use facings. I lined the bodice, but I used the facing pieces to cut interfacing, which I added to the shell fabric before attaching the lining. I did this because of another modification I made, which was to use the back neckline for views A and B - a v-back:

Adding interfacing helps keep the neckline from gaping. It's a trick I learned from NL6776, actually, so nice work, there, New Look patterns. Good job.

One of the things I really like about this pattern is the shape of the sweetheart neckline:

Ugh seriously guys my face is goofy as fuck these days. It's like 300% more goofy than usual. Maybe it's the stress. Or the beer. Anyway - yeah, the neckline. It's similar to the neckline from the By Hand London Kim dress, which y'all know that I love, but it's not as low-cut. It's good.

For having a pretty dorky-looking pattern envelope, this is a really cute pattern. And, like all New Look patterns, it has loads of great options. I definitely want to sew view A and - it won't surprise you to learn - I have already made another sweetheart neckline dress, but with the skirt as drafted. I made it yesterday and am saving it to wear on holiday. Here's a little peep at it though:

If you're seeing a theme here, you're not wrong.

I wore the Prospect Park dress last Sunday to go out for breakfast with Nic and then to spend some time with my lovely friend Lucy and her kids. I was pretty pleased by the camouflage opportunity it gave me...

Right now. Not only is it Monday night, but it's our second wedding anniversary today. I had to spend it at work for reasons which are probably pretty clear, so tonight Nic and I are celebrating by drinking cava and packing. Here's one more picture though, just because I like this dress a lot.

I'll not be around for a while now because holiday. Try not to miss me too much, like. See you on the other side!

YES I AM.

Hello everyone!

Yeaaah! So, we made it to New York and back. That's me there, at Brooklyn Bridge Park. It's probably pretty unnecessary to say that we had an amazing holiday - especially unnecessary if you follow me on instagram, as you'll have had two and a half weeks of classics like this one:

Here I am with a slice of pizza from Joe's of the village. Having sampled slices from a number of establishments, Joe's was my favourite. Nic differed slightly, favouring Sal's pizza in Brooklyn.

I won't bore on for too long about the holiday, but here are the headlines. We stayed in an airbnb apartment in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The neighbourhood had been recommended to us by a friend who lived there until very recently and it was absolutely brilliant. We were staying on St John's Place, between Franklin and Classon and we both became really attached to the neighbourhood - it is lively and diverse with lots of great bars and restaurants and it's right next to Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Public Library and the Brooklyn Museum. We were close by Franklin Avenue subway station, which allowed us to get into Manhattan on the 2,3,4 and 5 trains and we were also able to catch the B and D trains from nearby Atlantic Avenue to get into Manhattan across the Manhattan bridge.

A Brownstone in Brooklyn Heights

Neither of us had been to New York before, but of course everything is so familiar from films and TV shows so it was very easy to find our way around. As film and television people, it was super fun to turn a corner and find ourselves on the set of a film or TV programme that we love...

Such as Carrie Bradshaw's apartment...

... and the steps of the Supreme Court. I couldn't stand on the steps itself as filming was taking place on that day.

We did a few of the big tourist things to do - we went to Central Park, the Natural History Museum, the High Line and the September 11th memorial. We decided to only go to one tall building, and that was 30 Rock. It was AMAZING, and well worth paying for. We went up at 7:30pm so were able to see the city just before the sun set, at sunset and after dark.

Midtown and lower Manhattan from the top of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. You can see the Empire State Building and One World Trade Centre.

Just after sunset. I took this photo from inside, where we had a window all to ourselves.

We also rode the Staten Island Ferry twice. It's free and it is SO much fun. It was top of my list of things I wanted to do (I guess I've seen Working Girl a few too many times) and it did not disappoint. On our first trip we spent about an hour in Staten Island but on our second go we just got off the ferry in Staten Island and straight back on it again back to Manhattan.

Jersey City, Manhattan and some of Brooklyn seen from the Staten Island Ferry

The ferry runs all night and the next time we go to New York I'd like to take it at night. I bet that view is spectacular.

We were lucky enough to be able to meet up with some friends while we were in New York. A friend of Nic's from university lives in Greenpoint, so we met her one day for dumplings at Vanessa's in Williamsburg. Another good friend from our university days, Rod, lives in Brooklyn also so we were able to catch him in between work and moving house for breakfast at Lincoln Station. We met up with some sewing bloggers too - although at no point did I get my shit together enough to get photos! Jennifer invited us to see her Workroom Social studio, which is in Crown Heights, and we had lunch with her and Suzanne at Berg'n Beer Hall. Jennifer and her husband also took Nic and me to Flushing for dinner in Chinatown. We went to Astoria to hang out, eat Greek food and talk crap with Sonja and our very hungover selves met Marcy for ice-cream sandwiches and fabric shopping in the Garment District. Without Marcy I might not have bought any fabric at all - we didn't do a lot of shopping, really - but I'm very glad that I did. And, as ever, within moments of meeting all of these lovely ladies it was like I had known them forever. And ice-cream sandwiches are good for easing hangovers, just so you know.

Lots of the best things we did were spontaneous and low-key. We spent a fair amount of time exploring Brooklyn - man, we fell for Brooklyn in a big way - and a lot of time drinking craft beer and people-watching at various bars. One of the best and most surprisingly fun things was sitting for a few hours on a bench in East River Park watching the sun set over the Manhattan skyline:

We walked. A LOT. We averaged around eight miles a day. We drank a lot of beer and a fair few cocktails, ate a decent amount of pizza and quite a few doughnuts too. It was the best holiday. I'm back at work tomorrow and, while I'm sure that it won't take long for me to feel tired and stressed again for the moment I'm still feeling the benefit of our time away.

The Manhattan Bridge and Empire State Building. Nic had to get out into the middle of the street to take this photo!

It was good to have a bit of a holiday from sewing and blogging, as well. I didn't miss either and I had been feeling a bit...well, meh, about blogging before my break. It happens from time to time and so much had been going on in my life throughout April and May that it made me sort of lose interest in blogging. I'm still not sure where I am with it, if I'm totally honest, but it is nice to be writing now, so I guess that means I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet! I'm certainly not tired of sewing and I do have a dress to show you that I made before we went to New York. It would be nice to have good photos of me wearing it there - I did wear it there - but I didn't get organised enough to have Nic take them. Instead I got a few photos in a brief moment of sunshine yesterday afternoon!

Kidnapped by Danger dress - New Look 6020 in 'Park Landscape' fabric from Michael Miller, won with Swedish hasbeens peep-toe sandals

Having liked the bodice of the Prospect Park dress so much, I knew that I wanted to make a version with the skirt as drafted in the pattern. I had three metres of this Michael Miller landscape fabric that I had bought from Miss Ginger so that's what I went for. Still no fan of a side zip, I made the same modifications to the pattern that I did with the Prospect Park dress - rather than cutting the centre back pieces on the fold, I cut two of each and added a seam allowance of 5/8. I used 5/8 for the seam allowances all round (rather than the 3/8 that the pattern calls for) apart from at the side seams, where I had a seam allowance of one inch.

I self-lined the bodice, as before, and I did as good as job as I could of pattern matching across the seams of the skirt. The skirt looks kind of frumpy on the pattern envelope and I wasn't that sure if I would like it. I reasoned that, even if I didn't love it, the print is so amazing that I'd still wear it. But, I really like the shape of the skirt - I think the a-line is full enough to give me the silhouette that I like but a-line enough not to be a total fabric hog. Yet again, a New Look pattern comes up trumps. I definitely want to try the other bodice variations on this pattern with this skirt.

Needless to say, I really love this fabric. There's just something so cheerful about a landscape print. I wore this dress twice when we were on holiday and felt great in it both times - although I must admit that I like it better on me now. I swell up a bit in the heat and I am very pale, so my very Irish skin looked extra Irish (blue) against the vibrant colours!

Here I am wearing it on location in New York. No, seriously - there was a film being shot in our neighbourhood. It's Todd Haynes's new film, Wonderstruck, which stars Julianne Moore. We didn't see Julianne herself, unfortunately, but it was still pretty cool!

As there is very little danger of me swelling up in the heat of the English summer, I think it's safe to say that I'll wear this dress a fair bit! Good old New Look patterns.

Right, now I have waffled on for ages here and I want to have a drink and watch some crappy TV before real life starts again tomorrow. Until next time, folks!

Me and Nic on the Staten Island Ferry

Evening! I hope this finds everyone well. I'm suffering from the combined effects of hay fever and a head cold, feeling deeply anxious about the outcome of today's EU Referendum and still only halfway through my work week because I have to work all weekend. OH, and I have to spend tomorrow in Slough.

Despite all of this though, I'm grand and we have a big dumb movie on in the background to cheer the whole thing up. It's San Andreas - think of it as us readying ourselves for disaster. But also it's because I find stressed-out Paul Giamatti inherently hilarious, so there's that too.

So that's the craic with me. The return to real life after our holiday hasn't been too bumpy (referendum aside) and although I'm facing major changes at work - well, I'm always facing major changes at work. I'm pretty used to that by now. I'm still trying to hold onto the good holiday vibes and am mainly succeeding.

I've been merrily sewing away, which has been fun. I had a stressful and busy few months in which I didn't have a lot of time for sewing but I did buy a fair bit of fabric so my stash is as full as it has ever been. I keep it in an Ikea 'Hol' side table that doubles as our coffee table and it's almost full. It's a small stash in comparison to many, but it's what I'm comfortable with, so I am on a mission to sew my way through a good portion of it over the summer.

A good place to start was making something from one of the pieces of fabric I bought in New York - some checked poplin with a slight stretch to it that I bought from Chic Fabric in the Garment District. It was $4 per yard and I bought two yards without any especial plan for it, and before I went back to work I realised that it needed to be made into a Simplicity 2444, so that's what I did:

Seven Worlds Collide dress - Simplicity 2444 worn with Swedish hasbeens peep-toe sandals and a vintage bag

I didn't totally love the fabric on the bolt because it felt a little bit...crunchy? The shop owner assured me that it would wash nicely and I figured that at $4 a yard I was willing to take a risk. He was right, though - it washed really nicely and all of the crunchiness disappeared. I didn't realise when I bought it that it has a slight stretch to it - a bit like the stretch sateen that I have sewed with in the past - but that worked out really well. I'm carrying a little bit of holiday chub (all of that pizza and beer... it was mostly cancelled out by all of the walking, but not totally. A few weeks of eating vegetables and not drinking beer every day will sort me out) so a little bit of stretch is very comfortable right now!

It's been a while since I've made a 2444 (maybe a year) but it was a nice, fun pattern to sew after a few weeks away from my machine. I sewed a straight size 8, with the main adjustments being the standard ones I have made in the past for this pattern, which is to sew the shoulder seams at 6/8, omit the pockets and to cut the skirt front on the fold rather than have a seam down the front of it. I also pinched out two darts in the back neckline, because it was gaping really badly - much more so than on any previous iteration of this dress. This is possibly down to the fact that the fabric has some stretch to it.

Back view. DORP. When Nic took this he told me, "It doesn't look that wrinkled in real life!" which was reassuring. I think it looks okay though. The fitting police might put me under arrest, but no jury would convict.

I think that, right being right, I could do with shortening the bodice on this pattern. I am pretty short-waisted. I've considered it in the past for old 2444 but it looks like it might be a bit of a ball-ache because all of the bodice darts are at the waist. Eh - that's just pure laziness though, isn't it? It is, though. I can admit it.

Yeah this bodice needs to be shortened a bit. ROISIN GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER. But also, here is a closer-up view of the fabric and my Monstrous Pencil necklace, which I bought at Berylune and which I super love. I have bought, like, five of these necklaces. It's ridiculous.

This is one of those dresses that isn't really exciting, but I am very happy with it. It's comfortable and cute and classic. It's the sort of dress that I would buy in a shop so I am sure I'll wear it loads. I've already worn it twice in the last week - once, on the day after I made it, when it was rainy...

This photo is a little out of focus but don't blame the photographer, it was raining pretty heavily!

...and I wore it today to work from home, vote, defrost the freezer and to have dinner in the park with Nic:

Right, okay, I know that pizza isn't a vegetable. It was good though.

So that's the craic there anyway. Simplicity 2444: still a winner. Such a classic. Now I'm away here. I need to give San Andreas my full attention. It has Archie Panjabi in it AND Paul Giamatti is getting pretty stressed. What's not to love?

Like, I would definitely watch a TV show of just these two guys.

Evening everyone!

So, okay. Normally I wouldn't talk politics on the blog but I feel like I can't write a post without mentioning the outcome of last week's EU Referendum. It's been on my mind constantly since then. Like many people - 48% of those of us who turned out to vote - I am devastated by the result. I was angry, upset and scared by the racist rhetoric that surrounded the Leave campaign and I am frightened about what the outcome of the vote might mean for the UK. More immediately than that - for me, at least - I am bitterly angry about what withdrawal from the EU could mean for my home country of Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland voted to remain and will be on the border - on the frontier, as David Cameron referred to it - of the EU, should the UK withdraw. And, as an Irish-identifying Northern Irish person who grew up right on the border, I am frightened about what a return to a hard border might mean for the country. I'm terrified that it could signal a return to conflict - EU law and the ability to move freely between Northern Ireland an Eire underpin the Good Friday Agreement, so that's under threat, and Sinn Féin have already issued a call for border poll: a referendum on Northern Ireland's future in the UK. You can read in more detail about the possible ramifications of withdrawal from the European Union here.

On a personal level, I am furious with the result. I'm furious that such a referendum could even take place and that seemingly nobody in Westminster thought about how the outcome could affect the people of Northern Ireland. I know that it's a small country and it's an issue that most English voters would not have considered, but English people also suffered the consequences of the troubles. Ask the people of Warrington, Manchester, Reading, Guildford, Birmingham, Lichfield, Shrewsbury, Brighton or London what the peace in Northern Ireland means to them.

I grew up in Aughnacloy, County Tyrone, which is on the border between Northern Ireland and Eire. For all of my childhood, this was a heavily militarised border. One of my earliest memories is of Aidan McAnespie's murder by a British soldier at the border checkpoint. I was six when this happened. Aidan was the brother of classmates, a friend of my uncle's, a distant cousin. It's very hard to describe to anyone who hasn't experienced this what it was like - but, if you want to get an idea of the lasting trauma this has had on the people of Northern Ireland, read about the high suicide rates of Northern Irish people of my generation and the generations subsequent to us; the Ceasefire Babies. I am frightened and frankly fucking furious that Westminster and the people who voted Leave have put Northern Ireland at risk of conflict again. And that it was done without even a thought is the thing that makes me the most angry. The rational, intellectual part of me wants to feel ready to move on, to try to understand the people who voted Leave because they thought it would help the NHS or because they're desperate to be able to buy bendy fucking bananas, but I'm not there yet.

So, yeah. It's been a totally shitty few days and we have some seriously scary times ahead. But it's time to talk about sewing and dresses again. I need the light relief right now.

I was in London all weekend for work and took yesterday and today as time off in lieu. I haven't accomplished much - a little bit of sewing, a little bit of tidying, and that's about it. Nic and I went out for a walk in the sunshine yesterday and had business lunch at Kayal. As the sun was shining - albeit for only a few hours - I thought I would wear and photograph a dress that I made recently!

This dress was inspired in part by a beautiful dress that I saw while we were in New York. Catching the subway one day, I saw a woman buying her ticket and wearing a wax cotton maxi dress. It had a sleeved bodice with a scoop back, an exposed zip and a full, pleated skirt. She was wearing a matching headscarf and she looked so stunning that I had to run up to her and tell her that. I have a wax cotton maxi dress - my Barbès-Rochechouart Anna dress - and I wear it loads, but I wanted something with a similar shape to the beautiful one I had seen. I did a bit of investigating and it seemed that Simplicity 1610 might fit the bill:

I obviously had some wax cotton in my stash: this purple and green print that I bought last year in Paris (from Tissus Toto, where else?!)

Although my inspiration dress had sleeves, I thought that sleeves might be a bit too much on this wild print. Yes, I worried about what might be too much when I was sewing with lime green and purple cotton. Make of that what you will! But I am very happy with the finished dress:

Franklin Avenue dress - Simplicity 1610 in wax cotton. Not much point in telling you what shoes I'm wearing as you can't see them!

Admittedly, the lines of this dress are lost in this crazy print, but the skirt is very cute. It even has pockets! You can see them in the line drawings for the pattern:

I sewed a size 8 and the only adjustment I made was to shorten the bodice by an inch, which is an adjustment that I nearly always make these days. The pattern calls for the bodice to be lined, and I self-lined it. The length of the skirt surprised me - I'm very short and it was the perfect length for me! So, I would say that if you're taller than 5'1" you might want to consider lengthening the skirt.

Pockets!

I only glanced at the instructions for assembling the bodice - they're obviously pretty standard - but I did read more closely the instructions for assembling the skirt to make sure that I had the construction steps for the steps correct. It was very neat and straightforward and easy - the only slight issue that I had was wrestling the long skirt pieces to make the pleats! It wasn't difficult or anything - it's just slightly more awkward to manage when you have a lot of fabric.

Again, it's kind of hard to tell in this fabric but I really like the shape of the bodice and especially the armholes - they're angular rather than rounded and it's a lovely detail. For some reason, I think that the bodice makes me look super busty...not something to complain about, like, but still notable, I think! The other thing that I like about the bodice is the v-shaped back neckline:

Yes, so all in all, I think this pattern is a winner. I liked this so much that I straightaway made a knee-length one in another piece of wax cotton that had been hanging out in my stash. I think I like it even more than this one - and, being knee-length, it's probably more everyday wearable. A wax cotton maxi dress isn't an everyday dress, for sure, but judging by how much I've worn my wax cotton maxi Anna dress, this one will do me very nicely.

Nic loves this dress. For some reason, he's always delighted when I wear a maxi dress and I am delighted by his delight. In these dark and troubling days, a little bit of colour and delight can only help.

Right now. I have to be up early in the morning for a meeting in London so I shall say goodnight. Until next time, friends.

Hello!

Happy Saturday, everyone! After a pretty turbulent week, emotionally, I'm starting to feel on slightly more of an even keel now. Nic and I are having a quiet and relaxing weekend with nothing more taxing planned than going for a walk, watching a few silly films (so far, we've watched Red Dragon and Sex and The City: The Movie and Nic is currently trawling Netflix for something to watch later), making pizza and opening a bottle of champagne. It's been easy to feel like everything in life is totally shitty because... well, the news. I'm making a conscious effort this weekend to get a little bit of joy back. I started yesterday morning by watching this video, which, please. YOU MUST WATCH IT.

P STEW

Tell me that doesn't bring a smile to your face. Sir Patrick Stewart must be the happiest and cutest man alive. Seriously now.

I worked at home yesterday and got out at lunchtime to go for business lunch with our friend Charlotte. It was unexpectedly sunny yesterday (well, it rained in the evening) so I took the chance to get some photos of a new dress. A dress I did not make. It came from a shop, and I love it:

Tennessee dress by Sixton London*, worn with Topshop belt, Tatty Devine Lobster necklace and Miss L-Fire Rock Lobster sandals

The craic here is that a few weeks ago, lovely local boutique Lilac Rose got in touch with me and asked me would I like to try out a dress from new brand Sixton London. At one time, I was a hardcore Lilac Rose shopper - this was before I could sew - and even now, I can never resist stopping to see what they have in their window. The shop is very local to me - it's around the corner from our flat - and I have bought many, many dresses from them over the last nine years! They stock a few brands that I really like, including Emily and Fin, so I was curious to check this new brand out.

I tried a few dresses but I ended up being very taken - surprisingly so - with the Tennessee dress. This was surprising to me for two reasons: one of them is the fact that this dress has shirred panels in the back bodice (which is a feature I normally avoid. I'm not a fan of shirring, for some reason) and the other is that it's a solid colour. I think I have only one other dress in my wardrobe that's a solid colour! But I sort of fell in love with this one as soon as I put it on.

The dress is unlined and is made from a soft but structured cotton-poly chambray. I liked the raglan sleeves and the round neckline, but it was the skirt that really made me fall for this dress - the box pleats make the skirt really full and satisfyingly swishy.

The great thing about the solid colour is the potential for showing off fun accessories! I have worn this Lobster necklace from Tatty Devine lots of times since I bought it, but I haven't yet matched it to the Lobster sandals. This dress seemed like the perfect canvas for that pairing!

I was pretty impressed by the quality and finish of the dress. As I mentioned above, it's unlined, but that's fine in a summer dress. The neckline is bound, and the skirt has a narrow topstitched hem. It's all good. I'm afraid I can't find a size chart online for Sixton, but I'm wearing a size 8 (which is usually what I wear in most RTW) so I think you could say it's pretty true to size...although, as dress sizes vary so wildly I'm not sure that statement is all that helpful. The shirring across the back does add a little bit of extra ease, of course.

I'm already planning how I'm going to wear this dress next, so I think it's definitely going to get lots of wear this summer. It's also inspiring some sewing plans...the box-pleated skirt is very similar to the one on the By Hand London Zeena dress, which I have in my stash. I'm going to have to get the scissors and scotch tape out and start taping that PDF together!

But first, it's Saturday evening and there is pizza to be made and champagne to be chilled. I have a fair few handmade dresses lined up to blog about soon, so catch you all then!

*This dress was provided to me by Lilac Rose to review. I was not paid for this post and my opinions are my own.

Hello hello! Evening everyone. What's the craic? I'm grand - I've been having a bit of a weird, anxious week. It's definitely everything that is going on in the world; there is just too much news right now. Some reasonably big changes are coming at work and it's impossible to predict just how much and in what way they'll change things. We're currently in the reasonably quiet summer months - which for us means not being completely and utterly flat out - and, while I should be able to enjoy the relative calm, it makes me feel restless. In summary: nothing to actually worry about (apart from the news, that is) but enough to make me feel restless and anxious and unable to sleep. I've been trying to work through it in the best way that I know how: sewing, long walks with Nic and making fun plans.

So that's the craic there. I have been sewing loads, which has been making me feel good - especially as it means I'm working my way through my stash! Tonight I'm going to blog something that I made a few months ago but never got around to photographing. Remember when I made a Tilly and The Buttons Megan dress? Well, shortly after making that dress I spotted this dress in Cath Kidston:

Hydrangea dress - it's currently in the Cath Kidston sale, if it takes your fancy

Much like the Megan dress, the bodice on this dress has cute little tucks rather than darts and, as you can see, it has an a-line pleated skirt. All very nice. I tried the dress on in the shop but, while I liked the shape of it overall, I really really hated the fabric. It's a slightly shiny waffle-textured cotton - not bad on its own, but the colour did nothing for me. Also, you know, it was £75. I don't consider this to be too much for a dress, but it is too much for a dress that I am lukewarm about at best. BUT, all this crabbing aside, it did give me some ideas, which I went home and promptly tried out.

The plan was to lengthen the Megan bodice slightly and stick a pleated skirt on it. Simple, right? It was that simple. I measured the length of one of my favourite bodices - the Emery bodice - and I compared this against the length of the Megan bodice and added on the difference. This meant lengthening the darts in the back bodice, but that was simple enough. I made a couple of bodice toiles to get an idea of how it would work and then I cut into my fabric.

Juliette dress - modified Megan dress with a pleated skirt, worn with Swedish hasbeens duck toe sandals

Yes, the fabric. We have seen this before: many times! But all but two of my cowgirl dresses have been phased out of my wardrobe so when I saw the red colourway pop up on ebay, I bought two metres of it. I used the pleated skirt from New Look 6776, which has a lovely shape.

I was able to cut the bodice to showcase the sassy cowgirl on the rearing horse, which is one of my favourite parts of the design. I didn't do any pattern matching apart from that - as you can see from the waist seam - but I don't know how much that matters on a dress like this.

I've worn the dress a few times since I made it in April. I like it, but I don't totally love it. I think I could have lengthened the bodice a little bit more to hit me at a more flattering place - although I usually need to shorten bodices, I think this is slightly higher than my natural waist! Also, as with my other Megan dress, I'm just not sure about the puffy sleeve heads.

Here's a massively unflattering photo of me to emphasise my uncertainty about those sleeves...

But, you know, I like the neckline and the skirt and obviously I love the print. I probably won't make another one of these (although I probably will make another Megan dress at some point) but I'm glad I gave it a go. And sure, isn't that part of the fun?

And I definitely like it a hell of a lot more than that dress from Cath Kidston. So there's that. Now, that's your lot from me for this evening. Laters!

Hey guys! What's shaking? I'm sitting here on the sofa in my pyjamas with my head wrapped in clingfilm - it's henna time again - so, you know, it's standard issue glamour up in here tonight. I am going to have a glass of champagne later for no other reason than I can, though, so that's good. I love champagne.

Everything is grand here. Life is very busy at the moment. Work is in a slightly quieter period which, as I said in my last post, can sometimes make me feel restless. Luckily there's lots going on outside of work to keep me busy and I have been stitching my little heart out every chance I get! I'm having to be motivated in the evenings though as our weekends have been flat out. Last weekend we went to stay with some lovely friends in Bristol, which was ace. I didn't make it to Fabricland, sadly, but then I'm not exactly short of fabric. We did manage to fit in some other key activities, though, including sharing a flight of beer at Small Bar on King Street:

This weekend we're off to Northern Ireland as my cousin is getting married on Friday and my newest nephew is being christened on Sunday. The last time we were at home was for my uncle's funeral so it's a real blessing to be able to go home and see family for two happy occasions. Obviously I wanted to sew something to wear to the christening as well as something for the wedding, and I wanted to make a dress from my amazing tractor fabric too. I've managed to do all of those things (like I say: I've been sewing my little heart out) and I have another, totally unrelated dress to show you this evening.

Absolutely ages ago - like, last year sometime - I had a little shopping trip to Walthamstow market with Amy, Emmie and Lauren. Lauren and I ended up splitting two 6-yard lengths of wax cotton that we bought in one of the shops along the market. She sewed hers up pretty quickly - she made an Anna dress with a gathered skirt - but I sat on one of my pieces for ages, unable to decide what to do with it:

This photo from my instagram is the only photo I have of it! The Bimber miniatures were from my local wine shop, who gave them to us as samples. I had the gin and Nic had the vodka. They were yum.

So, yeah. After the success of the maxi length wax cotton Simplicity 1601 dress, it seemed like it would be the right pattern to use with this lovely fabric. So that is what I did:

Saga dress - Simplicity 1610 dress in wax cotton, worn with Swedish hasbeens Merci sandals

As with the Franklin Avenue dress, I cut a size 8 and shortened the bodice. I self-lined the bodice because I had enough fabric to, which was nice. The starbursts or fireworks or whatever they are are pretty big, so I wanted to have one fairly centrally on the bodice... but not dead centre, in case it looked like a bullseye or some kind of target. Nobody needs that. I'm pretty pleased with how that worked out:

The skirt was easier to handle at knee-length than the maxi-length one was, so I was able to get the pleats a little bit neater, too. They're absolutely grand on the other one, like, but better on this one.

I'm glad to have finally sewed something with this fabric and I'm very pleased with how this dress has turned out. I'm not totally sold on the skirt in the shorter length - there's something about the front pleats that I think just don't work quite as well on a knee-length skirt - but I love the shape of the bodice and overall the dress is pretty cute. And, as the weather has been so crappy recently it's got me thinking about the autumn...this will definitely work with tights and boots when it gets colder. And it'll be good on bonfire night. Until then, it won't surprise you to learn that as well as these orange clogs, I also have red and purple clogs that'll look cute with this dress. So, you know, very practical altogether.

Nic and I have watched the first two seasons of The Bridge over the last few months, and while this dress is not something that Saga Norén would wear, she's been on my mind a lot recently so I named this dress for her. We're taking a break before we watch S3 because that show is intense as shit and life is intense enough at the moment...but hot damn, I love Saga a whole lot. Nic had started watching season 1 thinking that it would be a good show to watch while I was sewing - you know, it's subtitled, so the noise of the sewing machine is no problem - but I horned it on it on the second episode and it became one of those shows that we had to watch together. I'm very glad. It's awesome. So far it's the only Nordic Noir I've watched apart from the film of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (the Swedish one, of course). I'm late to the whole craic there, but sure that's grand. It just means I don't have to wait around for new episodes.

We did try watching The Killing after we finished the first season of The Bridge, but I couldn't get into it at all. I mean, Sarah Lund is definitely very cool...but I found it a little bit boring and visually it reminded me too much of Soupy Norman for me to take it very seriously.

Soupy Norman

The Killing. THE SAME.

So that's the craic there anyway. My stash is now running low on wax cotton so I'm on the lookout for some more. Nic and I are off to Amsterdam next month, so I'm hopeful that I might find some Dutch wax there or at the Labjesmarkt in Utrecht. I'm going to need to learn a few key phrases in Dutch before we go, I think!

That should be enough to get me a few metres of whichever fabric I'm after

So here, it's time to go and pour some champagne and get to work on hemming a dress. Goodnight!

Okay, here's a little bedroom tip. Put a bag of popcorn in the microwave beforehand. That way, when you're done, you have a treat.

I'm Jeff Goldblum in 'The Fly'

I blacked out after Goldman's eyes popped out of his sockets. Believe me, you can't unsee that.

One Leap Day when I was a kid, the Harlem River froze and I decided to cross it carrying my brick collection.

For a short while, a marvellous serenity enters his life and he is at one with nature.

Tipsy? You were like all of the Mad Men.

How dare you bring shame on this... CELEBRATION OF SHEEP?!

One fervid whirl over her turgid error. Rural Juror.

They have trees and Ewoks and barbecues, which is why I like Endor better than America.

Follow your dreams. You can reach your goal. I'm living proof. Beefcake.

And though washing one's hands twenty to thirty times a day would be considered obsessive/compulsive, please bear in mind that your husband is a coroner. Thank you for your call, Janine.

Bill Oddie gave me a dressing gown as a Christmas present. He enclosed a receipt so I could take it back if I wanted to. I submitted Oddie’s receipt for tax purposes. I’m guilty as hell Lynn.

If you're going to the kitchen, could you get me two whiskey sours? One for each hand.

Me, my ass double and a drill that once appeared on Home Improvement are currently starring in a feature film called Take My Hand

I don't sleep on planes. I don't want to get incepted.

If Shakespeare had written Taken, it’d be four hours long and be mainly Liam Neeson fretting and pacing and talking to bones. That’s the basic difference between Hamlet and Taken: Liam Neeson makes up his mind.

It happened on a Sunday afternoon; on a lovely bright crisp winter's afternoon; on a perfect day for walking.

Ooh, it's funny that, isn't it? Him liking red sauce and you not liking red sauce, and yet you get on so well.

I am sometimes bored by people, but never by life.

I wonder what time it is in Cork.