3 for 1

So there I was, wandering down the street after having a fantastic sushi lunch at Makoto (highly recommended!), when I saw a familiar name on a sign. Tessuti Fabrics! I had no idea where they were located, but have been following Colette's blog for awhile now, so this was a pleasant surprise.

Tessuti has some gorgeous fabrics but a sign saying 'Vogue Patterns - Buy 1 Get 2 Free' caught my eye. I thought it was a misprint since most places have half price sales at the best of times, but I was happily proven wrong. I had a couple of patterns in mind to buy that I had been uhmming and ahhing about, but with the discount it seemed silly not to take advantage and maybe even by 6 for the price of 2!

Unfortunately, it was not to be. Out of the 8 patterns I selected, only 2 were available! I picked another 4 and got lucky with 1 of them, so I walked away with the following:

V8476
Standard: Very Easy

This is a cute button down shirt that I have been eyeing for awhile. I think I would get most use out of the short sleeved version


V8468
Standard: Very Easy

This retro-looking A-line dress with short or mid-length sleeves really appeals to me - I can see it looking great for summer and winter, depending on the materials used to make it up.


V2975
Standard: Average

This is a 'wardrobe' pattern, meaning that although it is a little more expensive, it comes with patterns for a jacket, top, dress, skirt and pants. I am planning on ignoring the jacket for now - I think that is the item that has upgraded the level of difficulty to Average - and am going to try my hand at making the pleated top. If the pattern isn't too complicated, I'll have a go at the trousers as well.


What do you think I should make up first? I am currently leaning towards the A-line dress. More planning required for materials as well I suspect, but I need to check my stash at home first.

I might do a call around at the other stores to see if the other patterns I wanted are available in convenient locations (i.e. near me!). I've been hoarding patterns already, but this is such a good deal that I can't help myself.

Wish me luck!

Finally - dresses done!

So I know that in my previous post, I said I would work on my dress for my niece Princess S over the weekend and hopefully get it all done, but as usual, I let myself get distracted by all sorts of non-sewing activities. Always fun, but not so constructive.

Still, I had to get it complete before this weekend as I was due to visit Princess S and her parents - and visiting them means hopping on a plane so it's not quite as easy to justify putting the project off until the next visit - especially since little ones grow so quickly!


As you can see, it has a gathered skirt section, 2 ties to tie into a bow at the back, and a zip. The top section has been lined.


I found the following when making this up:

Material
The embroidered cotton I had selected was beautiful to touch - lovely and soft - but also very thin, which means that I had to be extra careful. Any mistakes I might make could weaken the surrounding material and I didn't want to chance that since I had only enough to just cut out the pieces for the dress. It is gorgeous fabric though - I'd definitely work with it again but next time ensure that I have lots of extra on hand.

I used some thin soft white cotton for the lining and basic black thread and a black zip to complement the embroidery.

Pattern (Butterick B4701 : View B)
I liked that the dress was quite simple and that the instructions were easy to follow. My main issues with this dress was the fact that it required hand-stitching in a couple of areas - under the shoulder seams to tuck away the unfinished ends into the lining, around the zip to secure the lining to the dress and hide the zip, and another couple of spots to secure the lining to the inside of the dress. My hand-stitching skills are shoddy at best, and doing this took me almost as much time as it took to sew up the entire dress. Luckily, since the stitches are supposed to be hidden (more complexity!) you can't see how ugly they are.


I also managed to mess up the zip a little - when I basted the zip it, everything looked great, but once I secured the zip in with proper stitching there was some pulling at the base, and also the top parts of the dress don't match exactly. Frustrating, but I didn't want to undo it all for fear of weakening the material too much. I hope it's not too noticable but it is very difficult to be objective about something you just made.


Would I do it again?
Yes, definitely. In fact, I did! I tried making the dress in View A, with an floral peach cotton fabric. The difference between the 2 views is that this dress has a fuller skirt, whereas the skirt in View B is gathered. I thought the result was great - and lining the inside with the same material meant that it was less obvious if there were any issues with the zip alignment or under-stitching. I also tried my hand at adding some white piping (more hand-stitching!) to hide the waistband at the front.





Overall, very happy that both dresses turned out well - I think once Princess S has them on, any issues I have won't be noticable at all. The next time I make this dress up, I might just line the whole thing so I avoid the whole hand-stitching issue!

An outfit for S (Butterick B4701)

I have given up a little on making things for myself. With my body not being a perfect match to pattern sizes, I get a little impatient when I make something and then have to alter/tweak it, so I am giving myself a break and am instead making a dress for my niece, Princess S. The way I see it, kids generally either fit into clothes or grow into them eventually. No lumps and bumps to worry about.

I bought this pattern awhile ago - it looks simple enough and quite pretty for a little girl.



There doesn't seem to be a huge difference between the 2 dresses - the design diagram below just shows that one is gathered and the other is just cut as an A-line skirt.

I've bought some bright pink cotton with an embroidered black border edging - I plan on using this edging as the bottom of the dress rather than hemming it - and due to not having a huge amount of it on hand, I'm going to go for View B.



I'm also going to use white cotton to line the inside rather than the pink. Hope to get this done by the end of the weekend.

The Hard Stuff

I generally don't like taking medicine, but if I am sick enough to have to miss work, i will go there. As a contractor, no work = no pay, so if I can't get out of bed, it's a double whammy since sick leave isn't part of my employment contract.

So this crazy flu is giving me headaches like you wouldn't believe. I went to see a doctor in the hopes that he would dose me up, but his advice was to take Cold & Flu tablets. 'Cold & Flu tablets??' I thought with a sneer. Fat lot of good they have done me in the past.

Still, I was willing to give them another go. Little did I realise that some flu tablets were superior to others - I was given some Codral Cold & Flu tablets, but the box looked a little different to what I remembered seeing. Care factor was low, I just wanted to feel better.

Feel better I did, and off to work I went. All was well until Day 2, when I forgot to bring my pills to work. I thought I was feeling a lot better but around 3pm it was all going downhill. Turns out the pills must be pretty good after all, so I thought rather than sit there in pain, I would re-stock on the pills.

The local pharmacy didn't seem to have them, but after some questioning, it turns out that there are 2 kinds of Cold & Flu tablets from Codral - the ones on the shelf in the white box, or the ones that the pharmacist has to physically hand you in the yellow box!

All I can say is, if you ever need to take these kinds of tablets, go for the yellow box. My only fear is that since these pills merely mask the symptoms of the flu, after I am done with the recommended doseage I might end up back in bed again. I guess I'll find out in a few days.

In the meantime, *hurrrah* for



And no, I have not been paid to say that.

Tweet tweet

I just got myself a Twitter account. Not sure why and no idea if I will use it but meh, thought I'd have a squiz and see what the fuss is about. Seeing as I have flu-head and cannot think, I have gone as far as getting an account name, finding ppl on my gmail email list who have accounts, and registering my mobile (for what I am not sure) before logging out.

Anyhoo, feel free to add/stalk/follow/whatever it is ppl to other ppl on Twitter - account name is '_suboo'.