Poppy covered oven gloves

So I made these as a gift for my poppy mad Grandma, but now she thinks they are too pretty to use! Typical! Anyway i made them like this...


First I laid the patterned fabric out on the table and measure it with my current over gloves for width and length. I bought a meter of this poppy fabric and I have plenty left to make Grandma the apron to match she so subtly hinted about for Christmas.

So once I had two of those, I cut out the special heat proof wadding I had bought to be sandwiched between the two at the same size. I then with my matching thread just run straight stitched down the length of the sandwich and at four points side to side to quilt it all together.

I then used 1 fat quarter of red fabric and made the pockets. I copied again the size of my current over gloves but made the corners square. What I did was I doubled the length required of red fabric so I could fold it over the wadding and not have a seam at the opening. So I cut two sets of the red and sandwich that with heatproof wadding again. I'm not sure if you needed to use heatproof for the pockets but as it was for my Grandma I wanted to be safe. I quilted these together with a row or two of the fancy stiches my machine does which hopefully you can see on the top picture.
Please note a basted these with the spray glue left over from my quilts but there wasn't much left so it got a bit gloopy and left marks on the fabric where it settled. I won't use it near the end again as it left greasy marks on my red fabric.

I then sewed the two pockets on by doing a square all the way around the pocket attaching the pocket to the poppy sandwich I previously made.

I the trimmed the edges and put red bias binding all the way round to finish it off, and popped it in the post! The best bit was when the post office lady asked what was in my parcel... oven gloves! What a funny look I got!

The infamous 'Walkaway dress' Butterick B4790

After seeing this dress on The Great British Sewing Bee I instantly fell in love! My personal style is very retro and flared dresses like this flatter my curves well.
I bought the pattern on a whim when it was half price thinking I'll get round to it when I'm a bit more skilled, but no I decided to go head first on this one!

I was a bit daunted by the amount of fabric I needed to make this, so I thought if I mess it up it's going to be a huge waste of money. So whilst in Dunelm I saw that their plain block coloured duvets and sheets were on sale! I bought a bright pink and a bright turquoise double duvet for the grand total of £9! Perfect for messing things up I though!


I started by Ironing out the pattern pieces as this was my first go with a proper pattern so I was following all the things I had learnt watching plenty on YouTube! Once I have ironed them, I taped them to our living room floor then taped tracing paper over it. I copied out all the lines for my size then cut it out. I carefully folded my pattern back away and from then on only used the tracing paper and the instructions that came with the pattern.

Now as I was using a duvet the normal pattern placing on my instructions didn't quite work as my fabric wasn't the usual width or length. I made sure the folds were in the right places and I cut out enough of every piece.

Tia wasn't very helpful in this stage!

So after I cut all my piece out. I followed the instructions in the pattern to the letter, and I ended up with something that resembled a dress! Please keep in mind I am a beginning so I didn't move any of the darts or change the pattern in any way and I have since learnt it definitely needs to be done on this dress as it's a vintage pattern which doesn't fit modern bodies as well.

I then had the task of the miles of bias binding! I decided rather than buy a specific amount which I would probably end up messing up and needing to source more, I bought a 20m roll from ebay as the fabric was very plain I bought some polka dot bias binding to jazz the dress up a bit. I bought extra wide binding, half because I wanted to make life a bit easier and less fiddly and half because I wanted it to stand out.


I watched a tutorial on ebay about bias binding on clothing as I have only put it on quilts so far so there is much more of a sandwich involved. The video suggested ironing the binding in half reading to be slotted over the dress edges already ironed in place. I ironed about 4m of binding and started to put it around the dress starting on the corner of the piece that is at the back and covered by the skirt. I used my quilting clips rather than pinning it as it stopped it from being a bit too fiddly. This also helped me just keep moving the clips further down as I went the whole loop around the dress. make sure you leave extra binding along the back to tie the back panels together. I let about 20cm on either side which is enough to leave a small bow under the skirt.

I started by putting buttons in the front, but because I hadn't tweaked the pattern at all it didn't quite close properly in the middle and it wasn't very comfortable. So instead I took the buttons off and replaced it with some extra bias binding which I tie in a box at the front making it much more comfortable, and perfect for going out for a meal and overeating as it expands!

Ta daa! A very awkward looking me in an unruly looking garden!! As you can see the top it really baggy about my boobs and you may not see by under may arms is quite low and shows my bra so I would need to tweak the darts next time I make this. I'll have to learn how to do that first though! ;)