I love this pattern. I made it four times in quick succession when I first purchased it. And now this summer I’ve made it three more times over about 6 weeks. It’s an excellent simple shape for stretch fabrics. Using a woven fabric to face the neck and grown on cap sleeves/extended shoulders is practical and also an opportunity to introduce some whimsy. My versions are halfway in length between view A and B and this summer I made them in a size 18. The orange and hot pink one This is classic Lodo. The fabric does all the work. It’s a viscose nylon spandex woven stretch fabric from Spotlight ..read more

Repeating patterns is not boring when the fabric is fun. And almost irresistible when your daughter loves the pattern so much. So that’s my reason for making this pattern 5 times….. The last two iterations of B6677 for Felicity are both full length, one with the flounces on the bodice and the other hacked to have short sleeves. Both are size 14 with an FBA. And in the theme of keeping up to date with blogging my sewing projects, one of them has been waiting two years to appear on the blog…. Felicity really loves this pattern. The older one is made from a crepe viscose from The Fabric Store. I ..read more

This is my second cloud dress. Absolutely love the first one. Quite like this one too! This one is made with a soft furnishing cotton. I love the sweet horizontal rows of hearts. The first sign of trouble was when I pulled a weft thread to square up the cut ends. The rows of hearts weren’t on grain. First thought was its inexpensive fabric, of course it’s printed off grain. But then I wasn’t sure. The horizontal rows of the print did seem to be at right angles to the selvedge and warp. Was my problem that the weft wasn’t at right angles to the warp? Is that even possible? See how bad it is ..read more

Nothing wrong with posting Christmas themed sewing in January, is there? – I meant it when I said I’m committed to document my projects better! This post is about Christmas garments I made in Christmas 2022. They did get worn again just a few weeks ago, for Christmas 2023, so at least one of the photos is not ancient… Felicity’s dress in the photo above is from Christmas 2021 (!) and has already been blogged (phew!). Rory is modelling one of Christmas 2022’s efforts - shirts from Newlook 6197. All fabrics are cotton prints from Spotlight – my local bricks and mortar fabric store. Rory’s fabr ..read more

Happy New Year! One of my new year resolutions is to get more of my sewing projects onto the blog, and in a more timely manner. This one is about one of the oldest projects – its been a long time coming! Back in August 2022, Felicity went to Europe with one of her lovely friends. I made her two pairs of trousers. They appear in photos taken at the airport. As nice as this is, it doesn’t show much of interest to sewists! She did send me a photo of the other pair on location – at Edinburgh Castle. Proper photos of both to share the sewing details on a blog, however, have been sadly missing. U ..read more

I love a good shirt dress. And I’m always interested in new shirt dress patterns. Hence trying the new to me Style Arc Blair shirt dress. Especially when I have fun fabric with seagulls on it! The Blair shirt dress has very interesting pockets (spoiler alert they’re actually a bit dumb – more on that later) and I like the way stripes are used in the pattern drawing for the shirt. Reviews suggested it’s a bit oversized. They were right. It is generously sized. The crispness of my cotton poplin fabric is not helping this impression! So. Those pockets. One of the reviews described them as gran ..read more

Vogue 1723 is fast turning into my favourite pattern for party frocks. I had a gala dinner to attend for a professional society well known for its yellow logo. And a yellow IKEA Nattjasmin sheet in just the right shade. How could I not make a cocktail frock out of it? Don’t believe me about how perfect the colour was? Well. Look at this group photo on the night- you can hardly see me against the backdrop! Much of the sewing was done on a long weekend in October at a fabulous Airbnb house at Encounter bay with a fabulous view and even more fabulous people! I made a few changes/ hacked the pa ..read more

I’m a big fan of Melinda Stokes of Stokx Patterns and her design ethic. It doesn’t hurt that’s she’s an Aussie in Berlin. But even without that I’d still like her work. I’m particularly drawn to her use of bias to improve wearing ease in structured woven garments. So my first foray was with her Eve and Evelyn shirt patterns. They have the upper back and upper side fronts cut on the bias. She’s now added all sorts of additional improvements. But I digress. I made a size 6 Eve top and I used an IKEA Nattjasmin sheet for my first version. You’re wondering why aren’t you. And it’s a fair questio ..read more

All frocked up and ready to go! Yellow coat Making this coat is a saga that goes back a few years. It includes beautiful fabric that was almost too precious to use, trialing a dress pattern and a coat pattern and then, finally, last year, having the opportunity, need and courage to cut into this beautiful fabric. I wore it to yellow themed gala dinner and felt fabulous. No photos except the one above which is not useful or flattering. But yellow! So I definitely took photos before it’s next ‘wearing’. Which was Adelaide Frocktails, almost a year after the previous event (note to self: I nee ..read more

What sort of person looks at a pattern like this, totally designed for appliqué, and makes a plain black jacket? Well. That would be me. In my defense, it is a lovely simple style. And, secondly, who wouldn’t make a wearable toile before they went to all the trouble of the appliqué? Not sure I’ll ever do all that appliqué, but it’s a plausible reason for what I did. Ahem. Another mitigating factor was a remnant at Spotlight, my local bricks and mortar fabric store, of a heavyweight basket weave polyester in black with a lot of body in exactly the right length for this fabric. Well if you w ..read more