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- Graham and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary. We went camping again - and Olivia insisted on doing a photo shoot of us snuggling up on a bench together. She took close to 400 photos, just by holding the button down on my phone camera and telling us to smile. There was just one I liked. We took an anniversary selfie instead, which I am much happier with. Sorry, Olivia!
- The children and I went to Brick Lane, ate pakoras in the sunshine as we wandered around, and came home with a huge bag of bagels for the weekend.
- Cam likes his bagels with kippers for breakfast. I like mine with avocado.
- I did my first parkrun in my new running club t-shirt this morning. Rumours that I chose this club because I find the shade of blue on their shirt particularly pleasing, are entirely false.
- We have a new dishwasher. It is so quiet, it purrs.
- Olivia sewed herself a top. This is the first time she has done any dressmaking, and I was so impressed with the results. She did everything herself, and all I did was explain some unfamiliar terms on the pattern. The pattern is the Oliver + S Ice Cream Dress/Top, in the age 12 size. It comes out quite short on her - she is a couple of months shy of turning 12, but is very tall. She is keen to make another, and add a few centimetres onto the length.
- I did some dressmaking too, and made myself a new dress - another Lisette Portfolio dress. It has a seagull ribbon trim on the hem, which I bought in Whitby, and contrast fabric inside the pockets. It may be my most favourite dress I've ever made for myself - or it may just be that whatever I've made most recently is my favourite.
- I am keen to make more clothes while I am still on my long summer holiday. Perhaps the Lisette Diplomat Dress, which I have the pattern for, but have not yet made. Or maybe this Everyday Skirt?
- My sister and her two small girls came for a visit. The littlest cousin was completely unfazed by the two big teenagers thrusting their cameras at her every time she smiled, did something cute, or moved.
- I made 22 raspberry madeleines yesterday afternoon. There are only five left this afternoon.
A couple of weeks ago, I made a second Japanese dress (here is the first one, which turned out to be a tunic for reasons of public decency). This time I added 16cm to the length and graded the side seams so that it continued the full, swingy shape. This one is the perfect dress length for me - it falls a couple of centimetres above the knee.
I bought the fabric from Stitch in Wanstead, which is a wonderful fabric shop specialising in dressmaking fabrics. The staff in this shop have so much knowledge, and are happy for fabric ditherers like me to prowl around the shop for hours before finally purchasing something. It is a cotton lawn, with a fine, light crispness which I love, and only cost me £8 a metre (I bought 3m to be cautious, but totally could have got away with 2.5m). This makes the dress incredibly good value.
I absolutely love how the dress turned out, and I wear it often (as I do the first tunic-length attempt, which looks great over jeans or leggings). The shape is full, but there are enough details to make it look stylish and not sack-like. The pleated bodice is particularly pleasing. This time I added a narrow velvet ribbon hem on the bottom, which is definitely my favourite way of finishing a hem on a dress, tunic or skirt (I learnt the technique many years ago, from this free Oliver + S skirt pattern). Both this dress, and also the first tunic version, have attracted so many flattering comments from random people on the train - and even two policewomen walking past me in the street. I love how both the style and the fabric are such a long way from anything you'd ever find in a shop.
For my birthday, my father gave me a second dress pattern book by Yoshiko Tsukiori (this one), and I have spent a great deal of time happily immersing myself in the book, and deciding what I want to make next. This one, pictured below, is the most likely contender simply because of the delicious neckline.
This stage of planning and thinking is possibly one of the most enjoyable parts of dressmaking for me. By the time I am ready to sew I have a very definite idea in my head of how the garment is going to turn out. Then I'm just so eager to get on with the sewing so that I can start wearing it.
I finished the second of my summer blue tops last night, and this morning balanced precariously on another chair in front of another mirror to take photos.
This is made from the same pattern as my last top, but at full length. This version has lovely deep pockets, and a sweet A-line shape which I adore.
There's still nor much sign of summer warmth here in London, so it will be a while before I can wear it without a pashmina around my shoulders and leggings and a jersey top underneath.
*A special Thank You to my friend Kristina, for so generously giving me the fabric, which is a really calming Amy Butler print from a few years back. I am delighted to find it matches my favourite blue pashmina so perfectly! xx*
Last night I finished the dress for O to wear to our wedding. It has been a long time coming.
O is a girl who dreams of weddings - she was so excited when we told her that we were getting married ("Finally!", she said) but the excitement wore off rapidly once she realised that our plans for the marriage ceremony were vastly more minimalist and laid back than hers.
For the past few days she has been illustrating her Dream Wedding, to show me how it should be done. At the moment it stretches to 5 sheets of A4 paper taped together, but I have no doubt it will end up even bigger. It is most definitely not a minimalist wedding.
The groom is unnamed, but frankly that doesn't matter. He has a very small role to play in all this. She has two of her friends, three of her cousins and her brother as attendants. C was very cross when she drew him wearing a red checked shirt, so she is still pondering what to put two of her boy cousins in. The friends and her girl cousin are dressed in long white dresses with gold necklines and gold hair accessories. All the family are there to watch, and all of the girls from her class at school too.
There will be a limousine to transport her from the wedding to the party afterwards. The wedding feast features all her favourite food - brownies, strawberries, blackberry pie and cinnamon rolls. Well, why not?
So you can imagine, with her deep enthusiasm for all things wedding-related, that when I asked her what she would like me to make for her to wear to our ceremony she had a detailed description, and illustration, all ready. It went something along the lines of 'what Pippa Middleton wore, but in red satin'.
That was never, ever going to happen, on so many levels, and it has taken weeks of delicate diplomacy to find something that both she and I were happy with. What she chose in the end surprised me. She wanted this simple camisole dress from my Japanese pattern book.
And even more surprisingly, she wanted me to make it with some pink cotton printed with roses (by Tilda), from my fabric shelves. This fabric is much more to my taste than hers, so I was surprised but delighted.
The dress is very simple and quick to make, but annoyingly came out far, far too big for her. This is odd because everything else I've made for her from the book, in the 140cm size, has fitted her beautifully. So I unpicked the side seams and re-sewed them at the top with a whopping 3.5cm seam allowance rather than the 1.5cm it should have been, grading out to the 1.5cm allowance about half way down. I also added a pleat into the front, to stop any gaping around the neckline.
As so often happens with fudges alterations to dress patterns, I have ended up liking the amended version a whole lot more than the original. My re-drafting of the side seams has given the dress much more of an A line shape, and the pleat at the front makes for a more interesting neckline.
Most importantly, however, it meets with O's approval, and the arguments about red satin have finally been put to rest.
I finished hemming it and binding the waist seam this morning.
It may be the only wedding dress in the world with nice, deep pockets.
I'm pretty pleased with it.
The pattern is the Crepe Wrap Dress from Colette Patterns. It is categorised as a 'Beginner' pattern, which at times I thought was wrong, but now I've finished I think is pretty fair. There are no zips or buttons in this dress, which is primarily why I think it gets its classification. However, it is full of curved seams and darts, which I always find very fiddly, despite having done them many times before. I personally find putting in a zip much easier than sewing facing into curved armholes! I think the arms and neckline would be pretty challenging to someone brand new to sewing, but if you've made a few pieces of clothing before you wouldn't find any of it too tricky.
And all the swearing over getting the neckline to curve correctly is completely worth it. I think this is such a pretty pattern. It is hard to photograph nicely without a mannequin, or someone to model the dress, because it has a 1950s-style, flared, curvy shape to it, but you can see a little of what it will look like on, from these pictures. I think I may try and get hold of a 1950s petticoat to go underneath it on the day and flare it out a little more.
I've made it entirely with vintage fabrics that my Grandmother has given me. My Grandmother won't be at the wedding next month so I like the idea of her contributing via the fabrics she has given me. The main fabric is a vintage sheet which is machine embroidered with trailing pink flowers. I spent an entire afternoon working out how to place the pattern pieces for the bodice and one of the skirt panels on the sheet, so that when it was finished, the flowers would trail diagonally across the dress.
The sash is made from a piece of vintage yellow silk tafetta. It is the perfect fabric for a structural sash like this - stiff, thick and full of shape and texture. It feels almost papery when you sew with it. The sash fastens the dress and ties in a big bow at the back.
The last fabric I used was a length of yellow vintage ribbon to bind the inside waist seam. You can see the binding in the second photo, at the top of this post. Binding an inside seam is not something I would normally do, but I'm glad I bothered this time, as it makes the dress seem that little bit more special.
The Colette pattern was very clear to follow, and as I mentioned in this post, the booklet format is an absolutely genius idea. I would love to make more clothes from their patterns. I particularly love the Parfait dress and the Nutmeg underwear patterns.
My next sewing project though needs to be a wedding outfit for O, who has very clear ideas about what she would like.... I should have started negotiating with her a long time ago.
I'm not someone who has always had a dream of what her wedding day would be like. I never drew pictures of wedding dresses when I was a child (unlike my own daughter...) and I've never hankered after the fuss and attention of a wedding.
Our plans for this summer are to have a marriage without a wedding. So there will be no fancy car, no wedding cake, no official photographer, no honeymoon, no disco, no hen party and no floral arrangements. Just G and me at the local 'mairie' for a 5 minute civil ceremony, with our parents and our children, and then out for a long lunch and a few kir royales.
And yet...despite this much wished for simplicity and minimalism, there is still The Dress. I am making my own and I've come to realise over the past few weeks that I have been avoiding starting it. I've done plenty of knitting, read several books, been baking up a storm and was diverted for several weeks by an Important Sewing Project for my sister-in-law's birthday. All this to avoid embarking on an item of clothing so loaded with emotion and meaning as to almost have a personality of its own.
Everybody remembers The Dress. I can remember all the dresses from pretty much every wedding I've ever been to. I can picture my Mum's dress so clearly just from years of seeing the black and white photo, sitting on top of the piano, of her and Dad's wedding day. The Dress is charged with sentiment and emotion. I will remember this dress for the rest of my life, and people might see pictures of me wearing it long after I am gone.
So yes. Denial has suited me just fine for the last couple of months.
But we leave for France in a matter of weeks, so I'm running out of time. I have calmed myself down and decided that it is just like making any other item of clothing. I cut, pin, sew seams, iron on interfacing, embroider and hem. I've done all this before and if I stop being so dramatic and emotional I can do it again.
So it is underway. I tell myself I am making a simple Colette wrap dress from embroidered cotton and silk, that will be worn to a wedding this summer. If I don't like how it turns out I've still got time to call this a practise version and make myself another one. I'm not sure my nerves would cope well with that though so I'm being as careful and precise as I can without getting too overwrought.
- Thank you all very much for your kind comments about our engagement. We've read them so many times and really appreciate them all.
- I've dug out my French dictionary so that I can start translating all the mountain of legal paperwork that needs to be prepared for our marriage. By the time I'd found my dictionary, I'd also found one Latin dictionary, two French grammars and a disturbing FOUR baby name dictionaries.
- I've sewn a school dress for one of O's friends who loves her handmade ones. I used the Oliver + S Ice Cream Dress pattern again, and put in several tiny contrasting details.
- O and her friends - like me - love secret fabrics (facings made of something very different to the main fabric). I've used small pieces of a Cath Kidston favourite here.
- I always like making yogurt - my special milk thermometer makes me feel like a geeky scientist.
- Our Olympic tickets have been ordered and we wait to see with bated breath which, if any, we'll get.
- C and O unaccountably wanted to see the fencing. I think we're in with a good chance of getting the first round fencing tickets we applied for.
- I'm not sure O even knows what fencing is.
- I'm planning to make the Colette crepe wrap dress for my wedding dress. The pattern has arrived, and I am rummaging through my pile of fabrics to see what might work. I love the idea of a contrasting sash.
- I'm off to make some red velvet cupcakes in union jack paper cases now, for consumption in front of the tele tomorrow.
