Having completed my first ever vintage dress straight from the 1960s – Simplicity 7672 - I smugly hung it on my dressmaker's dummy and contently went to bed. Sadly, my boyfriend then came to bed and after a lot of tossing and turning he explained, “There's something really sinister about that dress. It reminds me of something an evil nanny would wear.” As you can imagine, this has put me off wearing it, in case everyone else thinks it looks sinister and in case I get possessed!

Despite the difficulties I had with this dress – mainly having to unpick the waist and zip due to the torso being too long/baggy for my body -  I am really happy with the improvement in my sewing, so once again it was a good exercise. Maybe I'll be third-time lucky and sew the perfect garment next!

Monday, April 26, 2010
Since completing my first ever dress (Simplicity 2591), I grew in confidence and decided to give something different a go. With lots of birthdays coming up, I decided to put my new skills to the test and make my friends some unique gifts. I had previously bought some amazing vintage-inspired fabric from ebay, but they were just fat quarters so I knew I needed something small to work on.

Pip Lincolne's Meet me at Mike's came to the rescue, with the cutest little pattern for a small clutch bag. Although it was quite tricky following some of the instructions, once I figured it out, I had so much fun choosing the fabrics and buttons. I'm pretty sure my friends liked them too, or else they did a good job at pretending. I'm looking to adapt the pattern to create different designs...more pictures will follow if I succeed!

Sunday, April 25, 2010
After visiting a friend's house last year, I was left mesmerised by her dressmaker's dummy, vintage patterns, hoards of fabrics and beautiful creations. Desperate to jump on the sewing band wagon, I decided to join her on a 10-week evening course. It wasn't until the 10 weeks were over that I realised just how much I enjoyed myself – despite my first endeavour being shockingly bad and still unfinished – and I signed up for another 10 weeks, with all intentions of keeping it up.

Anyway, I thought I'd share my first completed project – Simplicity 2591 in pretty green cotton floral:


The finished product is by no means perfect (in fact it's a little wonky for some reason) but as a first attempt, I'm very proud of it:


I'm especially happy with how the zip and cap sleeves worked out:

Saturday, April 24, 2010
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