Project 7 - Hat - Update

Well, I made the flower to go on it but didn't like the look of it so I've not added it. Really happy with the hat as a whole though - the way it *almost* lines up round the edge and the middle is very nearly a point

I enjoyed making it - it was very easy, pretty quick and looks really smart

Project Number 7 - A Hat

Just a quickie - to improve my pattern following skills I thought I'd throw a hat together from this pattern:

It's the bottom right one. I cut it out on Sunday night using leftover tartan fabric and some blue fabric that used to hang on the back of my glass bedroom door at uni to line it.

Put everything together last night and hoping to finish it tonight. Really struggled with understanding the instructions on the pattern, but took my time, thought it through and applied logic so hopefully it'll all be alright in the end.

Project Number 6 - Practice skirt complete

Right, after a frustrating week at work of getting home at bed time, exhausted, the weekend has come around and the sewing room has been cleaned and tidied (it's also my gardening room)

Bought some cheap fabric to knock up a test dress with. Think I'm going to try and make this using a few more pieces than I've done before - definitely a different top to the skirt and I'm going to try to do a funky neckline (ie not straight)

Very very excited, so here's the fabric...

and here's the skirt

Project Number 6 - Christmas Dress

Here we go again :) The design is drawn and I'm ready to get my fabric.

First a look at my ideas book. The one I like most is the middle one on the first page and that's what I've been basing my design on (hereafter known as the McQueen dress)



Realising that to keep this in my budget I'd be looking at plain coloured tassles (probably black) I decided to bring colour in by putting them on a coloured dress. I originally went for a pale gold in my mind, but when I drew it out I found I had to make that darker to get the effect I wanted.



Today my very lovely father in law offered to take me to Southampton to go to the fabric land shop there and I played around with the fringe and the colours I'd picked. I wanted something satiny and shiny, but the colours didn't fit with my imagination and even when I found something darker, laying the fringe on it just looked wrong.

I went back to my ideas book and decided that something a lot darker with a pale panel at the top would still give the effect I was after so I ended up with a choice between a dark wine and a dark green. Almost everything I wear is red so I decided on the green.

I laid out the fabrics just now to look at them and here's a photo of that



I think I may run a trial on this before making it as it's so much more complicated (in my mind) than anything I've ever tried before. I really want to do a similar line on the front as the McQueen dress and I'm pretty sure I've worked out how to do it, but I think I want to try it out first. I've got some blue tartan fabric left over from making kilts for a friend's 21st a few years ago and I think I could make a funky dress with that (I can't face making a practice one and not using it)