I’m pretty and tough, like a diamond. Or beef jerky in a ball gown.

Hello hello helloooooo! It's been a while: this getting back into blogging craic fell by the wayside a bit as January swallowed me whole. But it's February now and although it's still pretty brutally cold, I can see some signs of spring and I'm getting a little bit of breathing space again, so that's good. I found January to be a real struggle - I was exhausted all the time and my anxiety was playing me really badly, so it's a relief to finally be through it.

Anyway, sorry to moan. In amongst all of the harder things, life has still been good. I've been making time for sewing when I can - although, it's difficult to find the motivation to sew when it's cold as my sewing table is in front of a window and it's freezing there! Motivation came a few weeks ago when Alice from Fabric Yard got in touch with me and offered to send me my choice of fabric to make a dress with. I've shopped with Fabric Yard a fair bit - I enjoy dealing with a Northern Irish business, they do flat rate postage of £1 and, best of all, have a really great selection of fun fabrics. I took the opportunity to get some fabric I'd had my eye on for ages - an Michael Miller print called Atomic.


I've actually sewed from this fabric before, although not for myself - ages ago, I made my lovely friend Lucy a B5748 from the olive colourway. She loved it and still wears it, which is a wonderful compliment. It is worth sewing for other people sometimes. Well, only sometimes.

With Lucy's dress in mind, and also partly inspired by an amazing dress that Camille made during Sew Dolly Clackett, I hatched a plan...


Alice sent me three metres of the fabric, which was enough to do pretty much anything I wanted with it. I had enough for a full circle skirt but recently I've been really digging how half circle skirts look, so that's what I did. The bodice is my trusty Emery bodice. I've experimented with shortening it by about half an inch. This has meant it fits a bit better at the bust, but I do need to do something about the shoulders, which now gape a bit at the neckline:


HELLO BRA STRAPS. Now to be fair, this is exacerbated a little bit by my unnatural stance - it's not nearly so evident when I'm standing a bit more normally. I should probably do a slight FBA, which  might put everything where it should be. I'll do that. Definitely.


I am pretty happy with this dress, even with the slight fitting issues. The fabric is fabulous, and I love the colour. I don't love these photos - I think the proportions of the dress are such that it will look better with higher heels. I'm really looking forward to wearing it with some orange high heeled clogs once the weather allows.


I think the colour of the dress will also look better on me when winter is over and my skin isn't literally blue any more. That will help. Can you tell that I'm pretty much over winter by now?


Okay, I'll try to stop crabbing about it being cold because it's not even all that cold really. We've had a few hours of pitifully sleety snow this past weekend and that's been it in terms of extreme weather. I shouldn't really complain. It's a nice excuse to cuddle up in my slanket** and binge-watch RuPaul's Drag Race.

Anyway, that's your lot for this evening. Goodbye!


*I was sent the fabric for free but wasn't otherwise compensated for this blog post, and the links are not affiliate links

** I don't have a slanket, sadly. I might have to get one now though.