I'm Back....Kind Of

Sorry for my long absence I have been helping my Father.  Things should be settling down now and hopefully I should be able to get back to usual blogging soon.  In other news I have finished the galactic satin dress.  I'm not 100% happy with it but I will post pictures.  In the meantime I'll leave this, one of my favourite songs.

Sea-side

It is hot here.  42 degrees C + for the next dew days.  Today there was a thunderstorm in the afternoon.  Here are some photos from the beach.  At the beach it was cool, overcast, noisy, wet, raining, beautiful.....

The clouds were heavy.....

....the tide was coming in....

.....the waves were fast and furious....

....there were some brave swimmers....

...and unwary photographers got wet!

There was a thunderstorm whilst we were there and some spectacular lightening.  Unfortunately pictures of the lightening eluded me.  A lovely evening!

The Finished Blue Dress

Finally, pictures of the finished blue dress.  I'm afraid the model always looks most unfriendly and she has a very interesting stance.  It makes the dress look boxy and rise at the shoulders.

From the front

From the side

Close side

From the back

Close front.

I am still working on the satin dress, it is driving me insane but I am slowly getting there!

Starting Simplicity 1777

I have started the Galactic Satin Dress.  I am making Simplicity 1777 with the contrasting panel and long sleeves.

I decided to change machines and use the Borletti to make this.  I have to say I wish I had stuck to the Necchi!  The Borletti is very sleek and even comes with cams but I think the thread is getting caught somewhere and there seems also to be a bit of a lack of speed control.  I don't remember having either of those problems last time I sewed with that machine but maybe I've just got more finicky.

Finally an overview of the Galactic satin.

Maybe if I get time tomorrow I will post some construction details for it.  The satin is sliding all over the place and absolutely nothing is staying lined up for more than approximately a second, I think I'm going insane trying to get seams the same length!  I've also managed to upset my overlocker tonight, something I will hopefully be able to resolve tomorrow morning when I'm not so tired!

New Material

I'm not sure what it is about buying new material but I always want to make something with it!  Fortunately I bought material for a project yesterday so I am definitely making something.  It is for a dress for my sister, I will post the dress pattern later, I will be making it in a size 12 and satin, I am a devil for punishment!  The satin is called Galactic Satin and it is easy to see why!

The contrasting section of the dress will be in green satin, as shown together below.

The colours aren't quite displaying correctly in these photographs.

I also saw this fabric yesterday and although I had no immediate plans for it, I bought it.  I mean, how could I resist??  There was only 1.45 metres left on the roll and I had the lot, I'm thinking a shirt, or perhaps a skirt.....

New Years Day

Was hopefully a sign of the year to come!  It rained, quite heavily, in the middle of summer!  I love the rain, the smell of it, the fresh feeling everything has afterwards and the water.  The downside is everything is very dark and my camera does not like the dark.  I took a few photos though, all delightfully wet.

An update on the blue dress: it is finished and I'm not going to make a belt.  I am hoping to borrow a model from work to model it, stay tuned!

Blue Dress

The blue dress is almost finished.  I will try and do a proper shoot of this dress to post.  I found the instructions slightly difficult to understand and ended up totally altering how I inserted the zip as I considered their method messy.  Unfortunately I forgot to take photos of the construction of the outer bodice and there are only limited pictures of the lining.

The facing stitched to the lining.

The outer bodice stitched to lining at the slit.

The collar stitched to bodice but not slip-stitched down.

Finished collar

Each sleeve had three darts at the elbow.

The sleeves were eased in and then double stitched.

I hand-stitched the hems on the sleeves.

I ended up folding the seam allowance of the lining to the inside and machine stitching the zip to it.  I then carefully folded the upper seam allowance inside and stab stitched over the zip.

Finished zip, I think it looks neater than it would have the other way which was to fold the seam allowance of both the lining and the upper to the right side of the lining and machine stitch, I did half and it looked awful so I unpicked it.  I've hemmed the skirt upper and only have the lining and a belt to make now.  I wasn't going to bother with a belt but when I tried it on my sister told me it looked like a nightdress so I thought a belt might improve it!