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

Hello lovelies! Well, I am having quite the week - quite the month. I know I have already ~~complained~~ talked at some length about my working pattern over the past few weeks, but I am feeling a bit burned out this evening after another full-day meeting in a basement in London. I have another one tomorrow and, by the end of this week I will have clocked up 36 hours this month on the train to and from London. That's nearly a working week! It won't be always be this intense, and I expect to be riding the rails a bit less in February and March, but today it did get to me a little bit.

So, as you might expect, my sewing has been basically curtailed because, when I have been at home, I've been too tired to even want to look at my sewing machine! I did go fabric shopping on Saturday with the Spoolettes - this was a joy as ever, and my stash is looking nice and plump as a result. Also this week I finished a scarf I started knitting for Nic earlier this month, from the leftover yarn from my Miette cardigan. That's been good, actually, because I was able to knit quite a lot of it in bed. That has suited my current schedule just fine.

I did a bit of fabric shopping earlier in the month and had a bit of a splurge at Fancy Moon. On a tired and fragile afternoon, I had nearly bought this gorgeous Limb dress from 52 Greek Street:

Limb Day dress

It's much cuter in real life - it looks a bit wrinkled and sad here. Anyway, instead of dropping £100 on the dress, I bought two metres of the fabric, which is 'Golden Garden' by Alexander Henry. Where I have mocked up one of these dresses before - the Dolly Holiday dress - I used a combination of the bodice from the Elisalex dress and a pleated skirt, so I decided to do that again. Now, after the Help dress coming out a little bit big, I took my measurements again and re-traced the Elisalex bodice. To my surprise, the new measurements suggested I should trace two sizes smaller than I had previously. That didn't seem right to me, so I traced one size smaller. And, you know what? IT'S TOO FUCKING BIG. DERP.

Northland Row dress - worn with pink shoes from Topshop

It's not massively too big, but it is too big. It's hard to tell in these photos but it's too big at the waist and around the bust - I know this is TMI, but I'm wearing a padded bra to make it look like it's not too big. I'll be able to shrink it up a little bit and it'll be fine, but I am a bit annoyed with myself. I should have done a toile, really, and I should have trusted the measurements. It's a funny thing, really. I know I have lost weight in the last few months, and my measurements support that. All the same, I find it really hard to have an accurate idea of what my body actually looks like. I don't think I look any different now to how I did this time last year, which I suppose is what accounts for my reluctance to trust my measuring tape.

So, I kind of hate these photos. And look, I'm aware that this whole post might come off as humblebragging. I really don't mean it in that way. It's not like "OMG I'M SO TINY IT'S HARD TO BE SO LITTLE AND DAINTY" but it did come as a surprise to me that my perception of myself was so out, despite the fact that I regularly have full-length photos taken of myself. You'd think that sewing would give you a better idea of the quirks of your own body, but I don't know if it has for me. So, in summary, I'm going to retrace the Elisalex bodice in that smaller size, possibly with a slight FBA and I'm going to try shrinking this dress to see if I can get it to fit a bit better. Because, the poor dress. It's so cute!

It's definitely salvageable. I love the fabric and the colours, and the shape. I can fix it, and I will wear it. Lesson definitely learned. But make me feel better, here. Has this ever happened to you?

I am going to have some sewing time at the weekend, and I have some beautiful fabric and some fun sewing plans. I'm going to sign off here for tonight though, because I'm tired and a bit cranky. I'll be back on my usual sparkling (heh) form next time, I swear! I'm off now to spend time with the only person crankier than me - Andy Sipowicz.

You got a lot of morons in your family? 'Cause that could be genetic.

What's up, pups? It's a chilly Monday afternoon and I have a cold so I am feeling ever so slightly sorry for myself. I don't know what it is about having a sore throat, but it makes me so emotional! Maybe it's the fact that I find lemsip disgusting. Anyway, I have been self-medicating since I finished work this afternoon by knitting and watching 30 Rock. I've made good progress on a second Miette cardigan - it turns out that knitting is a lot faster when you're not having to rip it out every fart's end - and, you know, Alec Baldwin.

I've had a really good few days. On Friday, Nic and I finally set a date for our wedding and started making the arrangements for it. We've changed our plans somewhat, having realised that our initial idea of getting married in Kent wasn't going to be practical. We're now getting married in Warwick, and much sooner than we had originally planned - we're going to get married on 23rd May! The registrar is booked and all there is left to do really is go and do the paperwork. The ceremony is going to be small and private - the venue we've chosen only has room for 8 guests - and that means that there isn't really much planning to do. This pleases me immensely because I think I'm missing the bride gene. I just can't get interested in or excited about weddings at all. I'm still going to make my dress, though. And of course I'm still going to buy some really fun shoes. Now that we've set the date I am starting to get very excited about it, and about our honeymoon as well. Paris, baby!

We had a quiet weekend and I was able to do some sewing, and there was even some sunshine on Saturday. Before I show you what I sewed, though, here's my first knitted finished object of 2014: a scarf for Nic!

I suck at unselfish sewing and I have never sewed something for Nic, so I thought it would be nice to knit him something. The good thing about a knitted gift is that every stitch is created by hand. I'd have to really care about someone to knit something for them. I used the yarn that I had left over from my Miette cardigan, and there was enough to make a scarf of a decent length and width. Knitting a scarf isn't the most exciting thing in the world, so I made up a pattern with enough repeating to make it mindless, but enough variation to stop it from becoming boring.

Agh! Sorry, that's totally out of focus. Anyway, I alternated rows of knit stitch with deeper rows of ribbing, and the ribbing is alternated as well with two rows of ribbing and two rows of twisted rib. I didn't block the scarf at Nic's request - he liked the wavy edges! And it saved me from blocking it, so I was happy enough. I do still want to sew something for Nic at some point, but for now I think he's happy enough with the scarf. And, biased, but I think he looks pretty cute in it.

As I said - I was able to get some sewing done this weekend. After seeing Miss Crayola Creepy's gorgeous Emery dress earlier this week, I was totally sold on the pattern and ended up buying it on my phone on the train home. What really sold me was when she said how well it fit out of the envelope in comparison to a similarly shaped dress that she'd had to toile many times to get an acceptable fit. This was basically my experience of the Peony dress by Colette (without all the toiles, but I had lots of attempts at the bodice of that damn dress and was never happy with the fit) so I thought that the Emery was totally worth a go.

I did a quick toile of the bodice on Saturday morning. This time around, I paid attention to my actual measurements and the finished measurements on the pattern envelope. I traced the size 4 bodice and toiled it up and was super pleased with the fit. So much so that I cut straight into my fabric - the amazing Island Girls print from Alexander Henry:

I just can't resist those pinup girls. They're so adorable!

I sewed the dress up in a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon. It was very straightforward - at least partly because I didn't really have to do any alterations to it. I made my usual change of raising the shoulder seams and lowering the neckline to compensate, and I also lowered the armholes slightly to match. Instead of using the skirt pattern provided I just used the width of the fabric - because I like a fuller skirt, and I didn't want to waste any of my fabric. I didn't make a collar because it would be too busy, and I omitted the pockets. That was mainly because of can't be arsedness. Here it is. SPOILER: I love it.

Blanche dress - Christine Haynes Emery dress worn with Vivienne Westwood for Melissa Lady Dragon shoes

The hem is straight, by the way. It was windy when we took these photos! I am so happy with the fit although on my next one I will make one very small adjustment and increase the size of the darts in the back neckline. Only marginally, though, because the slight gaping there is only very slight.

It was cold, so I wore a cardigan. This is how windy it was! My cardigan is from Hell Bunny, by the way. I wish they did it in every colour.

I really don't have much to stay about this pattern other than the fact that I really, really like it. I read through the instructions before I started and they seemed good, but to be honest, I just went on ahead and sewed it my own way. Not that it's any different, but with this kind of dress I don't really need instructions. And this is basically my ideal dress - with a cute fitted bodice and a full skirt - and I can already tell that this will be a hard-working pattern. I think this bodice will lend itself well to a variety of skirt hacks - I'm can already see it with a circle skirt (because, obvs) and I'm also imagining it in a slightly stretch cotton with the Elisalex tulip skirt... look, just be aware that you're probably going to see this a bunch of times over the coming months.

Here's a photo of the bodice and my unwitting bitchy resting face. I'm really not sure what I was thinking in this moment because I'm smiling in the next picture. The pattern includes pieces for longer sleeves but I knew that would be too much in this print. The sleeves set in really easily and are very comfortable. Dudes, this is one well-drafted pattern!

Back view. I'm getting a bit better at doing these. I put in a lapped zip rather than the concealed one called for in the pattern

Nic and I have been watching The Golden Girls a lot recently. His mum bought me the DVD of season 1 for Christmas, and we enjoyed it so much that we bought season 2 so we could watch it straightaway afterwards. The palm trees and flowers in this print call Hawaii to mind, but they also made me think of Florida (the first thing I noticed when we got off the plane in Orlando was the palm trees at the airport) and of course, the sassy ladies reminded me of my favourite Golden Girl, Blanche Devereaux:

That sounds like a good night in to me, Blanche.

The Golden Girls is awesome, though, and I'd look good in this dress out on the lanai.

I fucking wish I was in Miami with the Golden Girls right now. Even if it meant I risked running into that jag David Caruso.

So, that's the craic with the Emery dress. I know it's no departure at all from my usual style - but, you know, I like my usual style. This pattern is a really good addition to my pattern library because I know I'll sew from it a lot and it is cute AS. I'm a big advocate of having sewing staples - the patterns you know that fit well and that you feel good about sewing - but I must admit that it was nice to sew something new. I have a few other new patterns to test out in the coming weeks - the girls from Gather Kits very kindly sent me a copy of the frankly fucking adorable Mortmain dress to try out, and I'm doing a spot of pattern testing too and the pattern in question is pretty amazing as well. But don't worry. I'm still me. I have some amazing fabric to make another Anna dress with a circle skirt (it's the map print fabric in this post, which I bought the last time I was at Goldhawk Road) and even more Eiffel Tower fabric for even more Eiffel Tower dresses.

I'm going to leave you with a few more photos of the dress because it's so cute.

I had my hair cut on Friday afternoon. It felt like it had been ages and I felt so much better about myself afterwards. My hairdresser is considering going on a round the world trip. I hope she does, because that would be awesome for her and she's such a lovely person, but I'd be totally gutted to lose the stylist who cuts me the perfect bob every single time.

When I post pictures outside I always get people asking if Leamington is in a micro-climate or something. It's not, like, obviously. This is to reassure you that I do wear a coat!

I kind of lied when I said that Blanche was my favourite. Sofia is pretty amazing too.

Evening, nerds! A very happy Monday to you all. I hope everyone had a good weekend. It's a very chilly Monday night and I'm bundled up in blankets with a glass of prosecco, while Nic watches some random film he's teaching this week. It's Blow Out, and I'm keeping half an eye on it too because I understand that Dennis Franz has a part in it and, you know, Andy Sipowicz in the 70s. I have to see that!

Anyway, everything is grand. First up, I managed to shrink my lovely Northland Row dress a little bit to make it fit better! I had prewashed the fabric before sewing the dress, but I was fairly sure that a turn through the 95 degree cycle on my machine would shrink it up a bit. I don't normally use that cycle apart from for washing the bath mat and towels, so I know that my dress won't shrink further on future washes. Still, it's worth knowing that cotton can shrink this much because it would be a shame to sew something lovely and for it to shrink and become too small!

Northland Row dress and Irregular Choice 'Lady W' shoes

The skirt shrank as well, obviously, so it's a little bit shorter now too. Hence the rare sight of Dolly Clackett's Knees. The dress is still slightly big but it's now much more wearable - before I felt like my waist was getting lost in it and it made me look bigger than I am. If I continue to lose weight - which is possible given my circumstances - I will have to consider taking the dress apart and re-making it, but for now I think this fix works.

So, that's a little tip for everyone playing along at home. Pre-shrink your quilting cotton, but remember that shrinking can be your friend as well. With great power comes great responsibility, and all of that noise.

I had a very pleasant, sewing-filled weekend. My friend Sarah had a birthday last week and, inspired by her love of dresses and a recent commitment to buying quality, UK made clothes, she spent her birthday money on a sewing machine. I promised to go fabric shopping with her and help her get to grips with following a sewing pattern so, on Saturday we were joined by Char and we headed to Birmingham to drop some cash in the rag market. I had taken myself home from work early on Friday afternoon because I was feeling sick, and I was still feeling pretty rotten on Saturday morning. So much so that I couldn't spend any money at our first stop, Barry's Fabrics, because I kept having to go outside. Thankfully I felt better after a cup of peppermint tea and some cold and flu tablets and we all came home from Birmingham that afternoon laden down with fabric! On Sunday, I went round to Sarah's house bright and early and the three of us spent the day at some serious stitching. Sarah dubbed it the Dolly Clackett Sewing Bee! She had bought herself the Emery dress by Christine Haynes, and this amazing fabric from Tula Pink:

Raccoons from the Acacia range by Tula Pink

Sarah's mum was a professional seamstress, and Sarah knew how to operate her new sewing machine, but dressmaking was basically completely new to her. By the time I went home that evening at 8pm, Sarah had made a beautiful dress that fit her perfectly. I won't share my crappy iPhone photo of it here as I'm sure she'll blog it later in the week, but I was thoroughly impressed by how quickly she learned, and by how positive she was about the whole process.

Teaching is such a joy. I don't miss being a schoolteacher - mainly because I like having my evenings to myself - but I love teaching, and I find teaching people to sew to be such a thrill. Some of the moments that mattered to me the most in 2013 were during my sewing lessons at Berylune.

Teaching dressmaking in May 2013 at Berylune. Photos by the wonderful Fiona Murray.

There's something so special about seeing someone suddenly light up with the realisation that they can make their own clothes. That moment of "yeah! I get it now!" - I know this sounds as cheesy as anything, but being able to help someone to get there is such a privilege. I've never been interested in selling the things that I make, but being able to empower someone else to make their own is such a pleasure. I taught a fair bit in 2013 - as a volunteer for Action 21, at Berylune and informally with friends and family - and these were some of my happiest and most satisfying moments of that year. I've kept in touch with some of my students and the knowledge that they have continued to sew and continued to enjoy sewing is such an amazing feeling! I love knowing that I have helped in some way to give my students a skill they will have for the rest of their lives. I can honestly say I was as thrilled by each of the garments that my students made as I have been about anything I have made. I love sewing, but it can be quite a solitary hobby. Having the opportunity to teach and to spread the love has opened my hobby up for me and made it into something more than learning things for myself and filling my own wardrobe with pretty dresses.

I know that's all very emotional, but that's the rollercoaster of feelings that was set off by seeing Sarah modelling her finished dress last night. It was a great day - we chattered away and laughed the whole time - but the best moment really was seeing Sarah go from being completely new to sewing to having that joy of being able to say "I made this and I love it!" by the end. That's pretty fucking awesome, isn't it?!

I will be back later in the week with something pretty lovely I've made myself, but I'm going to leave you here for now. Seeing Dennis Franz with hair has kind of blown my mind...

This is... confusing

Hola! I hope you're all keeping warm and having a good week. Mine so far has been grand - I got a big project signed off yesterday at work, which was both exciting and nerve-wracking. I've been able to get some sewing and some knitting done, as well as some gin-drinking. No ironing, so my ironing pile is threatening to engulf the flat, but sure you can't have everything. The ironing will keep, I might just have to rope the area off with some of that yellow safety tape. Maybe it's in fact safer to stay well away from that ironing pile, actually. Yeah, that.

The weather is still pretty horrible - I am so ready for spring - but, much like last year I'm sewing away as if there isn't a freezing wind and heavy rain. That's just how I roll, I guess. I've never much been able to get excited about cold weather clothes. Having fallen pretty hard for my first Christine Haynes Emery dress, I was keen to sew another one up basically straight away. So that's what I did last Tuesday afternoon when I got home from work. I used this excellent Michael Miller fabric that I bought from Ditto at the beginning of January:

Home Ec by Michael Miller. Ironic, because Home Economics was my most-hated subject at school, tied jointly with PE

Yes, I know. So feminist, isn't it? Here's a print of a load of women in aprons doing very domestic things in a kitchen. They look very happy and very smug about it. I had spotted this fabric on a dress from Modcloth about a year ago, and I have been playing basket roulette with it ever since.

Modcloth 'Bygone Days' dress in 'Bake Off' - this is no longer available, as far as I can tell

This is cute, right? But the way the lines of the dress break up the print kind of does my head in. I don't really understand why you'd use a print like this and then frig about with it. but maybe that's just me. Anyway, I'd bought myself 2 metres of this fabric thinking it would make a cute strappy sundress for the warmer weather, but Emery intervened and so that's where I went with it.

On Opposite Day dress - Christine Haynes Emery dress in Michael Miller 'Home Ec' fabric, worn with Vivienne Westwood for Melissa Lady Dragon bow shoes

Holy extremely pale face, Batman! I'm not sure that red lipstick is working for me - I'm not much of a one for a lot of make-up, to be honest - but I sure do love my dress. The Emery dress is a really great canvas for a novelty print like this. The simple lines let the fabric do the work. So, suck on it, Modcloth. I like my dress better.

Bodice view. Wrinkles due to poor posture. Stupid face: model's own

I do feel like a total fraud in this dress because, seriously. I spend so little time in the kitchen. I can cook reasonably well (I make very good enchiladas) and I can bake when I can be bothered. I'll make Nic a birthday cake. I wouldn't starve if I lived alone, but I probably would eat more toast-based meals than might be healthy. I just don't really enjoy cooking or baking. Luckily, Nic quite likes cooking and he's happy with shop-bought cakes AND he does nearly all of the washing-up. The kitchen is not my domain, is what I'm saying, and so I will never be any of the women on this dress. Especially not that bish in the blue dress holding the cake aloft like it's Simba in The Lion King. Actually, I might be that woman standing by the fridge. She looks like she's looking at an iPad before going into the fridge for some gin. That sounds much more my speed, to be honest.

Cardigan girl - because obviously, it's February. I'll be wearing this with a cardigan.

There isn't really anything much to say about the construction of this dress. I experimented a bit by increasing the darts at the back neckline to lessen the slight gaping there but I'm not sure if I would do that again. It was only very slight in the Blanche dress, and I wonder if that small adjustment has contributed to the slight wrinkling under my bust. It could also be down to the slight difference in the fabrics, although they are both medium-weight cottons. Anyway, who knows. I think I'm splitting hairs because I'm still very happy with how my dress fits.

And I'm not going to lie, I am genuinely pretty amused by how the print of this dress is basically the antithesis of who I actually am. Well - no more so than cowgirls or tropical pinup girls, obviously, but still. Those girls seem pretty awesome. The ones on this dress are just smug hausfraus. With, admittedly, very nice dresses.

After my last Emery post, I had lots of people asking me how much fabric I used and whether the yardage listed on the pattern envelope was right. As far as the yardage goes, I have to confess that I didn't look at it so I don't know. I used 2 metres of 45 inch wide fabric for each of my dresses and it was plenty. Admittedly, I omitted the pockets and I have gone for the short-sleeved version of the dress, so you would need more if you wanted to do that. Also, I didn't pay any attention at all to pattern matching. On plaids or stripes or ginghams? Yes, I'd worry about it. But on a print like this? Fuck that, basically.

Back view with NO pattern matching. I get that this might make some of you twitch, but I honestly don't care that much about it.

Thankfully Nic is very accommodating of the fact that I'd always rather sew than cook, or that I'd rather be reading than measuring out flour. And I'm especially lucky that he never grumbles about the fact that I hardly ever do the washing up. Really, in many ways, I'm not ideal wife material. OH WELL.

This is my idea of fine dining

Nah, I'm not as bad as all that. I'm exaggerating for comic effect. I do that sometimes.

I have to tell you again how much I like the Emery pattern. It was a total investment and I already have at least two more planned in the coming weeks. Luckily for me, any of you who have come this far are aware of the fact that I like sewing multiples. One of the ones I have on the go is a pretty Valentine's themed one using fabric kindly sent to me by Offset Warehouse. I'll share that with you next week, but part of the deal was that I'd tell you about a little Valentine's Day competition they're running. What you need to do is sew something up using their beautiful red shirting fabric and your creation should fit into one of their two themes, 'Love and Romance' or 'All The Single Ladies'. Email a photo by February 14th to info@offsetwarehouse.com and you could win a treat for you or a loved one on Valentine's Day, a voucher for Offset Warehouse and the cost of the fabric you've used will be refunded to you. I'm really looking forward to taking part in the challenge, and I hope some of you lovely sewing bloggers will too - I'd love to see what you all come up with!

Anyway, I'm going to leave it here. I've got shit to do. I'll sign off on one more picture of my dress, though, because I love it. Laters!

This is also new shoes face. I now have all the colours of these shoes. No KitchenAid mixer in this house, just lots of shoes.

Hello! What's the craic with everyone this evening? I'm having a standard Sunday evening of Inspector Morse ('Daughters of Cain') and a roast dinner, after a pretty relaxing weekend. I have two days off next week as well, although not consecutively, so I suppose life is pretty good! I'm feeling a bit tired and chilly and off my game this evening for some reason, though. Apologies in advance if I ramble or make less sense than usual.

I did a fair bit of sewing over the weekend, as well as some socialising and a bit of drinking. I've had a few sewing deadlines that have made my desire to sew diminish a bit. It seems I strain against obligation, which really shows me that sewing things to sell would not be a good career for me! Anyway, I tempered it a bit by sewing something just for fun on Saturday morning. I bought some map print fabric when I went to Goldhawk Road last month. It came from A1 fabrics and on each of the last three occasions I went in, I fondled it before talking myself out of buying it. It's been working on me though, in no small part because of excellent creations from Rehanon and Hannah. I finally made myself buy it because I couldn't stop thinking about it, and how awesome it would look as a circle skirt. Map fabric ----> Globe ---> Circle skirt. You see my logic! So, that's how my latest dress came to be:

Claudia Jean dress - By Hand London Anna bodice with a circle skirt, worn with Lola Ramona'Angie Lila'spotty heels*

I really love the print. I've wanted a map print dress for ages - basically ever since I first spotted the fabric - and I love how vibrant the colours are on this print. As a map it's pretty terrible. The geographical accuracy leaves a lot to be desired. The quality of the fabric isn't the best either. The grain is kind of all over the place (technical term) so even after leaving the skirt to hang overnight and trimming it to make it even, this was still a real pain to hem. I ended up swearing at it more than a few times in frustration, and it's been a while since that's happened! Still, though. The fabric was cheap and you have to expect that sometimes, and I still really love the dress.

Globe!

The eagle-eyed among you might have spotted that the print isn't always the right way up. Without cutting a panelled skirt, that wasn't going to be possible in a circle skirt. The idea of it tickled me anyway, because of CJ Cregg's encounter with the Organisation of Cartographers for Social Equality:

My dress no longer has the full Mercator Projection. It's upside down, so it's almost approaching a Peters Projection... Well, okay, not quite. But the way CJ's mind is blown by the alternative projection of the map is one of my favourite moments in The West Wing. To be honest, I nearly called this the Big Block of Cheese dress, but I thought it was high time I honoured Claudia Jean Cregg, because she is amazing.

Maybe I can find something else to be a Big Block of Cheese dress one day, though.

Anyway, there's not much more to say about this dress because I've said everything I need to about the Anna bodice, and I just love circle skirts in general. Today was sort of the wrong day to photograph a circle dress made from light, drapey fabric though because it was so windy! Like, extremely strong winds - the kind that make you feel like you've been in a fight even though you've only walked 100 yards. I am so ready for it to be spring.

Ummmmm... this isn't ideal. Just as well I have a slip on...

It also started to rain while we were in town, so my choice of open-toed shoes wasn't ideal either. Still, I wanted to give my lovely Lola Ramona shoes a spin:

Polka dots and bows and scallops... these may be the twee-est shoes ever!

Anyway, that's the craic there. After a little turn in town and a coffee with a friend, I came home and put my slippers on and got on with sewing some of my obligation sewing and watching The Golden Girls on DVD. So my feet weren't chilly for very long after all. It was totally worth it.

Anyway, to sum up. It's cold and grey, and I wish it was spring. This dress is not geographically accurate, but I love it nonetheless. It's blue, and it's February, so I'm calling this one for Sew Blue February. And CJ Cregg is one million percent awesome.

I have a (mostly) fun and very London-filled week ahead. Nic is running a Jazz on Film night at the Vortex Jazz Club in Dalston tomorrow night, and we're treating ourselves to a night away. Hopefully this means I can get in some cocktails and/or shoe shopping on Tuesday afternoon.

For now, though, it's time for me to give my full attention back to Chief Inspector Morse. I'll catch you cats later in the week.

Hey hey, and Happy Valentine's Day, if that's your thing! I have the day off today, which is very nice - sitting at home and watching the rain hammer on the windows sure beats sitting in the office and watching the rain hammer on the windows, doesn't it?! I have been out into the weather to pick up some essential supplies - hoummus and dessert and some tights - but the rest of my day is going to be all about relaxing, and maybe some sewing.

Nic and I don't make much fuss about Valentine's Day. Not because of any objection to the holiday or the idea of it or anything like that, we just don't. That said, I do enjoy a bit of themed dressing so when Offset Warehouse got in touch with me a few weeks ago and asked would I sew something Valentine themed, of course I said yes. They very kindly sent me some of their red shirting, and it's lovely. I freely admit, I would never have bought this myself because it's a solid colour. As you might have worked out, I'm all about the prints, so this was a nice challenge in itself. Luckily, inspiration struck thanks to Handmade Jane, who has had this lovely dress pinned on her 'Red' pinterest board for ages:

This dress is so cute so let's ignore the fact that she looks like she's about to fall over...

I initally thought I'd make something similar, with a bow at the waist. So, um, the Emery pattern is pretty perfect for that. But when it came to it, I just couldn't do the bow. It's really cute and everything, but I just knew it would annoy me when wearing it - you know, when it comes to wearing cardigans or sitting at a desk or whatever. So, I kept it simple. Sure, why not. So here's my Valentine's dress...

Happy Valentine's Day, No-one! dress - Christine Haynes Emery dress, worn with Mel Pop Heart shoes

Sadly, it's a horrible rainy day, so I'm afraid these pictures don't show this dress at its best! I was a bit dubious about it when I finished it because it seems so odd to me now to wear a solid colour. I think I only have a tiny handful of dresses that don't have some kind of print on them. I do like it a lot, though. Maybe not so much that I'm going to rush out and buy lots of solid-coloured fabrics, but enough that I'll certainly wear this. For one thing, the shirting fabric is really lovely to wear. It's so drapey and soft and is of a very high quality.

This one is a bit out of focus, or it's blurred by the rain or something, but it's the best photo I got of the skirt! Shame about my smug face, but what can you do. You have to work with what you've got.

Offset Warehouse asked me to choose between two Valentine's themes for this fabric - 'All The Single Ladies' or 'Love and Romance'. Well, as I said above, I'm not much of a one for Valentine's Day, but I did think that going with 'All The Single Ladies' might send out the wrong message to, you know, my fiance. So, 'Love and Romance'. I went for it with all the heart-shaped accessories I've got.

Heart-shaped earrings from Thomas Sabo

Heart-shaped ring from Antoine et Lilli; a souvenir from our last holiday in Paris

Heart-print tights from H&M and heart shoes by Mel

I legit love heart-printed stuff. The Thomas Sabo earrings were a birthday present from my parents, and they chose them because I have so many pairs of shoes with hearts on. I have seven pairs. Which is maybe kind of excessive, but I can live with that. I sort of like excessive. It's why I've pulled a Cassie Stephens and made two Valentine's themed dresses. I'll show you the other one tomorrow, though.

YES CAN I PUT MY COAT BACK ON NOW PLEASE IT'S FEBRUARY FFS

Thank you very much to Offset Warehouse for so kindly providing the fabric. And thank you to my lovely Valentine, Nic, for standing out in the pouring rain to take these photos of me. He's a whole good'un. Happy Valentine's Day, folks!

Ain't no party like a Liz Lemon party cause a Liz Lemon party is MANDATORY

Hello hello. Two posts from me in two days. Whaaa? But think of it as a two-parter. Like all of those awesome Star Trek: The Next Generation ones, such as The Best of Both Worlds, Redemption, Gambit, or the best ever, Chain of Command. Or the less good The X-Files two-parters such as Anasazi / The Blessing Way or Nisei / 731. Actually, The X-Files isn't the best example there because it excels in doing a good part one and a really sucky part two (usually with ponderous Mulder voice-over), and this post is going to be as good as yesterday's. And there are DEFINITELY no evil Cardassians or alien-human hybrids up in here I swear.

But yes, yesterday I told you that my Happy Valentine's Day, No-one! dress was one of two Valentine's-themed Emery dresses. Dudes, it's because lil ol' Emery has totally stolen my heart. I kind of want to make enough so I can wear one every day of the week. No, I'm not that extreme and I don't want to get tired of it or anything. But it's just so damn cute and fun to sew! I got this excellent Alexander Henry fabric as a gift, and I think it works just perfectly with Emery:

Los Amantes Clandestinos dress - Christine Haynes Emery dress in Alexander Henry 'Sweetheart' cotton, worn with Vivienne Westwood for Melissa 3-strap heels

Yeah, you know I was saying yesterday how much I love hearts on stuff? Well my pin-up girl preoccupation is almost as strong. This is now the eighth pin-up print dress I own, and it certainly won't be the last. I have my eye on some amazing Alexander Henry pin-up Mermaid fabric, which will have to find its way into my stash at some point soon. I just think the prints are so cute and fun, although I must admit to being a tiny bit disappointed that none of the girls on this dress had bitchy expressions like that one bitchy cowgirl on From The Hip. Still though, they all seem to be pretty delighted with themselves:

Is it weird that I am totally jealous of her hair?

For some reason, this one really reminds me of the covers of the Sweet Valley High novels. Where's her lavaliere, tho?!

Anyway, nothing to say regarding the construction here. I've said it all before on my other makes. I lined the bodice with some of the red sheeting Offset Warehouse sent to me, and it feels really nice against the skin, and it looks cute inside too. I love that!

I did my best with pattern placement on the front of the bodice, in that I wanted to get as many of these sassy ladies out front and centre as I could. I'm pretty happy with how that turned out.

It's not clear from the angle but you can also see the girl in the red dress on the lower right side of the bodice

I was a bit less careful with the back pieces and, as a result, one of the girls has a dart right through the middle of her face! But, whatever, Dart Face. I can't see you.

So yes. Emery. If you can't find me, it's probably because me and Emery are sitting in a tree, K.I.S.S...well, you know the rest. I'm going to make one more over the weekend (I bought some of the Tula Pink Raccoon fabric with an Emery in mind, and it arrived on Tuesday) and then I'm going to give us both a break. Just don't go sleeping with that girl from the copier place, Emery.

I wore this today to go and have coffee with Sarah, and it seemed like it would be rude not to wear it with some red shoes. I bought these Melissa shoes in Poste Mistress in Covent Garden. They were on sale, and I loved them. Yes, it helped that the ridiculously handsome young Spanish man working in the shop complimented me on my dress (I was wearing the Blanche dress at the time, and in fairness it did look amazing with the shoes) and then talked to me for ages about his boyfriend's job as a garment technician for Miss Selfridge. I AM that shallow, but he was genuinely adorable.

Our little overnight stay in London at the start of the week was brilliant. Nic's talk at the Vortex was well-attended and a lot of fun. A few of our old university friends came along, one of whom was pretty instrumental in Nic and I getting together and is one of my all-time favourite people. It was a really good night. We stayed in a cute little flat in Finsbury Park and after breakfast with our friend JP on Tuesday morning we headed into town to potter around in Soho and have lunch in Franco Manca before meeting Clare and Sally for cocktails at the Bar Americain.

This was taken just before Sally arrived, but she looked as gorgeous as Clare does here

My life is normally in no way like Carrie Bradshaw's life (well, except in that I would choose Big over Aiden every time, no question, even though he is an asshole. Aiden is a total asshole too, just in a far less interesting way) but, you know, having brunch and buying shoes and drinking cocktails in the big city with well-dressed friends was pretty nice for the one day. Of course the illusion was shattered on the train journey home, but that's public transport for you. We can't all have town cars.

OUT-TAKE! While we were taking the photos there was a pigeon flying overhead squawking (or tweeting or coo-ing or whatever it is pigeons do) and this is me, blinking, mid-glaring at it, hoping it doesn't crap on me. Or drop out of the sky, which my friend Disha saw a pigeon do on Thursday.

Over coffee, Sarah presented me with what is definitely one of the best gifts I've ever been given. My very own labels!

F*cking Handmade by Dolly Clackett. FUCK YEAH.

I was really touched by being given such a thoughtful, funny and appropriate gift. I can't wait to sew one of these into my next handmade dress!

FUCKING HANDMADE

That's your lot from me for today. I'm tired and run-down so I have a date with some peppermint tea and some DVDs. I'm kind of in the mood for watching some TNG now, actually...

Hola! Hope everyone is keeping well. I'm grand - working from home for the next couple of days and trying to balance out how frustrating I find teleconferences with the fact that my house smells a lot nicer than the office, and that the coffee is nicer here too. You know. Standard life stuff. It's also really nice to be working in my bedroom with the sun - actual SUN - streaming in through the windows.

Anyway, I have a short and sweet post for you today, and a giveaway. Whoop! The people at Simplicity got in touch with me a few weeks ago and asked me would I like a copy of their new edition of the Simply the Best Sewing Book. I'm not usually one to turn down a freebie so I said OMG YES PLEASE in the most dignified way I could manage, and they very kindly sent me two copies. One for me to review, and one for one of you lot playing along at home:

Ugh, this photo is out of focus, sorry! Also, if you don't get a Tina Turner song stuck in your head when you look at this photo then we can't be friends.

I must admit, I don't have a huge sewing book library. I have Gertie's book and Sew U: Home Stretch, and that's it! So, I was very happy to be sent a general sewing reference book. The book states its aim right at the beginning, saying

The aim of this book is to be the most comprehensive source of information for both new and experienced sewers.

Fair enough, right? While I honestly cringe at the word 'sewers', I think this book is a very comprehensive guide to home sewing, with a focus on garment construction.

The book is spiral-bound, and the chapters are marked with coloured tabs for ease of reference. I also really like the way in which Simplicity have gone to some considerable effort to make the book attractive - they clearly know their audience!

Hello, pretty end papers!

I think the most useful chapters for any home seamstress are the one on achieving a perfect fit, and the chapter about sewing techniques. The perfect fit chapter is really clear in explaining how you can make adjustments to your pattern, and how to tell what adjustments you might need to make. I'm a pretty visual learner so I found the diagrams particularly helpful here:

Actually, the diagrams about bust adjustments are probably a better illustration of how good the diagrams are! But this gives you the idea.

So anyway, I won't waffle on too much more about the book. I'm a reasonably experienced seamstress by this stage but there are lots of things I am keen to learn - particularly about fitting - and I think this book will be a great basis for that. And now for the science bit. Concentrate.

Would you like to win your own copy of this pretty book? I have one to give away to a reader in the UK or Ireland. I'm sorry international readers, I just don't think I can afford to ship a pretty heavy book all the way to wherever you are! All you need to do to be in with a chance of winning is to leave me a comment below and tell me what sewing technique you want to learn. You can have an extra chance at winning if you tweet a link to the giveaway - just leave me an additional comment to tell me you've done it. I'll leave the giveaway open for a week - until 4pm on Thursday, 27th February, and then I will choose someone at random after that time. Good luck! May the odds be ever in your favour.

And because I now find it weird to have a blog post without my big round face in it, here's a non-sewing related outfit from earlier in the week. I tried on this Laura Ashley dress about 5 years ago in store and couldn't afford to buy it. This is seriously the first time since then that I've seen one in my size on ebay:

Laura Ashley geo-print dress, Topshop shoes and Hell Bunny cardigan

It's funny because I remember when I tried it on at the time thinking it was the most flattering dress ever. And now I'm not at all sure that it is - it has a strange dropped waist, for one thing. Still though, it was super-cheap on ebay and I suppose it is pretty cute.

Anyway, that's your lot from me, boys and girls. Hit me up in the comments if you'd like the book!

Well well well. Hello, everyone! It's been quite a few days around here, between one thing and another. As I write this, I'm mildly hungover after a lovely afternoon and evening with our friends Rick and Lauren - it turned into a very late night for a school night, but luckily I have been working from home today and that is much more manageable than being hungover in the office. I've been drinking tea and eating bourbon biscuits as if my life depended on it. It's actually been the nicest hangover I've ever had!

Anyway, it's been a really special few days. Yesterday morning, Nic told me he had a surprise for me but he could only stage manage it if he took my phone off me for a few minutes. I was like WUT, but as we were going outside to photograph a finished object anyway, I gave him the phone. After taking my photos, he handed the phone back to me so I could read this post that popped up on my reader:

ERRRR WHAAAAA?! It turns out that my sweet friend Sarah of Rhinestones and Telephones palled up with Nic and with my gurl Clare to organise a surprise for me - a Sew Dolly Clackett sewalong! This is something we'd joked about on twitter a couple of weeks ago, and I was honestly lost for words to see that Sarah had made it into a reality. Not only has she masterminded this idea, but she got lots of my favourite retailers to donate actual prizes. I mean. Seriously. WUT?! You can read about the whole thing in more detail over on Sarah's blog, but the gist of it is that if you sew a Dolly Clackett inspired dress between now and 23rd April, you can win one of these fabulous prizes:

A £50 voucher to spend at Berylune
A $75 voucher to spend at Harts Fabric
A Christine Haynes Emery pattern
By Hand London's Anna and Elisalex patterns
A pattern of your choice from Sewaholic
A pattern of your choice from Colette Patterns

Sarah has asked me to judge the entries and choose the winners, and as I'll be doing that I'm also going to throw in a special mystery prize of my own. That seems only fair, because Sarah also included me in the spoils - organising a voucher for me from Minerva Crafts!

This is me reading Sarah's post. She asked Nic to take a photo of it. This is a face of bewilderment...

To say that I'm touched by this venture is such an understatement. I don't even know how to begin to express how moved I was by this gesture of affection from my friends in this online sewing community. I have made so many friends - virtual and real-life - through this blog. Learning to sew has helped me to express myself creatively, it's given me a valuable outlet when I've needed it and it's given me access to an incredible community of funny, intelligent, sweet and thoughtful friends. I am truly humbled by the way in which you guys have responded to this idea, and I'm genuinely bowled over that anyone would like to emulate my style. I mean it! You guys mean so, so much to me and I still can't quite believe that this is actually happening. But of course, I can't WAIT to see what people sew!!

I was also ridiculously touched that Sarah - and the rest of the dear people she involved - are doing this as a wedding gift to me and Nic. I love that he is interested in and supportive of my hobby, and that he has made friends here too. Thank you all so much!

So, I really will be super excited to see what people sew. Sarah is setting up a Flickr pool for the images to be uploaded to and - somewhat hilariously - there's also a #sewdollyclackett hashtag on twitter. And, if you'd like some (ahem) inspiration, you can have a look at my handmade wardrobe tab on this here blog.

Anyway - when I got the news, I was outside on my front step getting photos of a recently finished make. Not a dress this time, but another hand-knitted cardigan! Pretty soon after finishing my first Andi Satterlund Miette cardigan, I decided to put the lessons I had learned to practice and get knitting on another one. I bought some navy yarn from a local shop - it's a 25% wool mix and it was pretty pleasant to knit with. After my first one turning out to be so - erm - fitted, I went up a size for this one.

Nautical Miette cardigan, worn with Stay The Course dress and Vivienne Westwood for Melissa 3-strap shoes

The Miette is knitted from the top down, with the idea that you can try it on as you go. I did that but honestly, I didn't think this was going to fit until I had finished the button bands and neckband - up until then, it really felt like it would be a bit too big. But it's not! I'm super happy with both the fit and the length.

I found knitting this much easier than my first Miette. This is mainly because, you know, I knew what I was doing and was more confident generally. I think there's also a bit of muscle memory coming into play - On my first Miette I was totally handless. I found the circular needles difficult to get to grips with, but by now I can handle them much more easily. I still made mistakes - misreading the pattern left me having to knit my buttonholes on the wrong side, for example. It makes no difference to me but looking at the photo above, I do think it looks a bit odd. But of course, that could be because I'm aware of it!

I bought the buttons from the rag market in Birmingham. They were ridiculously cheap - I think they were 8p each or something stupid. I did buy some more subtle, sensible buttons too but when it came to sewing them on I had to go with these. I mean, come on. Tiny little anchors! Blocking the cardigan widened the buttonholes enough to make the buttons actually usable, too. Hurrah! Those sensible buttons can go on something else, maybe.

Here's the back view

I made one minor amendment to the pattern - I knitted the waist band and the sleeve cuffs in a 2x2 rib rather than a twisted one, although I stuck to that for the button bands and neckband. As you might be able to see above, my button band sticks out a little bit at the bottom, so I'd have to pay a bit more attention to that in a future one. The other thing is that the lace detail on my cardigan isn't very apparent, even after blocking, and I'm curious to see whether that will be different if I knit it in a 100% natural fibre yarn. Or maybe it's something I'm not doing correctly when it comes to blocking? In any case, it is only curiosity and not disappointment. I'm really thrilled with the cardigan. As I said previously, I'm so happy to have learned how to actually do this. I'm also really pleased by how much better this one is than my first one. Progress, baby! That's a good feeling. And, you know, knitting is fun! I did get a bit of finish-itis with this one in that I knitted the biggest part of it really quickly and then stalled when I was nearly finished the second sleeve, but I gather that's a pretty common phenomenon.

I will make another Miette before long. It's a lovely pattern and really enjoyable to knit. I bought some lovely pink cotton yarn over the weekend and have already cast on my next make; an Andi Satterlund Agatha cardigan. I think that will be really fun for spring and it seems like a nice challenge now I feel like I've got Miette figured out. Don't worry though, sewing. You're still my main squeeze!

Ha ha! I look proper goofy here. I'm pushing my hair back out of the way because it was windy, but I look like I think I'm in a shampoo advert or something. What a dope.

Okay, I'm going to leave it here for the evening. Check out Sarah's blog for details of how to get involved in Sew Dolly Clackett. Also, don't forget that there's still time for you to win a copy of the Simply The Best Sewing book! I'm away to watch some Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Commander Riker, is that a trombone in your hand, or are you just pleased to see me? I hope it's a trombone. Please let it just be a trombone.

Hello hello hello! Happy Thursday evening everyone! I am so glad it's nearly the weekend, I tell you what. I've been finding work really stressful this week and I'm so looking forward to kicking back and trying to forget about it over the weekend. Preferably with a big glass of wine. I hate getting stressed about work because it seems like such a pointless waste of energy, and because I am very mindful of the fact that things could be a lot worse. I've been getting stressed because I'm invested in what I'm doing - whereas previously, work-related stress was due to feeling totally disenfranchised. So I'm fairly confident that this will pass, and I'm trying my hardest not to comfort shop my way out of it - instead I'm comfort sewing or knitting my way out of these feelings! I had to frog what I'd done on the Agatha cardigan because I was finding it too difficult to concentrate on a challenging pattern while I was feeling freaked out, so I've cast on Hetty instead. I may have been - no, I totally was inspired by Busy Lizzie's adorable Hetty cardigan. Agatha has just been benched. I'll come back to her when I have more experience and less mind clutter.

So, I promise I have been sewing other things apart from five million Emery dress - but, fuck it. I have also been sewing Emery dresses because, you know. This is me we're talking about. After Sarah, Char and I spent the day sewing her raccoon Emery, I bought myself some of the fabric too. It's 'Raccoon' from the Acacia collection by Tula Pink, just so you know. As well as not wanting to be a total copycat, I was pretty sure the pale blue 'sky' colourway wouldn't suit me, so I went for 'blueberry' instead. And to try something a bit different, I decided to omit the sleeves on this version.

Bread and Jam for Frances dress and Irregular Choice Lady W shoes

The fit of the bodice is slightly different on this dress to my other Emerys. Like duh - the sleeves obviously make a difference! There is a little bit of a gape at the back neckline that isn't there in my sleeved versions. It's nothing major and no biggie, but that duh was aimed at me because I didn't even click that would happen when omitting the sleeves from a bodice that is drafted to have them. Yes, I know. I'm a sewing remedial.

I opted to use a concealed zip on this dress, too. All my other Emerys have lapped zips and that's because I generally like the way they look. But, real talk. It's also because inserting concealed zips has never been my number 1 favourite sewing task. I sucked it up here though, and BOOM. I'm now somewhat converted to the concealed zips. It's Christine Hayne's instructions for inserting them - she makes it so easy!

Back view. I'm mainly including this because it means you can see the backs of these crazy shoes - they have wings on them!

I named the dress after one of my favourite books, Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban. I had this book as a child and I think my copy of it fell apart from rereading. When Nic and I first got together, he bought me a new copy in Blackwell's in Oxford on a day trip.

I think the Frances in Lillian Hoban's illustrations is actually a badger, not a raccoon. But I think you can see why the raccoons remind me of her. I love Frances. We have a lot in common - we're both bossy but loving big sisters, we both have limited patience and unlimited capacity for fantasy, and we're both faddy eaters. I think my favourite bit in the story is when Frances gets mad food envy looking at her friend Albert's lunch. I can identify with that. In fairness, Albert is kind of awesome - for lunch he brings a cream-cheese, cucumber and tomato sandwich on rye bread, with a pickle on the side; a hardboiled egg with a little cardboard shaker of salt; a thermos of milk; a bunch of grapes and a tangerine and a cup custard. Albert makes sure he tells Frances he has a spoon to eat the cup custard with because: BALLER. Clearly.

Spoilers, but Frances sure shows him at the end of the book when she rocks up to school with a thermos of cream of tomato soup; a lobster-salad sandwich on thin slices of white bread; celery, carrot sticks and black olives, and a little cardboard shaker of salt for the celery; two plums and a tiny basket of cherries and vanilla pudding with chocolate sprinkles AND a spoon to eat it with. She lays this all out on a doily, along with a tiny vase of violets. Albert tells her, "I think eating is nice." Like, YEAH.

Um, Albert? I ALSO think eating is nice. Pass the rye bread, pls.

Anyway. The print is mainly green but the colourway is called 'blueberry' and there are lots of blues in the print - teals, turquoises and sky blues. It's really lovely, and I'm so glad I bought it. And I'm going to include this in Sew Blue February, even though I wore this outfit with green:

And I'm going to leave you with one more totally unnecessary photo because it was a beautiful sunny day last week when these photos were taken. It's still chilly but these sunny days are so happy-making.

We were on our way to get some coffee and cake at The Larder here. One of the things I love about living in Leamington, apart from the fact that it's so beautiful, is that there are so many really nice independent shops and cafes. The Larder is reasonably new - they opened towards the end of last year - but they endeared themselves to me immediately because the owner gave me a free cake one evening because I happened to be passing. Last week when we went in, he also gave us free cake and complimented my accent. Free cake and compliments and the coffee is really good. I'm going to live in Leamington forever. FOREVER.

Okay, I'm off to spend a bit of quality time with Hetty and to watch some more of S6 of Mad Men. If my hands are busy with my knitting needles, I'm less likely to throw something at the TV when that massive fuckwit Harry Crane behaves badly. Probably.

Hello! I hope everyone is having a lovely Sunday. I'm in full-on hibernation mode as the beautiful, spring-like weather of the last few days has given way to a cold, drizzly, overcast day. I'm also feeling pretty Sunday-ish at the prospect of having to be in London all next week for work. I'll hopefully have a good week because, although I'm there for work, I have lots of fun things planned. Still though. I hate working in the London office. The food is better, but the atmosphere in that place sucks. And the food's not that much better.

Anyway, I really shouldn't be feeling too sorry for myself because things are pretty good. On Friday evening I got drunk, had my hair cut and went for dinner with Nic in our favourite restaurant. On Saturday morning we booked our honeymoon and it was sunny and mild enough to eat lunch in the park. I made amazing home-made bean and sweet potato burgers and we watched The Thing From Another World. I haven't done any sewing, but that's okay. Sometimes it's okay just to rest, hey?

I was sewing during the week, though. I finally got around to trying the new pattern from new pattern company Gather - the Mortmain. The girls at Gather very kindly sent the pattern to me as a gift, and a gift it was! As well as it being right up my street style-wise, the pattern envelope and instructions booklet is just gorgeous. It took me a little while to get to sewing Mortmain - in part because I was deep into my love affair with Emery. Anyway - I finally got around to making a toile of the bodice last weekend, and during the week I sewed up my dress. It was nice to break it down into small steps - I've been feeling a bit burned out over these last few weeks - but I'd say in total it didn't take more than a few hours.

Ms. Tree dress - Gather 'Mortmain' dress and Mel 'Raspberry' shoes

Isn't this fabric crazy?! It's not clothing fabric, it's more like home furnishing fabric. Although weirdly, while I would wear something like this, I wouldn't decorate my home with it! I bought it in the rag market when I went fabric shopping with Char and Sarah last month. It was £8 a metre and I bought 1.5 metres - the beauty of this kind of fabric is that it's pretty wide!

There does seem to be an actual story of some kind running through the fabric. Typically of me, though, I forgot to read it before cutting it up! As far as I can tell, there are a couple of sassy redheads, someone called Betty, a boat and someone called Catman. And there is one beautiful piece of gobbledygook that made buying the fabric totally worthwhile because I love it so much:

Why yes, THAT'S RIGHT BETTY - HOW DO YOU FBRING REMOVINHUNGRY OF YOUR FOR CLOTHES BOIL ME?

That's a phrase I need to try to work into everyday conversation, am I right?

Now obviously, most of the time it's best to sew with fabrics that are designed to be worn. I wouldn't be running out and making lots of clothes out of upholstery fabrics or anything, but I think this fabric works well with this pattern. The heavier fabric holds the box pleats well and works with the wide waistband, and I think it also copes well with the exposed zip feature. But I'll show you that in a minute...

I wanted this red-head looking stricken next to a boat to be a focal point on the bodice, but when cutting it out I kind of forgot about the dart placement. So this is Dart Face the Second. Mind you, I don't think she looks too disfigured by it! Apart from the little bit of wrinkling where the bodice meets the waistband, I'm pretty happy with the fit of this dress too. I cut a size 8 and, as usual, I raised the shoulder seams by 1/4 of an inch and dropped the neckline to match. I increased the seam allowance at the bodice side seams slightly for a closer fit. Oh, and I lined the bodice. The pattern doesn't call for lining, but, you know, this is furnishing fabric. Wearing cotton lawn right next to my skin is more comfortable.

Lining the bodice meant that I ignored the pattern instructions for sewing it, but I did follow the instructions for inserting the zip. As I mentioned above, one of the design features of this dress is an exposed zip and I had never sewed one of those before. I was a little bit nervous, but I had an awesome heavy-duty zip in my stash courtesy of my friend Lauren, so I went for it. The instructions are really good and it's very straightforward and while I wouldn't do this for every dress, I think it looks awesome here:

Don't worry, though. If you don't like the exposed zip, you can just sew in a regular zip instead as the seam allowance is the same.

Nic was tickled pink when I brought this fabric home from Birmingham. He loves comics. Not in a Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons kind of way, and not in that douchebaggy "actually they're graphic novels" way either. He just likes comics. Recently he's been reading a series of comics by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty about a badass crime-fighter called Ms. Tree. She's awesome. Her name is Michael, and she takes over her husband's PI business after he dies.

I haven't read this issue yet, but my money is on the blonde in the middle row being the murderer.

Ms. Tree herself isn't a redhead, but I think you can see why this dress made me think of her. I love this woman, who looks like she wouldn't be out of place in a Ms. Tree comic:

And just to add silliness to silliness, I decided I'd pose with the comic in the sunshine:

This photo worked far better in my head than it did in real life.

So anyway, that's my Mortmain dress. It really is a lovely pattern. I'll be interested to see how the pleated skirt looks in a fabric with more drape to it. This is a narrower skirt than I have been sewing recently, although in this stiff fabric it doesn't look it, and I'm kind of curious to see how that will look in a lighter cotton. It's very exciting to see so many new independent pattern companies springing up in the UK and I'm very interested to see what Gather do next. The amount of work and love that has been put into the design and drafting of this pattern is obvious - I'm looking forward to their next release!

And this isn't going to be my last comic dress, either. Yesterday I bought myself a couple of metres of the new Alexander Henry Home Sewing is Easy fabric. Hawaii, baby!

Sunday night. It's time to pack for next week and then watch Inspector Morse. But before I go - the randomiser (Nic) picked a winner of the Simplicity sewing book. It's Peppercornius! Peppercornius - drop me an email with your address and I'll get that book in the post to you!

Hellooooo strangers! I've been a bit missing in action this week, having spent most of it in London for work. And then I had the sheer, unmitigated joy of working in Slough today. I know you're all jealous of my super stylish lifestyle, what? It's been an exhausting week, but I managed to fit some fun in there too. I did some shoe window-shopping with Liz of Busy Lizzie in Brizzy on Tuesday night, before we joined some other Spoolettes for dinner and cocktails in Soho. On Wednesday night, Nic and I had dinner with my friend Disha at Wahaca on the South Bank before having a drink at the Tamesis Dock at Vauxhall. The sun was shining, my hotel was nice and it really feels like spring is on its way. So it's mainly been a good week, and I have a long weekend to look forward to as well. Hurrah!

As I've been away from home all week, I haven't been able to sew this week and I've been too tired to even knit. You get some weeks like that, I suppose. Still, I have a project from February to show to you. You might have heard that By Hand London released their newest pattern this week - the rather gorgeous Flora dress. I got an email from Victoria at the end of January with the line drawing attached, asking me would I like to be a pattern tester. I was on the train at the time and I may have done a little jive of excitement in my seat as I replied FUCK YES WHERE DO I SIGN. Let me tell you - pattern testing for the girls was such a joy. Not only did I get the excitement of seeing the pattern early, but it arrived in the cutest care package containing the printed pattern, a mini bottle of vodka, some sweets and a By Hand London tote bag. Woot! Add to this a £50 gift voucher from The Village Haberdashery to buy supplies and I was one very excited lady. It'll be no surprise to you that I fell in love immediately with the romantic shape of the Flora dress but I was also intrigued by the high-low hem skirt option. It's not something I'd ever go for in RTW, but then I never would have thought I'd wear a dress with a thigh-high split and, you know, that happened. So I went for it.

I didn't have a lot of time to sew Flora so I didn't make a toile and I cut straight into my fabric. Eeep! I did measure myself very carefully though, and decided to wing it with a size UK8/US4 as this was closest to my measurements. I made the bodice lining first and when that fit, I cut into my fabric. One of the fabric requirements for Flora is a 60 inch wide fabric as the circle skirt pieces are so wide. Ever the maverick, I went for a 45 inch wide fabric and cut the skirt on the cross-wise. I chose an Art Gallery fabric by Tule that is now out of stock, and Annie sent me 4 metres so I would have enough. The dress came together really quickly and easily, and I couldn't be happier with it. Here's my Folklore Flora:

Folklore Flora - By Hand London Flora dress made in Meadow Vale fabric by Tule for Art Gallery, and worn with Irregular Choice 'Edna' shoes

Do I look cold in these photos? Boys oh, I was cold. These photos were taken at the start of February! The things we do for blogs, eh?!

The Flora dress comes with a couple of different options. You can go for a high-necked version with tab straps like this one, or a super-cute faux wrap top. You can attach this dipped hem circle skirt or a pleated circle skirt with a straight hem. As I said above, I decided to give the dipped-hem a version because I've never worn such a thing. I'm cautiously happy with it, even though it does mean my knees are on display! Here's how it looks from the side...

Yes I know I look as goofy as fuck, but it was cold. Still, doesn't the skirt look fun from the side?

As the skirt has a dipped hem, you can see the inside of it from the front. The girls suggest lining the skirt, and I think this would be amazing in a really pretty silk cotton or similar. As you can see, I didn't this time around because the wrong side of my fabric looks fine, but I was really careful to hem the skirt neatly and evenly!

And here's the back view! The pattern calls for a concealed zip, which I think is appropriate for this style of bodice. I did briefly consider subbing in a lapped zip but it just didn't seem right to do that! In any case, the instructions for inserting the concealed zip are so good that it was nae bother. I loooooove the way this dress looks from behind, I think it's very elegant. And, considering it's a mullet hem, really it's more party up front, business from behind - the front skirt pieces are pretty short. That's something for you leggier ladies to consider. I'm not even 5 foot 2 and the skirt is above my knees. You might want to add some length.

So, yes, it's unsurprising news that I love Flora. I had been pretty much decided to make myself a Georgia dress as a wedding dress, but I think Flora might be edging her out - as spring approaches, I am feeling more and more into the idea of wearing something pretty and flouncy rather than something slinky and sexy. Maybe I'll make both and have a wardrobe change part-way through the day like it's the Oscars or some shit. I mean, the wedding ceremony itself is only going to last 10 minutes but that's no reason for me to be not ridiculous about it, is it?

Let's just hope the weather is better for the wedding though, right?

Considering that I didn't make a muslin for this dress, I'm pretty happy with the fit. You can see some very slight wrinkling under the bust, which I could fix if I were feeling fussy. I'm not fussy, though. The next time I make this bodice, I'll take maybe an inch of width out of the neckline both front and back, because as it is they're not lying quite flat. But, see above. I'm not fussy.

I'm seeing a lot of Flora love in the sewing community this week and I'm not surprised - given Lauren, Sonja and Marie's amazing versions! They set the bar super high so I was feeling a bit anxious about blogging mine - but what's also cool is how inspired I am to get sewing another Flora dress soon, maybe in a dreamy floral this time.

This photo adds nothing to this post by this stage, but fuck it. Here it is anyway.

And on that thought, I'm going to say goodbye. I've had an exhausting week and I have a blanket to sink into and a DVD to watch. Tomorrow I'm off for a spot of fabric shopping with some sewing sweeties, so I'll catch up with you all next week. Happy Friday, everyone!

Hello boys and girls! What is up? It's nearly Friday, I'm getting to the end of another very busy week, I have fun weekend plans. It's all good. The only thing that would make it better is a glass of wine but I'm already in my pyjamas. You can't have everything, I guess.

So the weather might still suck in your part of the world (I know poor old Gillian is still being snowed on) but it's been really lovely here. It's making me super excited about spring and summer - all the good stuff like not having to wear a coat and being able to eat dinner in the park. You know, all the important stuff! As the day of our wedding draws closer I'm also starting to get really, properly excited about that and about our honeymoon. I might have skipped across the park on Tuesday afternoon, thinking about what it will be like to sit outside in Paris with a glass of vin rouge, watching the world go by.

I still haven't bought fabric for my wedding dress, but my friend Lauren and I are hitting the Knitting and Stitching show on Saturday, and I hope to find some there. Maybe I'll even scout out some shoes when we're in London, you never know. There's still plenty of time for all of that. I have been thinking about sewing fun and flirty dresses to wear in Paris, though... and I think you might know where that leads!

Pasteque dress and Vivienne Westwood for Melissa Lady Dragon bow shoes

WHAT'S THAT? More of the Michael Miller Eiffel Tower fabric? Guilty as charged, dudes. I love it. I actually bought this in January with the thought of making a strappy dress out of it. But obviously I didn't, and it became an Emery dress instead. I bought this colourway from Ditto Fabrics and I mistakenly remembered it as called Watermelon. It's not, it's called Sorbet. That makes more sense, but there is also a colourway called Watermelon and maybe now I'm going to have to buy that too.

I only bought 1.5 metres of this fabric because I had planned to make a little dress out of it. And it is a little dress! I am becoming more comfortable with getting my knees out, and I think a short skirt works with this fresh, summery colour. Well, even if it didn't, it was all I had. Heh.

I wore this on Sunday, when it was warm enough to wear peep-toe sandals, leave the coat at home (I did have a cardigan with me) and to eat an ice-lolly on a bench in the park. It wasn't warm enough to sit on the grass - and it was still wet - but it's still only early March so this is a treat. I know we had a mild winter, but it has been grey and overcast for months. Actual sunshine is a real tonic.

I legit needed to wear my sunglasses. Yay sunglasses!

Nothing very much more to say about the Emery dress pattern by this point. It's clearly becoming my go-to pattern! This version (and a subsequent one, which I will blog about soon) came up a little bit big. I got my tape measure out and it turns out I need to re-trace the pattern a size down. This is what happens when you have a stressful job, kids. I'm not too worried about it here because some ease in a summer dress is a good thing - and it leaves plenty of room for all of the bread, cheese and pastry I'm going to eat in Paris. And champagne.

Back view - you can see some of the excess fabric in the bodice and my complete disregard for pattern matching. Hey, my zip looks right though, so that's good.

Oh and I wore matching Eiffel Tower earrings, and I was sad that I didn't have Eiffel Tower shoes. Maybe one day.

So, yes. That's one honeymoon dress sorted. I probably won't wear a Paris-themed dress every day when we're away. I'll try not to, at any rate, but it is nice to have something to help me to daydream.

That's the craic with me this evening but before I go, I have to tell you about two exciting things. The first thing is that last week, Argos got in touch with me and asked me would I like to give away a sewing machine and a sewing kit as a prize in the Sew Dolly Clackett sewalong! Of course I said yes, and the machine in question is a cute little Brother LS14. This is a good entry-level machine and it would be a great first machine for someone who is new to sewing, or a second machine for someone who is looking for one. It comes with an adorable polka dot sewing box. I was really delighted when Argos got in touch with me to offer the prize. They very kindly sent me an awesome iron last year but I admit that I hadn't realised they have a pretty impressive selection of sewing machines and accessories too. So yay! I'm going to be giving away a sewing machine!

The other exciting thing to tell you about is that my lovely friends at By Hand London have unveiled their new masterplan - print on demand fabric! Charlotte got in touch with me last month to let me in on the secret, and it's gone live today. They're hoping to raise some starter funds with a kickstarter bid, and they've made a little video explaining the master plan. You can see it here, and if you look carefully you might see a familar goofy face somewhere in the mix. I'm super excited for the girls. Over the last year they've become friends, and it's pretty obvious by this point how much I love their designs - it is amazing to think that, as well as sewing dresses designed by friends, the fabric could have been designed and printed by friends too! That is pretty fucking awesome, is it not?!

All right, pups. I've got to bust a move and make some dinner. Catch you after the weekend.

Now, if I can just figure out a way to make friends with the people who design the shoes...

Hola, dudes! I have been meaning to sit down and blog all week, but I have totally lost the run of myself this week. Work is reliably pretty crazy at the moment; I had a couple of school-night social engagements and I just seem to have hit a wall of general exhaustion that no amount of pre-9pm bedtimes seem to be helping. I have a week and a half of annual leave on the horizon and I’m hanging in there for that, but this week I have either been at full tilt or flat on my back, with nothing much in between. And I have all this beautiful fabric waiting to be made into pretty dresses, but the thought of sitting at my sewing machine makes me want to cry. Sigh. I’ll get back into the swing of things over the weekend, I hope.

Anyway, I had a less frantic week last week and was able to get some sewing done then, and I had a lovely weekend as well. A few weeks ago, when I was chatting to Charlotte from By Hand London about their kickstarter bid (go and check it out, by the way) she offered to send me a couple of tickets for the Knitting and Stitching show at the Olympia. I didn’t think Nic would be up for it, despite his badass fabric choosing skills, but my lovely friend Lauren decided she would join me.

I’ve always been on the fence a bit about these kinds of exhibitions. I went along to the Sewing for Pleasure show at the NEC a few years ago and found it a frustrating experience. At the time I was pretty skint and I was also struggling a fair bit with anxiety, so being in such a big crowd was less than ideal. The sheer number of exhibitors should have been a good thing, but in an unpleasant, dark and cramped venue it was more stressful than anything else. I’ve never wanted to go back. The Olympia show was a great contrast, however, and I really enjoyed the day. The venue itself is large and airy and it has natural light. There were loads of exhibitors, and space to move around between them, and all of the housekeeping stuff like catering and toilets and places to sit down – that was all handled much better, too. Of course, the company was a major plus. Lauren loves to sew as well, and we had so much fun pottering around the stalls and picking out fabrics together. She bought more than I did BUT I bought fabric for my wedding dress, so I think we came out even. I am so thrilled with my wedding dress fabric. It wasn’t something I had considered before I saw it, but when I saw it, it was love. I can’t wait to sew it.

We were also able to spend some time with Charlotte and Victoria at the By Hand London booth, and that was a lot of fun. I’m not a natural salesperson, but I did manage to talk a lady into buying the Georgia pattern by showing her Handmade Jane’s DAMN FINE version of it. I was also a walking advert my own self, because I was wearing my second go at the beautiful Flora dress. I failed to get any photos on the day, but Nic very kindly took some photos of the dress when it was finished.

Something for the Weekend dress and red wedges from Primark (via ebay)

So, I made this dress last Tuesday night while Nic was out at the pub. The fabric came from Barry’s in Birmingham and I bought it when I met up with sewing lovelies at the beginning of March. It’s a cotton poplin and I think it was around £4.99 per metre. This being my second Flora dress, I knew what I was at when it came to construction, but this time I made two minor changes. I took a tiny bit of width out of the bodice front and bodice back (I just pinched it and taped it on my pattern piece. Not sure if that’s ‘proper’ or not, but it worked) and I cut the skirt pieces a bit longer. I was undecided at the time whether to go for a high-low hem or give the straight hem a try.

As you can see, I decided to go for a straight hem this time, but it did take me a while to decide. Surprisingly, Nic cast his vote for the dipped hem. I say surprisingly because, like wedge shoes and jumpsuits, I kind of assumed that high-low hems were one of those fashion things that girls liked but men didn’t! I liked it too, in theory, but for some reason my ad-hoc lengthening of the skirt didn’t work terribly well and the hem was working out more of a handkerchief hem (longer at the sides) and, well, I didn’t like it. Straight hem it was! But, I have to front with you, this is not my best hem. I was really exhausted when I was sewing it, and it’s not entirely straight. If I were on the sewing bee with this shiz, I’d be laughed out of the place. But, I’m not on the TV and it’s minor enough that I’d rather live with it than fuck about trying to fix it. I know, Roisin, RAISE YOUR STANDARDS. But, you know...

No, seriously though. I did worry about the hem when I put the dress on. You might be able to see in the photos that it’s not totally straight, but I don’t think you’d have noticed it if I hadn’t pointed it out. In fairness, you’d probably have been too polite to say if you had noticed.

A little goofy close-up of the bodice because why not

Anyway, I think Flora is another winner. I really love the silhouette and, for a dress that is so quick and simple to put together, I think the end result is very pretty and elegant. Hemming aside, this really did only take a matter of hours to put together. I had cut the fabric out the previous weekend and I sewed this up between 8pm and 11pm. Winner! I’m sure you can tell there are going to be many more Flora dresses in my future – I’m keen to try the faux wrap bodice variation soon! I’ve decided that Flora, or a Flora variation is going to be the pattern I use for my wedding dress. It feels like me, and it totally fits the fabric I have chosen, but I haven’t decided yet which direction to go in for the bodice. Still, I have a bit of time before I have to actually cut any fabric.

Anyway, that's the craic with the Flora dress, round 2. Oh, and I named it after the song by The Divine Comedy which is in itself a reference to one of my favourite books, Cold Comfort Farm. If you don't think Flora Poste is a total dudette, we can't be friends.

Also: on Wednesdays, we wear pink.

Right, I think that's the lot for this evening. I need to build up my energy for some sewing this weekend, and that means putting on my pyjamas and going to bed. But here's one last, totally superfluous photo that shows you nothing new about my dress. But I think I look cute in it. Mainly because you can't really see my face...

HOLLA. Hello there, everyone! What is the craic with you all this evening? Right now I am huddled under a blanket with the heaters back on - apparently it's going to warm up again by the weekend but it's cold right now, boo! I had my tights packed away and everything.

Cold nose aside, everything is pretty swell. I've had a really good few days and have even managed to get some of my energy back - I got some sewing in over the weekend and on Monday evening as well. I've been working at home and wrestling with the Enormo Spreadsheet of Doom parts 1 and 2, but the up side of that is the coffee is good here and I don't have to take the train. So yeah, things are pretty good. I had a long weekend as Nic and I had an appointment to see the registrar on Friday to give notice of marriage. That was very exciting, not least because it meant I was able to miss a very boring meeting at work. It was a slightly chilly day but the sun was shining, and we had a lovely time. We went for lunch afterwards and had a bottle of prosecco and some sloe gin in the evening to celebrate. On Saturday we went to Birmingham to see some short films as part of the Flatpack Festival, have lunch at Bistro 1847 and generally just have a bit of a day out. I tried to buy shoes, but failed. In fact, I have attempted to buy shoes on two separate occasions since then, but have crapped out just shy of hitting 'submit' each time. I must be ailing for something...

Aaanyway - that's us all caught up. I have a new sewing project to show you and everything! I actually finished this dress a couple of weeks ago, but I'm pretty behind with blogging. Sooo... I bought this fabric on payday at the end of last month, when I also bought Eurostar tickets to Paris (woohoo!) and paid the electricity bill, and then decided not to buy any more fabric this month. And then I went fabric shopping with some of my sewing blogger pals, and then I went fabric shopping with Lauren. BUT, when you see the fabric, you'll understand why I had to buy it.

Home Sewing is Easy II - Hawaii by Alexander Henry fabrics

Yeah. Now, I can't remember who it was who alerted me to the existence of a sequel to Home Sewing is Easy, but I'm glad they did. This is awesome. Unlike the original, this does have a story to follow. The panels are spread at random across the fabric and not in the order of the narrative, but the jist of it is that Jim is a rat. He's invited Mia to join him in Hawaii, but she doesn't have a thing to wear!

Luckily for Mia, her friend Susan can sew...

Meanwhile, in Hawaii...

Jim is, I guess, naked somewhere? And in the short time that's elapsed since inviting Mia to Hawaii, he's met someone else. He IS a rat!

Mia's going all out. That sun-dress pattern just isn't slutty enough.

Ah, okay. Now it is.

Well, Jim is naked. So, probably not.

Is Mia naked on the phone?

Jim's been busy cosying up to Betty, but little does he know the power that Mia's new slutty Hawaii wardrobe is going to have. TRAFFIC STOPPING POWER.

Time to ditch the blonde...

Dude isn't even man enough to do it face to face. He's too busy macking on Mia down at the beach...

At least he has his clothes on him this time, though. And a lei, because Hawaii. Betty's not going to rest, though. I guess she thinks that Jim is such a catch. Or at the very least, she understands that a handmade slutty dress is enough to turn his empty head...

Yeah, Betty. You raise that hem. Put it all in the shop window, why not. It'll do the trick. I guess home sewing isn't the only thing that's easy.

So, yeah. The print is fabulous. As well as the story being genuinely hilarious, I absolutely love the colours, the Ray Lichenstein style drawings and the pineapples. All the pineapples. I wanted something pretty simple to showcase the amazing print, so reached once again for Christine Haynes's Emery pattern...

Sons of the Desert dress and Topshop wedges

I had two metres of the fabric, which was more than enough to ensure Betty's declaration that 'home sewing is easy' could go front and centre. That's the only attempt I made at pattern matching or anything, but I'm really pleased with how it worked out. Sadly, I cut the fabric and sewed the dress without realising that I'd lost a bit of weight, and it worked out a bit too big. In my first lot of photos, I put a belt on to try to hide this, but I felt uncomfortable in the dress the whole day.

You can see the excess fabric under the bust and across the shoulders. I did my little shrinking trick of popping the dress through a very hot wash, and it was an improvement. The next time I wash it, I'll do the same. I've re-traced the pattern in a size down. It's kind of a bummer, actually, because quite a few of my handmade dresses are now too big and my alterations pile is now as big as my fabric stash. Over the next couple of weeks I am going to figure out what I want to alter, what I want to pack away for a rainy day, and what I'm going to send to the charity shop. I did buy some more of the original Home Sewing is Easy fabric, though, because I'm not even sure how to begin altering the dress I made with that and it swamps me now.

Anyway. A bit of ease in a summer dress is no bad thing, and I am really happy with this dress. The fabric is just so fucking fabulous.

Still a little bit big... but I guess that just means room for cake, right?

I know some of you enjoy knowing where my random references come from. I named this dress after one of the funniest films I've ever seen; the Laurel and Hardy film Sons of the Desert. Often, all I need is to think about Sons of the Desert and I'll start laughing. Stan and Ollie want to go to their Sons of the Desert lodge convention in Chicago, but are pretty sure their wives won't let them. Ollie gets a vet to tell his wife he's ill, and that he needs to go to Hawaii to recuperate. Off they merrily go to Chicago, their wives none the wiser. Disaster strikes when the ocean liner they were due to travel on sinks in a Typhoon. When their wives go to the cinema to take their minds off it, they catch the boys out...

So, although they never actually make it to Honolulu, Stan and Ollie manage to get into just as much trouble there as Jim, Mia and Betty.

Honolulu Baby, where'd you get those eyes...

Maybe one day, I'll get to wear this dress in actual Hawaii. For now, I'd settle for the sun coming back out. I wore this to work last week and, while my colleagues are used to the sorts of clothes I like, they were pretty intrigued by the print on this. It was amusing to be stopped in the coffee queue because the person behind me hadn't finished reading my back.

Anyway, that's it for this evening. It's taken me ages to write this, what with all the five million pictures and thinking up all my hilarious jokes. Nic and I are watching the Harry Potter films and we're up as far as Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. He's never read the books and doesn't really know anything about the stories, so it's really fun to watch them with him. Although it's kind of weird watching these films through again. All I can think is how hideously irresponsible all wizard adults are. I mean, Dumbledore is a total dick. Sorry not sorry. But it's also a joy watching Ron Weasley grow up again. I think the only child actor cuter than Rupert Grint was Michael Fishman, who played DJ in Roseanne.

THAT LITTLE FACE THOUGH

Oh sorry, yes, this is only the best gif ever. Night!

WELL BOUT YE. Yes, I'm in Northern Ireland right now! I'm at home this week for my little sister's wedding. It's great to be home, not least because it's nice not to be at work right now. We got home quite late on Tuesday night and have spent time with family, had a little day out in Belfast and spent lots of time playing with the dog. Hurrah!

I have a little backlog of sewing projects to show you, having managed to finally shake off the tiredness that dogged me throughout much of March. It's been really good to want to sit down at my sewing machine again, because I think that was the thing I had been missing the most - the excitement and joy of planning a project.

So, the story with this dress is that I went fabric shopping at the start of last month with Marie, Kat, Helen, Claire and Amy in Birmingham. I mentioned to Marie how much I loved the fabric that she'd made her Flora dress with, and when I was on my way home she messaged me to say she was going to send me some. I was very touched and I wanted to do something special with it - and of course, another one of Marie's creations inspired me, her Elisalex of Ecstasy and Shame! After my Northland Row dress worked out to be too big, I got around to retracing the Elisalex dress pattern in a size 8. Pattern tracing is such a faff, but at times like these it is totally worth it. Anyway, I sewed this dress last Sunday afternoon while Nic was at the cinema with some friends. Having made the Elisalex dress many, many times before, I can put one together very quickly indeed!

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

Isn't the fabric beautiful? It's a furnishing weight fabric, so pretty perfect for the dramatic tulip skirt and its awesome box pleats. It has a slight sheen to it, which Marie says will fade after a wash - mine still has it though as I didn't worry about prewashing the fabric before sewing (gasp! I know, I'm a sewing slut! Clutch those pearls, guys!)This feels like a slight departure from my usual OTT style but I think it has a really classic appeal which works well with the shape of this dress.

So, after sewing a few dresses recently that have worked out to be a bit too big, this dress is rather more fitted. I had done a full bust adjustment on the larger size Elisalex I had been working from last year and I didn't bother with this one - my current measurements didn't seem to warrant it. I didn't toile before cutting into this fabric (get the pitchforks!) partly out of laziness, but also partly because I don't have anything approximating this weight of fabric to compare it with. Anyway, long story short is that I think I could probably do with a bit more room in the bust, and there is some wrinkling across the back but this may not be the case with a lighter weight fabric. In any case, this dress is perfectly comfortable and certainly wearable as it is. Well, I'm happy to wear it.

Now, normally I wouldn't have very much to say about the construction of this dress because I have made it a number of times. This time, though, I made a really silly mistake. I didn't realise until it was fairly late on in the construction. Can you tell what it was?

I'm not sure what I'm giving the side-eye to in this photo but it made me laugh, whatever it was

I SEWED THE DAMN SKIRT ON UPSIDE DOWN.

Yeah. I sewed the skirt on upside down. I thought it strange that, when I was attaching the skirt to the bodice, I couldn't find the notches I'd cut for the pleats, but I put it down to the fact that the fabric edges had frayed. I found those notches later, when I was ironing the hem. Yeah. Now, I wasn't going to say anything because it makes me feel sort of stupid and luckily, I think that if you didn't know I'd done that, it wouldn't have been obvious. Thankfully the fabric doesn't have an obvious one-way print. I could have detached it and redone the whole thing, but I didn't because - well, I didn't want to, and I like the skirt as it is. Anyway, I wanted to mention it - not because it is obvious, and not because I'm proud of it, but because these things happen and it's never the end of the world. Earlier in my sewing life, this would have really upset me. My dressmaking students often tell me they're afraid to cut into fabric in case they ruin it. But you can't ruin fabric, it's only fabric. And mistakes happen, and that's fine. No-one's going to die, like.

I kind of like the mistaken skirt anyway. It makes it more of a bell shape, and it works very well with the weight of the fabric. And I love this fabric such a lot. It's dear to me on account of being a gift, and it's just so pretty and elegant. Plus, I think the colours work perfectly with my dove blue heels - which are one of my favourite pairs. I'm looking forward to taking this dress with me on our honeymoon - I think it will look great with oversized sunglasses, cute flat sandals and a glass of champagne.

The moral of the story is that as well as being a sewing slut, I'm also pretty remedial. Judge me if you want. BUT IT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER and I really do love this dress. Thank you so much, Marie - I think that, even with my ridiculous mistake, I did this gorgeous fabric justice.

Right now, I'm away. There's some bad daytime TV to be watched and a small dog to be cuddled. Catch you all after the weekend!

How's it going there everybody from Cork, New York, Dundalk, Gortahork and Glenamaddy? I hope everyone has been having a good week. Nic and I are back in Leamington now, after a pretty good week at home in Northern Ireland. We had a great day at my sister's wedding on Saturday. I was a very graceful bridesmaid in a very pretty dress and, it being an Irish wedding, I only really got over the hangover today. It was a good week, but it's also been excellent to get back to Leamington and my sewing machine. I was waiting in today for a courier to arrive (delivering some shoes, obviously) and spent the afternoon sewing. It was lush, and so was the celebratory gin I went out for this afternoon.

Anyway, as I mentioned in my last post, I do have something of a backlog of projects to show you. A few weeks ago, Lisa Comfort of Sew Over It got in touch with me and asked me would I be interested in pattern testing her new pattern, the Betty dress. I was short on time and the turnaround was pretty tight, as it often is with pattern testing, but when I saw the pattern I was too tempted to say no! For some reason I can't get the photo of the pattern to upload but it's described as "a 50s inspired dress with a fitted bodice and full circle skirt." So, you know, that's relevant to my interests. Because of other commitments, I only really had one shot at making this dress before the deadline so this is kind of a wearable toile.

Big Block of Cheese dress - Sew Over It Betty dress and Vivienne Westwood for Melissa 'globe' Lady Dragon shoes

A Big Block of Cheese dress! I bought this fabric when I went shopping with lovely sewing blogger friends at the start of March, and it came from Barry's in Birmingham. In truth, I had meant to buy it the previous month when I was visiting Barry's but sadly on that occasion I was too sick to cope with the heat in there so didn't buy anything. I kept thinking about it though, and when Helen rocked up in her World Map dress, I took it as fate. I bought 2.5 metres of this fabric, which worked out to be the perfect amount for the Betty dress. Also, I love wearing my Claudia Jean dress so much, it seemed like she needed a sister. Basically I bought this map fabric just so I could make a dress and call it the Big Block of Cheese dress.

Sewing-wise, Betty came together very quickly and it's a straightforward pattern. There's a really neat trick for finishing the all-in-one facing in the bodice so that it's all enclosed, but I must confess that I found the instructions for this to be utterly baffling. I was all ready to just throw in the towel when Nic looked at the instructions, looked at the pieces and was just like, "duh. You do it like this." It's a very neat technique and I understand that there will be a sewalong, which I'm sure will explain it for anyone else who finds it confusing! That was really the only difficult thing about the pattern, which I think would be suitable for a confident beginner otherwise.

I cut a size 8, and I made my usual adjustment of raising the shoulder seams slightly. The fit is okay, but I think I am going to have to play with it a little bit to get it just right. This fabric was inexpensive enough that I was happy to use it as a potentially wearable toile, and this is wearable!

You can see from this photo that I have some excess fabric under my bust and across the neckline. I will take some of the width out of the neckline and - well, I'd welcome your thoughts on what to do about the excess fabric under my bust. This pattern is so pretty that I would like to get the fit better on it. That being said, I don't think that issue is going to prevent me from wearing this dress as it is.

Back view - one of the pretty details on this pattern is the scooped back. I'm such a sucker for this!

Aaah, cardigans. They're good for hiding when something doesn't fit just exactly as well as you might like it to!

I enjoy pattern testing - or at least, I have enjoyed it on the occasions when I've been invited to do it. The Betty pattern is apparently very popular at Sew Over It's classes, and I can see why - this style is just exactly what I enjoy wearing and I think it's very versatile. Apart from the one instruction that I struggled a bit with, the instructions were very clear and I can't fault the drafting or design. It's a cutie! Sew Over It were excellent to work with as well, and it's really pleasing to build relationships with independent designers here in the UK. Lisa sent me the finished copy of the pattern but it feels a bit greedy of me to keep it when I have the copy I tested from, so I'm going to give it away to one of you lovely readers! I'll hold the giveway open until Friday 18th April at 9pm BST - so pretty much one week from now - and all you need to do is leave me a comment below to let me know you'd like to be entered in the draw. You can also tell me what fabric you'd make it from, because I'm nosey that way!

Well, anyway. It's Friday night and we're celebrating. Having booked a venue for our after-wedding party a couple of weeks ago, Nic and I went to view it this afternoon. It's just been refurbished and they'd just finished it this afternoon! It's really cool, and apparently they're going to have something like 100 different gins on the menu - I mean, who even knew there were that many types of gin? Anyway, I'm very happy with how our (very minor) wedding plans are coming together. Basically everything is set now, so we're celebrating this evening with champagne and Double Indemnity. YEAH. Just as well I'm finally over that hangover, right?

Thank you, alcohol.

Hola, boys and girls! Happy Easter! Nic and I got the long Easter weekend off to a good start - my weekend officially started at lunchtime on Thursday as I had a half-day, but it kind of started on Wednesday night. We went for pizza and prosecco with our friends Rick and Lauren, and it was lucky I was working from home on Thursday so me and my hangover could answer emails and work on a spreadsheet in peace. And, you know, in bed.

I still have some sewing projects to catch you up on from the last few weeks; I am so behind with actually blogging! Anyway, it feels like it's been a while since I posted a Dolly Clackett special - a pattern hack. This time around it's the By Hand London Flora dress. One of the things I love about the By Hand London patterns is how gloriously hackable they are. When I first spied the Flora pattern, I was particularly taken with the tank bodice as I thought it would be a good basis from which to recreate one of my favourite shop-bought dresses; this dress from River Island:

This photo was taken when we went to Orlando in 2012 - this dress got me so many compliments from strangers!

I love the shape of this dress and actually have it in all of the different variations River Island brought out that year (including one with Eiffel Towers on it!) but it's kind of a weird dress. The waistline has some cute pleating and the skirt is beautifully full, but it has a halfway open back - it zips to the lower back and then has a peekaboo type back bodice that fastens with three hooks and eyes. There's no way to wear it without your bra being visible. But anyhow, it's about 7000% nicer than everything else that you can buy in River Island and these dresses are some of the few shop-bought dresses that I regularly wear these days. Being able to make my own version is pretty attractive.

So, enter some of the fabric that I bought at the Knitting and Stitching show - another Dolly Clackett special, and you have the Lauren dress:

Lauren dress - By Hand London Flora bodice and a pleated skirt, worn with Vivienne Westwood for Melissa shoes

Yes, more From The Hip fabric. I KNOW. I know. But it's rare to find it on sale in the yellow colourway. Or at least, it's rare to find enough of it to make a dress with. I spotted this at the Fabrics Galore stand and didn't buy it immediately, for fear that I'd see something else at another stand and not have the budget. So anyway, after a circuit of the show I decided I had to go back for it, at which point the bolt was nowhere to be seen. The stall had been ravaged! I was sadly looking through the remaining bolts, when Lauren let a heart-rending yelp out of her. She'd found it! Anyway, I bought 2 metres of it and have named the dress after Lauren.

In terms of construction, this was very easy and I made this dress up one Tuesday night when Nic was in Birmingham. The skirt was very simple - I used the width of the fabric for the skirt front and half that for each of the skirt back pieces. Then I measured the width, measured the width of the waistline and divided one by the other to work out how wide the pleats should be. Then I pleated it. SELF-DRAFTED LOL. The pleats on the River Island dress are much more complicated, but then they are also much more fiddly to iron so, you know, this is all good.

I'm smug because I'm calling a pleated rectangle a 'self-drafted skirt' and I think I'm really fucking clever.

I had lots of fabric to play with - in fact, I totally over-estimated how long I wanted this to be so I have a really deep hem - so I was able to work out the pattern placement just how I liked it. The sassy-ass cowgirl on the horse deserved a showcase, and I'm really pleased with how the bodice frames her. I also like the cowgirl reclining on one of my boobs. Because if you can have that, WHY WOULDN'T YOU? I also attempted to pattern-match along the zip. This is something I'm not usually that bothered with, but I guess all of your tweets about the Great British Sewing Bee (I wasn't watching it, confiscate my sewing machine if you like) rubbed off on me.

God, the photos of my back always look like pure derp. I'm glad I can't normally see my own back.

It's not perfect, right. Guitar Cowgirl looks like she got caught in the doorway between dimensions when it closed and she kind of got doubled and she has an extra bit of face. But as I said above, I can't usually see my own back so that's fine.

Yeah, my front is better. Let's stick with that. I'm really pleased with how this dress turned out. You all know how much I love a gathered skirt, but a full pleated skirt is probably a bit more flattering, especially in a quilting cotton such as this. Also, it's less of a faff to sew - even with my 'drafting' (snarf) this dress really did take only a few hours to sew. You know I love that. I've already made another one of these in excellent fabric that I'll show you soon. It doesn't have cowgirls on it, though. You can't have everything. It does make me think that I should have a go at adding a pleated skirt to the Emery dress, so you can expect to see one of those at some point too, probably.

So anyway, that's the craic there. I've been thoroughly enjoying my bank holiday today - I didn't do any sewing, as we were having a day out. A local community project called Foundry Wood were holding a pizza making workshop in their outdoor kitchen. I can see Foundry Wood from the train when I'm coming home from work and I have been curious about it. And I like pizza, so it all worked out beautifully. The sun was shining so I wore another one of my Flora dresses, and off we went!

Folklore Flora dress, jacket from Fever Designs, Topshop sunglasses, yellow satchel from Zatchels and Miss L Fire Bluebird sandals

Most of the other people at the pizza workshop were children, so we had to wait patiently for our turn at the oven. It was totally worth it and so much fun - waiting in the sunshine for our handcrafted pizza to cook was pretty awesome!

Pizza in progress...

Pizza success!

Too Much Fun with Too Many Dresses

Anyway, I know none of that is really pertinent to sewing but I realised recently how much I have missed sharing more of my life with you guys. I'm going to get back to that! After eating our pizza in the sunshine, we headed down to the canal to have a drink in the sunshine... and that turned into a couple of drinks and a visit to the playground...

That dipped hem looks MEGA on the zipper line, does it not?!

And, on that note, I'm off to eat some chocolate. Happy Easter, everyone!

Hey YO. How are we all getting on, first day back at work after a lovely long bank holiday weekend been treating you okay? I guess apart from you, teachers, you're probably good for a few days yet, right? Anyway, I was back at work today but working from home and - well, you might find it weird, but I kind of enjoyed getting back to it. The work I have on this week isn't thrilling or anything - I'm checking massive set-up spreadsheets. It's not sexy, like, but it's important and I am taking a perverse joy in doing it. What have I become?! Anyway - maybe it's just that I am feeling rested after being on leave and then having a fun long weekend immediately afterwards. The next couple of weeks at work are going to be HELLA busy but I'm feeling the energy to get through it.

I had a very relaxing yet productive long weekend. I put in some quality time with my sewing machine and made three dresses. Even more importantly, I re-traced a couple of my favourite patterns in my correct size and I took in lots of my favourite handmade dresses that were too big. I spent ages ironing most of it this afternoon, but I suppose that's the price you pay for having so many dresses. Eh. I quite like ironing though. Ironing and spreadsheets, WTF?!

So, after showing you all a By Hand London pattern hack in my last blog post, I have another one to blog this evening. What can I say? Their patterns are awesome. This dress has a nice circularity to it, too, because it was while I was chatting Charlotte and Victoria up at their stand at the Knitting and Stitching show that I met Ingrid from Beloved Fabrics. Anyway, Ingrid told me she read my blog and liked that I sew with quilting cottons, and then she offered to send me some fabric of my choice to make a dress with. Hurrah! It took me a couple of weeks of faffing to get in touch with Ingrid, and then a bit more faffing to actually choose something. I had to get my resident fabric whisperer - Nic - in to help me choose. I had gravitated straight toward the nautical section (like, duh) and went for this:

Sea Urchins in Aqua from Full Moon Lagoon by Andover Fabrics*

Yeah, it's not your usual nautical fabric, is it? But I was drawn to the colours - that blue is more of a minty aqua green-blue in real life - and the weirdness of the sea urchins themselves.

Ingrid very kindly sent me three metres of the fabric and my initial plan was to make another Flora dress. When the fabric arrived, I rethought somewhat. Given how well the Elisalex bodice had worked with a circle skirt in the past, I decided to combine the two and go for a Floralex! So here she is...

Blah, Blah, Fishcakes dress - By Hand London Elisalex/Flora hybrid, worn with Vivienne Westwood for Melissa Lady Dragon bow shoes

Hey, and I sewed the skirt on the right way up this time round. Go me! This dress was a whizz to put together. The fabric is very lovely to work with. It is definitely a bit more quilting weight than, say, an Alexander Henry cotton. There are quilting cottons and there are quilting cottons, you know. Well, that's what I'd say to the quilting cotton deniers, anyway. This isn't as drapey as some others I have worked with, but it worked really well for this pattern. The knife-pleat in the front of the skirt and the box-pleats in the back look really crisp and smart, I think.

I made a couple of minor adjustments to the bodice. I scooped the neckline out a good deal more than the pattern calls for because I wasn't sure how well I'd like this pale blue next to my face. I gave myself a bit more room in the bust by using a smaller seam allowance on the very curved bit of the princess seam. Looking at this photo there's a slight wrinkling under the bust, so maybe I should have gone back to 5/8 for that bit. But I suppose this means I have room for pizza in this dress, which is no bad thing!

Here's a wee close-up of the fabric, just for the craic

The fabric has a one-way pattern, which is arguably not ideal for sewing a circle skirt. I kind of like the way the changing direction of the stripes and the seaweed and the urchins looks a bit undulating. It's even a bit... nautical, eh?! I really like the way this is a slightly different take on the classical nautical theme, too. Finding a match for the aqua blue was a challenge for both thread and a zip, so I used white. I hemmed the skirt using turquoise bias binding. I was short on time and I popped into Harlequin Fabrics in town to see what they had and it was the best they had. They were pretty unhelpful in there too, which is a shame. I keep resolving not to shop in there any more - maybe one of these days, it will stick!

I bought these massive sunglasses last week. I had been prevaricating over them for months - I kept going into Topshop and trying them on and pouting at myself in the mirror and then leaving them behind. I finally reasoned that I'd need them on holiday. They're ludicrous and I love them.

You can rest assured that this isn't going to be the last Elisalex/Flora combination in my wardrobe. These two patterns go really well together and I did feel fabulous in this dress. I'm in the middle of knitting a cropped pink cardigan to go with it, and then I'll be all set!

Thanks again to Ingrid for so kindly offering to send me some fabric. I'm really pleased with this dress, and to have found another online shop selling pretty cottons. I'm pretty sure that after payday I'm going to treat myself to this Riley Blake cowboy fabric - it had been a choice between that and the sea urchins, and Nic ruled in favour of the sea monsters.

I'm going to head off for the evening - Nic and I have some serious Star Trek to be watching - we bought S6 of TNG on DVD over the weekend and we're up to the Birthright two-parter - but before I go, I have to let you know who won the Sew Over It Betty pattern I was giving away. I was originally giving away one copy of this lovely pattern but the postman came bearing a second one today - a reprint, due to a minor error on the envelope - so I can give away two! TWO ARMADILLOS! The winners are French Fancy and Elise of Foof and Faff. Guys, drop me an email to thestreak@gmail.com and I'll pop the patterns in the post to you. Now. Worf is about to find out what really happened at Khitomer, so I'd better go...

Ladies Love Cool Worf

Hiii everybody! What's the craic? Not too much here, I've mainly just been chilling out this weekend. That's nice because - gasp - I have to work a full five-day week next week. Oh no! Mind you, in the grand tradition of bank holiday weekends, last week had five days worth of work squeezed into four days. I spent a solid two of those days proof-reading spreadsheets and a third day checking a database against another spreadsheet. It was perversely satisfying but totally exhausting. I'm glad I can squeeze some enjoyment out of tasks like that because otherwise my job could be pretty depressing!

I have been having a weird week, though. I've been trying to psyche myself and get prepared for the next couple of weeks at work. It's always busy where I work, but May is a difficult month. We work in cycles, with four cycles running at the same time. One goes live in May, and two others move into significant development periods. It's a lot to hold in your head at the one time, and a big logistical challenge for everyone involved to keep everything running. I know that what needs to be done in the next couple of weeks is possible and that it will happen - mainly because it has to - but the whole thing has been making me anxious and I've been a bit of an emotional wreck. I'm not unhappy - far from it - but I've been sleeping badly and I had a horrible anxiety attack the other night. The only way out is through, and that's fine, but it's not a whole lot of fun.

The other thing that has been on my mind which isn't nearly as stressful, but which has been occupying my thoughts is the Sew Dolly Clackett competition! It closed on Wednesday and I've been utterly overwhelmed by how many people took part. There are something close to 200 members in the Flickr pool, so that's a lot of entries to sort through! I 'm astounded by how amazing the entries have been - I mean that most sincerely - and by the variety of ways in which people chose to interpret the brief. I'm incredibly, incredibly touched that the competition even exists and by the fact that so many of you have been so sweet. I've found myself tearing up reading blog posts and tweets - this community is truly, truly special. It's humbling, and it's genuinely difficult to articulate how this has made me feel. It's also hard to know how to respond to this appropriately - how on earth am I ever going acknowledge this?! Judging it is going to be a daunting task so I've enlisted a panel of judges to help me decide - Nic, and my lovely friend Disha - and I hope to be able to choose winners by the weekend. Watch this space!

So, after that big wall of text (hey, thanks you guys for sticking with that) I'll do you all a solid and show you a dress. That's what you come for, right?! I actually made this dress a couple of weeks ago - right after Nic and I came back from Northern Ireland - but I am getting so slow at blogging! The story with this one is that it's kind of a do-over. You'll recognise the fabric because I've sewed with it before - but the dress I made from it is now too big and I'm not sure how to go about altering it. I will but I wanted a quick fix, so I bought myself some more of the fabric. I guess I have more money than sense. No, wait. I totally don't.

714 Delaware Street dress - By Hand London Flora dress with a pleated skirt and Irregular Choice Hello Ha shoes*

Um, yeah. More Home Sewing is Easy fabric! I really love my original Home Sewing is Easy dress - not least because the fabric was a gift from a very dear friend - and also because the fabric is basically completely awesome. That's why it's my blog header! Also, dudes, home sewing IS totally easy. I sewed this baby up in around four hours while I was waiting for the courier to deliver these shoes.

They're pretty fucking twee, aren't they? But, um, check out that bow. I love it. And also yellow is totally a neutral so these are very practical. Ha ha! NOT. They are seriously cute though. But back to the dress.

I know my face looks goofy here but whatever. Look at my print placement! I'm very happy about this.

I did take a bit more time over cutting this out than I usually would because I wanted to get that awesome banner with the lady sewing front and centre, and to avoid breaking it up with darts if possible. This wasn't difficult but I did end up cutting the bodice pieces out on a single layer rather than on the fold so I could achieve this. I had to sacrifice the very tops of the heads of the ladies at the top to get the sewing machine where I wanted it, but I hear trepanning is all the rage these days anyway so I probably did them a favour.

My cowgirl version of this dress hack ended up being a bit too big (which I fixed by shrinking it in a hot wash, but I forgot to mention it in my post about it) so for this dress I increased the seam allowances to 7/8 rather than 5/8. I may have to bite the bullet and trace the bodice a size down and do a slight FBA but this fix seemed to work and I'm really pleased with how the bodice fits. OH, and because I cut the bodice pieces on a single layer, I was able to have a decent stab at matching the pattern on the bodice back:

It's not perfect, but that's fine. I'm not that invested in matching a print as busy as this one, to be honest!

I will get around to fixing my other dress made from this fabric but I am very glad to have this excellent print back in rotation. Wearing it makes me happy and it goes perfectly with these shoes! I also thoroughly enjoyed sewing this dress - there was no stress or fuss at all - and at the moment that's pretty important to me. That shit is keeping me sane. Kind of, anyway.

Anyway, that's the craic with my new dress! I'm only sorry that these photos were taken on an overcast day so the dress doesn't look quite as sunny as it is in real life. The weather is so changeable here at the moment and right now I'm swaddled in a fleece blanket, when just the other day I was sitting in a pub garden with my sunglasses on!

Pub garden fun times. Nic told me to pull a funny face but this is just what my face looks like. THAT'S JUST MY FACE.

Right boys and girls. I've got to get along. I popped along to Berylune this afternoon to shoot the breeze with Emily, and came home with two metres of gorgeous Cloud 9 fabric. I need to go and wash it so I can sew it into something beautiful this week! I'm going to leave you with another photo though, because I know how much Emily loves seeing 9 photos of the same thing. Toodles!

I'll make a shoehorn out of your shin / I'll make a lampshade of durable skin...

In the small event that occurs, just crumple two pieces of aluminum foil and stuff them in your undershorts. It defeats their sensor rays.

She had too much champagne and a monkey knocked her into some quicksand. It could happen to anyone!

I'm a star, I'm on top, SOMEBODY BRING ME SOME HAM!

I'll never do better than you. You're a cook in the bedroom and a whore in the kitchen.

But... wait. How... Where else could you put the Northern Hemisphere but on the top?

A happy Anna Howard Shaw day to us all!

I didn't know what to bring you so I just got some magazines and lipsticks. Women stuff.

If you don't like it, you can leave. This isn't Eric Roberts' teepee.

Your landlord called. He says it's not the toilet, it's you.

Why would that cheer her up? Does she look like a 22 year-old frat boy?

Those flowers were supposed to say "We love you, we're so sorry" not "You're dead. Let's disco."

She's really into all the police lingo. Whenever I go over there, she's always eyeballing a mug shot, grilling a dirtbag or frisking a biscuit.

A homeless man showed me his dick on the way here. It doesn't get any realer than that.

Any dog under 50 pounds is a cat, and cats are pointless.

The Exhausted Ruler said if you took an oath it would have to be broken for generations of centuries of hundreds of years.

I once worked with a guy for three years and never learned his name. Best friend I ever had. We still never talk sometimes.

You can't say your favorite kind of cake is birthday cake, that's like saying your favorite kind of cereal is breakfast cereal.

This is my costume. I'm a homicidal maniac. They look like everybody else.

I'm just like any modern woman trying to have it all. I just wish I had more time to seek out the dark forces and join their hellish crusade.

I understand what Becky sees in you. You look like that Fonzie fellow who's so popular these days.