Liberty Sorbetto dress.

This dress is the result of cross-inspiration. 

A Liberty fabric dress.

And Alys Fowler.

Two years ago I came across an Ilana Kohn dress made from Liberty fabric, and knew one day I would try and make one for myself. Once I set up my Pintrest account I saved the dress there too just so I wouldn't forget about it. I loved the simplicity of the dress, the bias binding and the curved hemline. I imagined it would be so perfectly comfortable to wear during our hot summer months.

This year I was also inspired by the dresses Alys Fowler wears in her BBC series The Edible Garden. Her knowledge of permaculture and indubitable love for her garden inspired me on my gardening endeavours, while her offbeat gardening attire inspired my seamstress within.

I drafted the perfect gardening dress today using Colette Pattern's Sorbetto as my starting block. I deleted the centre front pleat and lengthened the top by about 14 inches, taking into account my hip measurements and adding width to the pattern accordingly. I also lowered the front neckline about an inch. I made a wearable muslin first using the brightly coloured floral fabric I blogged about yesterday. I discovered the wearable muslin had a few mistakes. I had not removed enough of the pleat section so my darts did not reach the right position on my bust. Also, I added three pin tucks to the centre front neck line which did not look that great. The first dress will be kept for sleepwear in the summer months, because it is cute, but a little shabby and not something I would be confident to wear out in public.

For the second pattern draft I removed more from the front pleat, added half an inch to either side hips, shortened the length to sit above my knees and decided not sew the pin tucks. I sewed this draft up in the blue mock Liberty and it turned out so much nicer!

~ It was 14oC and raining for these photos - so so cold! ~

I drafted the hem line slightly curved, which I think is a nice touch. The bias binding works well with Lawn fabrics because it gives the soft fabric some structure and shape. This dress took be no more than one hour to make!

This dress is going to look so cute in a Liberty Tana Lawn! The only trouble will be deciding what fabric to sew it up in.

Any suggestions Liberty fans???

Sam xox

Vintage dress patterns.

While I spend today packing away our Christmas decorations and trying to find homes for the lovely Christmas gifts we received (seriously, our table is completely covered in pressies!) I thought I would grab 5 minutes and post about three patterns I bought recently on Etsy.

I have a bit of a 'thing' lately for dresses with jackets that match. It could be something to do with this awesome skirt/jacket combo Tilly made that I fell in love with!

Sam xox

Craft day.

Craft day is a new concept for Mill and I. For years we have had Craft Nights; a weekly routine during which we would do craft, share a meal, and debrief about what had happened during the week. As our lives changed, our weekly routines began to become tricky to craft around, and we were finding that weeks were going past with no craft nights happening.

Mill and I are similar souls, in that we enjoy the stress relief doing craft gives us as well as having an end product. We call craft our 'therapy'. I am sure most people who do some form of craft would agree with us!

On Saturday Mill and I got together for our second craft day. An eight hour session of crafty goodness.

Mill's craft this month was to make an apron based on one that she gave me last year for my birthday. Mill had been looking at similar aprons at some Sydney markets but the store holders were charging $50 for them. Mill was convinced she could make the same thing for much less money, and she was right!

Below is the apron Mill gave me, a simple apron involving two different fabrics, a pocket, some gathering and a waistband.

Mill purchased some cute strawberry print fabric and a complimentary red and white spotted print. The grand total for Mills apron was less than $12! After a few hours spent at the sewing machine, this is what she made...

How clever is she?!? I will type up some instructions for how to make this apron sometime this week. I am so inspired by this creation, I can't help but want to make one for myself!

I worked on making a dress out of the Liberty fabric that arrived last week. I was well on my way to finishing it on Saturday, but after sewing in the zipper I realised that I had chosen a colour of zipper that was not quite right. After a bit of hesitation and consultation with Mill and Michelle, I decided to unpick the zipper and end my sewing for the day.

Today I went and purchased a nicer coloured zipper and spent an hour this evening working on the dress. It is not completely finished, and it is now dark so any pictures I tried to take of it looked terrible, but it wouldn't be fair if I left you with nothing, so here is a (terrible quality) sneak peak.

Mill and I are now committed to having Craft Day every month. It is so much better sewing in the daytime; sunlight is so much better to work in and we are not as tired as we are during the week. Plus we get in a good eight hours of craft in one session, which means we get more done as it cuts down the set up/pack up time.

Sam xox

Dress made.

Finally, the first outfit for my no-clothes project!

It has been a few weeks now since my dressmaking class with Geogria at Tessuti Fabrics in Surry Hills Sydney. The past few weekends have been very hectic, and I was really struggling to find the time to actually sit at my machine and sew.

I finally decided enough was enough, and declared last Saturday as "Craft Day". What did this involve? Asking Jamie (very nicely) to vacate the house for the day; jumping out of bed at 7am to set the place up with both machines and cutting table; inviting my crafting buddy Mill over to keep me company; oh... and a whole lot of sewing!

I began cutting out the dress at 10am and finally had it finished at 5:30pm in time to wear out to dinner with the girls!

I think the fact that I was able to make this dress (that included an invisible zipper and boning) was all due to Georgia's thorough teaching during my lesson with her! Thanks Georgia!!!

I have a feeling that this summer I will be wearing this dress in many different fabrics!

Below are some photos of the finished dress. Sorry they are such bad quality with the lighting but I was just busting to show you all as I am pretty impressed with my result. The fabric looks very grey in these photos, when in real life it is a beautiful caramel white. Oh well.

Standing on our spare bed trying to 'model' the dress!

The back of the dress with the very first invisible zipper I have ever put in!

(Seriously, you NEED the invisible zipper foot if you want to put

on in a garment - it makes it too easy).

Close up of the boned bodice.

And you can have a sneak peak of the inside of the dress.

I love this pattern because the bodice is actually lined

and this makes it look so professionally finished.

Before the last stitch was sewn into this dress, I was already planning what to make next...

Sam xox