Hello my lovelies! I hope everyone is having a happy weekend. It's all good here - I have had a restful day of eating cake and sewing, which are two of my favourite things to do! Tonight Nic and I are off to look after my friend Lucy's totally brilliant children, which should mean at least an hour of playing with lego followed by a few hours of watching trashy TV. Can't be bad!
I had a pretty stressful week at work. It was the first such a stressful week in a few months and I probably shouldn't complain, but it really took it out of me! The next six months - as we enter our busiest period and my team lose two members of staff - are going to be very intense and quite difficult, I think. I'm much better at coping with stress than I have been in the past - a big part of this is the fact that I am just happier and healthier overall - but there are definitely some challenging times ahead. I predict that sewing, shoe-shopping and gin-drinking will be needed to get me through it!
Anyway, that's the old life update out of the way, eh?! Now do you want to see a dress? So. The story with this dress is that a couple of weeks ago, Verity from Miss Gingers got in touch with me to say that she had been getting a lot of traffic from my post about my Green Ginger dress, which I had made from some beautiful Michael Miller fabric I bought from her store. Aaaah. I love that dress! And clearly so do some of you guys! Anyway, as a thank you she offered to send me my choice of fabric from her shop. It took me ages to choose some, because it seems like she and I have very similar taste in fabric! Eventually I went for the most Roisin-y fabric I could find, this Robert Kaufman Paris print cotton:
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This modification was only a partial success. Removing the waistband definitely did help with the overall length of the bodice. I mean, well, duh. It does hit my natural waist now, and I don't miss the waistband at all. HOWEVER, and it's a big however - this dress is too big. I don't know whether I need to size down in the bodice or whether curving those under bust darts would fix this better, but that's kind of the biggest problem with this dress. Oh - and just so you know, I had made this before I posted the Dirty Dick dress, so I couldn't apply all of the good advice you all gave me to this dress.
This dress is wearable as it is, and I have worn it a couple of times since I made it a few weeks ago. The print kept me entertained during a particularly boring meeting at work.
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As it stands, I think this dress is a little unflattering on me. The excess fabric in the bodice makes me look a bit shapeless and although I experimented with adding a belt to hide that fact, I don't actually like wearing belts! I will take this dress apart and take it in, though, because I love the print and it would be a shame not to wear it. I mean. I have to. It has Eiffel Towers on it!
Making this dress, it occurred to me that my love of anything Eiffel Tower themed is very much like Sonja from I'm Alan Partridge's love of London. Don't worry, though. Nic doesn't have a static home filled with toy baguettes and teddy bears wearing breton tops and berets. But actually, there are a lot of similarities between me and Sonja. We both like to play practical jokes, we both like London and we both have occasionally stressful jobs. Sadly, despite intensive searching of the internet, I can't find ANY good Sonja gifs - which I find weird, because she's wonderful. So here I am instead, doing my best impression of Sonja laughing:
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Okay boys and girls. I have to go and build things out of lego with some small children. Seeing as I can't provide you with a Sonja gif, I'm going to leave you with an Alan gif party. You can thank me later.
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Thank you so much for the fabric, Verity! I have put my heart in the back of a Paris love taxi and told driver to go to you.
I had a pretty stressful week at work. It was the first such a stressful week in a few months and I probably shouldn't complain, but it really took it out of me! The next six months - as we enter our busiest period and my team lose two members of staff - are going to be very intense and quite difficult, I think. I'm much better at coping with stress than I have been in the past - a big part of this is the fact that I am just happier and healthier overall - but there are definitely some challenging times ahead. I predict that sewing, shoe-shopping and gin-drinking will be needed to get me through it!
Anyway, that's the old life update out of the way, eh?! Now do you want to see a dress? So. The story with this dress is that a couple of weeks ago, Verity from Miss Gingers got in touch with me to say that she had been getting a lot of traffic from my post about my Green Ginger dress, which I had made from some beautiful Michael Miller fabric I bought from her store. Aaaah. I love that dress! And clearly so do some of you guys! Anyway, as a thank you she offered to send me my choice of fabric from her shop. It took me ages to choose some, because it seems like she and I have very similar taste in fabric! Eventually I went for the most Roisin-y fabric I could find, this Robert Kaufman Paris print cotton:
YEAH I DID. I just can't stay away from fabrics with the Eiffel Tower on. As you can see from this image, the print also features the Arc de Triomphe and Notre-Dame. Sadly no Sacre-Coeur, but as there are lots of cute little houses and bicycles and cafe tables and suchlike, I was good with it. I spent a little time trying to figure out what to make with the fabric before deciding to go with the Sewaholic Cambie modification my lovely friend Lauren showed me - removing the waistband and only lining the bodice.
Sonja dress - modified Sewaholic Cambie dress worn with Vivienne Westwood for Melissa shoes
This modification was only a partial success. Removing the waistband definitely did help with the overall length of the bodice. I mean, well, duh. It does hit my natural waist now, and I don't miss the waistband at all. HOWEVER, and it's a big however - this dress is too big. I don't know whether I need to size down in the bodice or whether curving those under bust darts would fix this better, but that's kind of the biggest problem with this dress. Oh - and just so you know, I had made this before I posted the Dirty Dick dress, so I couldn't apply all of the good advice you all gave me to this dress.
This dress is wearable as it is, and I have worn it a couple of times since I made it a few weeks ago. The print kept me entertained during a particularly boring meeting at work.
It was a changeable day when we took these photos - this might give you a better idea of the fitting issues in the bodice
As it stands, I think this dress is a little unflattering on me. The excess fabric in the bodice makes me look a bit shapeless and although I experimented with adding a belt to hide that fact, I don't actually like wearing belts! I will take this dress apart and take it in, though, because I love the print and it would be a shame not to wear it. I mean. I have to. It has Eiffel Towers on it!
Making this dress, it occurred to me that my love of anything Eiffel Tower themed is very much like Sonja from I'm Alan Partridge's love of London. Don't worry, though. Nic doesn't have a static home filled with toy baguettes and teddy bears wearing breton tops and berets. But actually, there are a lot of similarities between me and Sonja. We both like to play practical jokes, we both like London and we both have occasionally stressful jobs. Sadly, despite intensive searching of the internet, I can't find ANY good Sonja gifs - which I find weird, because she's wonderful. So here I am instead, doing my best impression of Sonja laughing:
When I was finished laughing, I made Nic an egg in a bap. Needless to say, I had the last laugh that time.
Okay boys and girls. I have to go and build things out of lego with some small children. Seeing as I can't provide you with a Sonja gif, I'm going to leave you with an Alan gif party. You can thank me later.
Thank you so much for the fabric, Verity! I have put my heart in the back of a Paris love taxi and told driver to go to you.