I Sewed A Cake (or at least a cake inspired outfit)

Once again I'm squeezing my monthly challenge into the last coupled of days of the month but only because I didn't have enough blogging (as opposed to sewing) time.

The lovely ladies over at The Monthly Stitch certainly gave a food for thought challenge this month with the Let Them Sew Cake challenge to honour their website's first birthday.

Here's what I came up with

This little three piece ensemble was inspired by a purple wedding cake from Arabia Weddings was my inspiration as I just loved those little flowers cascading down the centre.

The top was Patrones No 266 number 42 (quite an old issue) chosen for it's vintage feel and made up from a cute heart patterned poly cotton purchased in Barcelona.  The bow give a bit of a nod to the forties and I even managed a cake topper in the form of a hat.  The trhrifted bag came in useful to carry my purchases which included some fabulous Marilyn Monroe fabric which I'll need to consider carefully what to make from.

Looking a bit creased here due to the fact that I used linen for this very first self drafted high waisted skirt , and this pic was taken after sitting a few hours in the car for the journey to the Retrofestival - a fantastic day out if you love all things vintage and retro.

After cutting the skirt out a panel was added to the centre front and I then sewed on the daisies randomly, liking the white picking up the heart pattern of the top.

The top was faced at the back and has a 3 vintage button opening whereas the front yoke is sewed into the back shoulders which took me a little longer to do while I worked out the details of how to attach.

I was so pleased my first self drafted pattern fitted so beautifully once made up.  A few pearls and a and some matching slingbacks, both thrifted, complete the forties look.

The perfect posing opportunity.  On Retrofestival day I substituted the satin heels for some winklepickers and also popped a brooch onto the hat.

A further view of the cake top hat which was a simple pillbox hat made from a scrap of skirt fabric and some millinary net.  I even managed a victory roll for this shot. If you wish to make your own pillbox hat there's many tutorials on the net.

I'm now looking at lots more vintage style makes and am happy to find there's loads of resources on the net for this.  All I can say is .......

...........watch this space!

Have you made anything vintage lately?  Leave me a link in a message - I'd love to see your makes.

Happy sewing.

Linda x

Hello Flower - Are You A Catwalk Inspiration?



Trying to broaden my sewing challenges slightly I decided that one of my sewing projects should be a mix of various fabrics and wondered what it would be like to integrate not two, but three fabric types into my next make.  I'm happy to say it worked........

Inspiration struck whilst perusing Pinterest (like I need it with the gazillion patterns I already own by Burda and Patrones) and I thought this little number had something about it Christopher Kane SS14 Flower Dress.  I think it was the writing that struck me originally but the flowers look good too....

So, after a quick jog round the net I found this lovely foxglove fabric from Fancy Moon Fabrics , a tad over my usual spend limit at £13.00 per metre plus postage but I loved the colours and I do have a largish piece left for a future make so it's not so expensive really.  Next came some black cotton satin and black mesh from good old Ebay. 

The pattern used was a trusty Burda -  November 2013 no 128.  There's only 3 pieces to it so it was easy to cut the top half of the bodice and shorten the sleeves.

The headscratching part was when I had to source the letters for the writing.  Another web search turned up nothing easy in terms of free downloadable letter templates so in the end I just used Word and made the letters to the size and font I wanted them, then blocked them and traced them right off the screen.  Not even the necessity to set up the printer!!

Once I had the greaseproof  paper letters I cut out them out  in fabric - FIDDLY - and then pinned and stitched them using the smallest zig zag stitch.

Coo, sunny in the garden

There were some minor amends to the pattern, including a bit of shaping where front darts would normally be,  cutting the front neckline wider to make a more flattering boat neck and adding some small darts to the top of the shoulders as there's no seams on these set in sleeves.  Minded by my Mad Men Make I added some piping at the join on the bodice.

To finish the neckline I made bias binding from the mesh fabric - also fiddly as it's just sooo soft.  To make it neater I sewed the bias on the inside first before pinning and sewing it from the right side to finish.

One minor amend I still need to make is on the mesh on the bodice where there's small gather due to the mesh being rather stretchy but this is an easy fix. Thought I'd leave that in as we all make the odd mistake here and there!!

I added a beaded zipper pull as the zip is in a position that's not so easy to reach and I like the way the crystal and pearl beads add a little of the colour on the dress front.

Ease factor:  pretty straightforward with a few pattern tweaks.
Cost:  £15.00 for foxglove fabric (inc postage) plus 1 metre cotton satin and 1 metre mesh at about £6.00 each so total £27 but in terms of fabric usage, roughly £14.00 plus some beads from my stash. 

I'd love to know if you've created something that has been inspired by a catwalk collection.  Maybe you could leave a link in the comments so I can eyeball it!

Happy sewing

Linda x