This summer I have managed to squeeze in more sewing projects than I thought I would, but far less than I’d have liked!
I was having a little look back at how many sewing projects I got on with and what I could write about. I’m pleased to say it wasn’t all selfish sewing either.
Project 1 was a Simple Sew Amelia dress. This was made with my favourite viscose. It has a lovely drape and when I made it we had fab weather closer to 30 degrees. I also thought it would look great with black tights and boots in the winter too. I had to make a bit of an adjustment to the shoulders as I think I made the bodice a bit too big. I took off about an inch. But it is quite a forgiving pattern.
Project 2 was a gorgeous shirt dress for my daughter in a funky zebra print cotton poplin. I used a boys shirt pattern that I’ve used before and just extended the length of it. It looked nice with sandals and bare legs but equally looked lovely with black leggings and boots. Her first wearing of it was appropriately to the zoo.
I had a great time doing some sewing with my kids too. Before school broke up for the last term life was pretty hectic and we never really had a chance for doing anything for the teachers. So over the 6 weeks off, we had some quality time making a few bits and pieces using the embroidery machine and some sewing. The kids love anything to do with the embroidery machine and our whole house would be labelled if they had their way. We also wanted to make something practical. My son made pen holders to slip over an a5 diary or notebook. His top stitching was beautiful and I was really impressed. He put the sewing machine on ‘granny speed’. My daughter went for hair turbans and a tie. I was so proud of them as they are only 6 and 7.
My final completed make was something a little bit more different. I made a hat to go with a red dress I was wearing. I had a little sinamay base already but it was blue. Using red satin scraps for embellishments and a few cheap purchased embellishments this had to be my favourite make of the summer. The satin being quite thin showed the texture of the sinamay through it so before putting this on I covered it with some thermal curtain interfacing. There was lots of hand sewing for this projects and with some sinamay offcuts, I even did some shaping to form a bow to make the final embellishment.
There were also a few bits that I never got around to finishing such as a wrap dress and a quilt for my daughter from her old baby grows.
Well they’re still all awaiting completion. The quilt will be handy for the winter but if I don’t hurry with the wrap dress it will be next summer before it has an outing!!!