The end of MMM15 and a new frock

Success! I’m so happy I completed Me Made May. I’m also quite pleased that it’s over and done with! I’ve enjoyed wearing my own clothes but the weather has been so awful & cold I’ve not always been able to wear the most appropriate items. My challenge was to wear everything I’ve made at some point so my summer makes did end up with lots of layers over the top, which defeated the object somehow.

I haven’t got any photos of me in the last few days I’m afraid because I was wearing repeats. Friday and Saturday I wore my pie smuggling top (I only wore it for a few hours each day so that was fine). On Sunday I wore the knitted jumper (on the same link as above) that is about to be unravelled. I wanted to wear it before it went in the washing machine though.

Personally I’ve used Me Made May to really evaluate my homemade clothes. Some I love to wear and others don’t get much wear at all. I’ve sorted the ones that I don’t wear much into three piles – donate/give away, bin, and fix/unravel.

I really need to get on with the mending, but that’s a bit dull and my brain is fizzing with new projects I’m desperate to get cracking on with so it will probably be a little while before they get sorted.
One of the projects I’ve been working on is my bridesmaid dress that needs to be ready for the end of July.

This is my first toile of By Hand London’s Flora dress, which I made way back in March. The bodice is made of some upholstery fabric I had in my stash. The skirt is made of calico. It doesn’t look great on the hanger but I felt really pretty in it and the skirt twirls! I can’t remember the last time I had a twirly skirt! The bodice was way too tight though and I couldn’t get the zip up. When I made this I hadn’t even bought the fabric for my real dress. This fabric was bought on a blogger’s shopping trip to Dewsbury. It is a cotton sateen with a fair bit of stretch. Because of this I decided to buy some cotton sateen to make another toile in. I went for the cheapest one from Minerva Crafts. I didn’t think the colour was important at the time, although I wish I bought I nicer colour now.

I kept the skirt part from the last muslin and just changed the bodice. This time, not only could I get the zip up, it was gaping an awful lot at the back. My mum helped me out by working out how to fix the bodice. In the end I lengthened the shoulder straps by 2 3/4″. This fixed quite a few issues. The back didn’t gape quite so much and the bust darts were pointing to the right place (as opposed to under my chin). I also redirected the waist darts so they pointed to the ‘apex’ (polite term) as opposed to under my armpits. That is why you can see tiny black crosses on the dress. The above photo was taken after I resewed the shoulder straps and repositioned the waist darts. I also shaved off 2cm (mixing imperial and metric again) in total from the centre back. I altered my traced paper pattern and made a third bodice. This time I made it with the Charlotte skirt with the intention of keeping it.

I also practiced fully lining my dress from and old bed sheet (I won’t be raiding the airing cupboard for my real dress lining – I’ve bought some proper cotton lawn)

The colour isn’t right – I need a tan really and it doesn’t look like that will happen! However I think it looks OK providing I wear the belt! The bottom half is too tight really and it makes the top half look baggy when it isn’t really. The waistlines were two different sizes which I eased together when I probably shouldn’t have. I did originally put a band in separating the two but it looked awful so I unpicked it. The belt separates the two parts and looks a bit better. I’m going out on Saturday night – I may wear it then!