Tencel shirtdress

I can't seem to stop making shirtdresses! This time I went for McCall's M6696. It seems that everyone has made this one already! And I think I know why this pattern is so popular.

To be honest I made this dress back in November so I can't even remember the size I made! Since then I started a sewing journal where I note the size, the sort of fabric used, all changes made and potential future changes. It will make blogging easier, especially when I have a bit of backlog to deal with. The dress came together nicely, having an option for a D-cup meant no FBA needed which is always a good thing! Although if I ever make this dress again I'd add extra 1 or 2 cm as the dress gapes. After wearing it for the photos I stitched the button bands together so that solves the problem.

The dress is not perfect. While most of my dresses are sleeveless I did want this one to have short ones. Unfortunately the sleeves didn't work out, as I could barely move my arms. I wasn't in the mood of trying to figure them out so I ended up having yet another sleeveless dress. The other thing I don't necessary like is the back, or rather the fullness in the back. That's probably the reason I haven't really worn this dress much. But I think it deserves to be out more often and it could work as a casual Friday dress ;) While sewing the collar I followed the pattern, which meant stitching the collar and collar stand together and then attaching it to the dress. And I hated this method! The collar stand edge is not sharp and it looks messy. In the future I'll stick to my usual - stitching both collar stands to the dress and then stitching the collar in.

The dress was made with black, denim looking tencel. It was a dream to sew with! To make my life harder I decided to do some decorative top-stitching. Last year a family friend gifted me a huge bag full of zips and random spools of threads, including some viscose in several neon shades. Black was a nice background for fluorescent yellow and I'm glad I went through that extra effort! It made it a bit annoying to constantly switching the thread in my sewing machine but it was worth the trouble. Anyway, it's time to take this dress out of my closet because it's not fair to spend all that time sewing it up and not wearing it!

Sydney penguin and a bit of housekeeping

Let's start with housekeeping :) If you look to the right you will see a new badge:

This means that I joined a group of over 30 lovely ladies who like sewing and blogging about sewing! I'm one of the newest members and I haven't met everyone yet but I'm looking forward to it! Thanks for making me a part of such a great group!

Other than than I added a link to my blog in Polish. Just in case if you wanted to see what I sewn before :)

I got rid of  picture verification of comments on the blog. My apologies to people that were put off by it - I wasn't aware that was a default blogger feature :/

Also, my camera has died on Waitangi Day... Timing is almost right as I was planning on buying a new one anyway. I think I know what I want but I'm going to give it a little bit more time to think it over . It also means that I won't be able to take photos for the blog for next week or two.


And now lets talk about penguins. Aren't they cute? I absolutely adore those funny looking birds. Here is a penguin I met last year in Sea Sanctuary in Manly, Sydney.

While on holiday I found time some to do fabric shopping. I visited Tessuti Fabrics and fell in love with their gorgeous silks! There was so many bolts of beautiful fabric and it was really hard to choose a few to take home with me. (Un)fortunately the prizes were a lot higher then what I'm used to so it limited my choices. I brought over a piece of pink rayon, border print cotton and the last bit of  fabric called penguin flap. It is some kind of stretchy man-made knit with interesting texture and they only had 0.6m. Just enough to make a simple tank top.

I used Burda pattern (mod.125 6/2014) but I omitted bust darts. I don't like having my bra straps visible so I changed the back a bit and I had to make it shorter due to my fabric length. Construction was simple - 4 stitches! I had to baste the "flaps" flat before stitching though. To finish the armholes and the neckline I just used twin needle and left the bottom untouched. Unfortunately I don't wear this top often. It's not pleasant to wear on hot days and it's not easy to style. In a way it's both too long and too short. Too short to wear with  pants and look good and too long for high-waisted pants and pencil skirts. The texture of the means I can't really tuck it in and it doesn't show off the waist ;)  Also I think there is something wrong with the shape of the the neckline. But I still wear it from time to time and it always makes me think about penguins ;)

Obligatory silly photo ;)

And here is a close up on the texture:

Piggy bag aka instant gratification project

I'm not the biggest fan of sewing tote bags. They are easy and practical but there is not much fun in making them. This one was started last year when I cut the fabric, sew almost everything together and then left it in the darkest corner of my sewing corner. Two weeks ago, just before going on holiday I realized that I really needed a tote bag. Finishing the project took me 10 min (!) and it was perfect for countless hours of walking in Sydney - it held 2 little bottles of water, tube of sunscreen and all my souvenir shopping ;)
I bought this piggy canvas in Spotlight ages ago. I just love that print! The fabric is quite sturdy so I wasn't afraid to pack BBQ supplies (including bottles of cider & beer) in there. The only think that I hadn't thought much of were white stripes - not ideal as they get dirty very quickly... Hopefully washing machine will fix that problem. Construction of the bag is very simple, even the pocket is very easy and fast to make. Last year I made several bags just like this one and I believe it takes around 30-40 min for one be made - including cutting the fabric! Perfect instant gratification project!