It all starts with underwear...

Finally today I was able to start one of the blogger projects I have been aiming to do. After much procrastination and lots of tea I decided upon the underskirt for the walkaway dress. As I wanted something that I could complete in a day. I followed Edelweiss blog instructions on how to make the underskirt which can be found here.

I was finding it hard to find crinoline so in the end I chose to go with netting in a soft baby pink colour. My dress is mauve/purple so I figured this would complement nicely.

I won't go through all the instruction techniques individually but I will show you my construction pics.

Lots and lots of netting.What I didnt realise was the netting I bought was 44" wide whereas the pattern asked for 54". However luckly this fits just right, any bigger would have been way too much.

The top layer and the main body of the skirt attached.

Gathering the netting using embrodairy floss. It pulled back out really easy.

The lower part waiting to be stiched.

Front view of the finished piece.

And whats even better about this design is, it can also be used as a full underskirt. How cool is that.

After overcasting the edges. I changed the stitch width but forgot to change the actual stitch, but that was ok because I ended up with this really decorative stitch, which I then kept throughout.

Overall I am really happy with this.
I have never sewn with netting before, It's ok, I can see more flouncy underskirts appearing in my wardrobes.
I have never done gatherring stitches before. For a while I was rather bemused but once the image of pulling up pencil pleat curtains came to mind, I was fine.

Now I can't wait to start the actual dress. I think I am far behind as most are creating bindings now. But I know I am a slow sewer. This underskirt took the best part of 6 hours. Mainly because I no longer think 'that will do' when sewing for myself (which I used to, only when sewing my bags or for others do I make sure its perfect.) The most time consuming for me was the pinning and re-pinning and re-pinning of the gathers to get them 'just so' .

Today I feel I have actually acheived something. It's a good feeling. I hope you all out there are feeling fantasic too.
Sew Vala. x

Fabric/Patterns and excitment in a small village.

Hello all, and welcome to my new followers,

I have been away for a while doing more fabric, pattern shopping and actually starting projects. While at the same time it's summer hols with three teens at home and still preparing for the new roof.

So whats with the news on projects lined up so far,

I have finally chosen my fabric for the walkaway dress sew-a-long with Edelweiss

In the end I decided to go with a day dress, something in cotton. Mainly because I am used to how cotton feels and sews up.

The spots are not as large as they look in the picture.

At the moment I am still bit a tad slighty unsure on what I think about the fabric. My main reasons for chosing it are, It was in my price range (and at 5 metres needed, at £ 3.30m  bargin) Being rather small I didnt want to be overloaded with an all over pattern with all that fabric. My Ideal would have been a pattern for the front central part of the dress and something plain to complement on the wraparound part, However I couldn't find this, If I found a pattern I couldn't find something simple to 'go with' , Hence the polka dots. And if it does perchance look 'off' well at least it's cheaper than calico at the moment so I can use it as my draft.

Also at the end of last week my fabric from Linton Tweeds arrived

(image copyright of Linton Direct)

as of yet I haven't got a pic of the fabric

and so the hunt was on for the perfect pattern to use this fantasic bargin fabric and today I saw my local fabric shop has an offer on Simplicity Patterns and there I found this

 I think view C and D would be just perfect ( it's the jacket and skirt in the lower left picture.)

And as for items currently drapped over Betsy (the dressform). There are two more Loud, Loud Shirts.
One waiting for buttons and holes (I forgot to buy them (Doh) and the other just needs side seams, hem, buttons and holes. Hopefully they will be finished tomorrow.

And before I leave you tonight dear followers here's what counts for excitment in our little village in Wiltshire, Yesterday all was quiet until my daughter screamed 'Mum come look NOW!'  I ran to her and what she wanted to show me was this

We weren't the only people out there taking pictures, (good to know) but they really were so very low. they started to land in the field just in front of our house, then lifted on up and carried on.
It was very cool.