The British Heart Foundation the Big Stitch

When I saw the British Heart Foundation challenge, The Big Stitch, I knew I had to do something towards it. There is a lovey lady at work who has recent' had a lt of heart troubles yet she's spending a lt of energy fund raising for the BHF so I thought i owl try and help her. what made it even better was she is crafty like me so I got her involved too!

I knew I wanted to go big, i mean go bit or go home right? So I set my heart and buying either a suit or a wedding dress. looking back now I think i was ahead of my time with the refashioners now being suit themed! ha! 

I found the perfect dress on the BHF ebay page set set about bidding. This dress had the most beautiful daisy lace all over it so I knew it had to be mine as Daisy's have always been my thing! I eventually won it for just under 15 and then got it posted over to me. 

When it arrived it smelt pretty bad of moth balls, and had a kind of tissue paper in the underskirt which must have been to keep it stiff. I hung it out on the line for a few days and the smell started to drop. I cut out the paper bit and shoved the whole thing in the washing machine! It survived pretty well considering! the I set upon deconstruction. 

I took the top from the skirt first and I made the whole dress just from the skirt in the end so i have plenty of lace to play with another day, bonus! once the skirt was apart from the bodice, i unpicked the lace around the hem, all the way around. About a million miles of it! I thought I would put this back on the new dress which i did and i think it gives it a lovely finish.

I decided to make the By hand london flora dress, which is a shape of dress I have been looking for a while. High neck and fitted bodice but flowing skirt so this seemed perfect. I cut all the pieces out from the skirt and I used the lining of the skirt to line the dress too. Even the zip I unpicked was the right length, it all fitted perfectly!

We had a bit of a construction party at work where we all brought our projects together and took over one of the lecture rooms. It was great as the skill levels were all so different we helped each other out! Angela made a kaftan out of a maxi dress for her beach holiday, Amy made a pillowcase dress from a duvet - Amy hadn't sewn since school and she took to it like water off a ducks back! Lisa made a handbag from a pair of trousers and a skirt and Jenny made an Ogden cami from a maxi dress! We got pizza delivered too it was fabulous!

Once I had put together all my pieces and sewn back the lace around the hem I decided it was unlikely I was ever going to wear a white dress so I tried to dye it! 

In hindsight I should probably have used a more dramatic colour change, but I dip dyed the dress yellow. The colour didn't stick very well to the lace as I think it was so synthetic it just washed straight out of the lace but did stick a little on the lining and gave it a lovely sade of pale yellow that it impossible to photograph! but it's yellow honest! 

I might re-dye it purple or something brighter so I can wear it more but it looks good in the mean time. I think I used the wrong size top for me as I thought I needed to grade out for my boobs, but I've since made another on and I used a small bodice size and just graded out the waist and it fits me much nicer, so I my take my wedding dress dress in a little but all in all I love how it tuned out!!

Another Yellow Dress... Simply Sewing Lily Dress

So this dress I made in order to have something nice to wear when i took my husband to the royal albert hall. I bought this yellow ribbed jersey from Peterborough market almost a year ao for a pound a meter and had been hording it ever since not sure why! So i thought a nice quick maxi dress would be perfect.

I used the pattern free from Simply Sewing Lily Dress and got to work. Unusually I actually cut the tissue paper out on my size and didn't trace it, REBEL I know! I blooming hate tissue paper though anyone else with me? The dogs only have to so much as look as what i'm doing and the tissue disintegrates in fear! So after a few washi tape jobs I managed to lay it all out on the fabric. Turns out I didn't have enough fabric...! so I decided on an almost maxi dress instead.. panic over.

As I mentioned this dress was all a bit rushed so I had intended on making the race back but cut the wrong tissue, and as previously mentioned I hate tissue, so decided to roll with it. 

it sews together so quickly and the wrap over looked lovely! Just have the arm holes left to hem. But in my lazyness I couldn't be bothered to find my twin needle and walking foot so thought i'd wing it. Big mistake! I ended up stretching out the arm holes and now they look all funny. 

Still I wore it anyway and tucked the excess arm into my bra and the world was non the wiser! The moral of the story is don't be lazy and make sure you have enough time!

PS the proms was good thanks for asking 

The Fairfield Shirt by Thread Theory Designs

My first foray into shirts was this tread theory designs shift for my husband. he's been asking me to make something for him for ages but since my hexie quilt is going no-where fast I thought I'd make him a fancy shirt. For this shirt I used the beautifully soft Dashwood sudios cotton that I got from Sew Crafty online. This particular range is called bird song, if you look closely the pattern is lots of groups of birds flying in formation, i kinda love it's peacefulness, yet business. It's a lovely pattern and sill doesn't seem too busy.

The shirt pattern form Thread theory comes with to styles of back, pleated or darts. it also comes with t front shapes, 'slim fit' an 'rounded belly'. I made the pleated back and the rounded bely because using hubbys measurements his shoulders and waist measurements fitted this style front best.

The best bit about this pattern is how easy everything comes together but yet looks like a really difficult make. I mean don't get me wrong I had to practice, which I did using the ASDA duvet for the mexican party, the collar on that one is truly awful but practice makes perfect and that's why you practice!

As you can see the back fits lovely across his shoulders so I know I used the right size. The burito method is brilliant for shirts! Having never done this before I read the instructions and ended up a bit flummoxed, but once I watched a video on how to do it the instructions made loads more sense so I used these for making the next shirt.I like (and so does hubby) he pleated back because it leaves it nice and floaty and when i made this is was very warm and summery!

I probably could have made the normal front of the shirt despite his rounded belly. As you can see it sticks out quite a bit over his belly but hat is probably because it is balancing on the front!

Please excuse his terrible line up pictures, he's not a good insta husband and doesn't really like having his picture taken! This is his off to a family Bbq back in July so the sun was out but he has since worn it tucked into jeans for going out for inner and it works really nicely. I'm planning on making more of these as christmas presents for all the men in my life as they can easily be made and are a lovely heart felt gift!