My Anna Toile

I bought the By Hand London Anna pattern quite a while ago, after falling in love with so many versions that I'd seen on Pinterest. I think I've been putting off making it because I knew I should really do a toile first, and because I haven't really seen the perfect fabric for it. As I'm off to the Knitting and Stitching show next week, I figured I may as well have a shot at the toile before the trip, because if I can't find the right fabric there, then I never will.

I'm still ill at the moment, so just the toile-making took over a week. The PDF construction was predictably tedious, though no easier or harder than it was with any other patterns that I've tried. When it came to cutting out the fabric I had no end of fun with my Pilot Frixion pens, which make marking notches, pleats and darts an absolute dream, but I fell at the last hurdle, and I was just too tired to finish the cutting in one go.

Finally, on Sunday, I got round to constructing the bodice - please excuse the picture quality. To be honest it's a good job it wasn't too bright, as the fabric I'm using for toiles at the moment is from some £2.50 charity shop duvet covers, and it's not exactly opaque.

I was really pleased with the fit of the bodice - in that photo it's held together with safety pins at the back and on my right, so I could try it on easily, and I haven't finished the armholes or neckline. I really like the pleats at the front. The sleeves are quite generous on me as I have quite narrow shoulders, but I'm happy with this as I don't really like showing my upper arms. The neckline is simple and fairly straight - just how I like it!

Once I'd got past that first bit of construction, it was easy enough to make up the skirt and add it on. I thought the skirt would be a bit of a faff to put together as it's made up of 7 parts, but actually it's just a load of straight lines, and it's easy peasy if you have your pieces properly labelled. 

This time the back is done up with safety pins. 

I am super happy with the fit of this dress. I consulted the measurements before I started and I was closest to the 12, so I made that and sort of expected it to be a little large, but I think it's pretty perfect - I guess I have finally started to fatten up a bit after a few months off the bike, with 24/7 access to Nutella...

Anyway. the pattern's gorgeous, and I think it'll sew up quite quickly. The neckline and armholes are both finished quite early on in the pattern instructions which looks like it'll be easier than methods I've used in the past. Now that I know how lovely it is, I might make it from some of my stash fabric, because I don't want to wait until next week!

Reasons to be grateful #1: This Man

This post is the first in what I aim to make a series about the things in my life that I'm most grateful for. It's been inspired mainly by podcasts that I've listened to, including Tiffany Pratt's Creative Mornings talk. I've also seen some journal type products that have been designed to encourage people to write down what they're grateful for each morning, but recently I've hit a bit of a stumbling block with list-writing, and I think something more long form will suit me better.

Without further ado, the "thing" for which I am most grateful is this lovely man: he goes by the names Poppet, Rugged Outdoorsman, and occasionally Steve.

We met on the Internet in 2013; we both had the same attitude in that we weren't interested in exchanging hundreds of emails - in terms of dating IRL, I think the Internet's only really useful for getting another human to the same time and place as you. We'd both been in situations where the person we met face-to-face didn't feel like the person we'd thought we knew, so we arranged to go for a coffee after work a few days later.

My first thought when I saw him was that he was out of my league. He was alert, open, and a good listener. We took our coffees to the beach, and walked along the prom, and I wondered if he was just being kind when he offered to take me climbing some time. Then he asked if I wanted to go for dinner, and I started to think that he might actually like me. By the end of that week, we'd gone for that climb, and I'd met most of his family at a barbecue - they are also a lovely bunch of people who have been nothing but kind and welcoming to me since that day, yet another thing I am thankful for.

I think if I had to use one word to describe Steve it'd be Open. He's honest and if he has a problem he'll tell me about it very quickly. He listens to me in the best way, and he understands me and my moods and my struggles more easily and plainly than anyone I've ever known. He's often said that I'm academically intelligent while he's practical, but his biggest strength as far as I'm concerned is emotional intelligence. He doesn't always know what to do about it, but he's usually really clear on what he's feeling and why, and can articulate it almost instantly.

Above all, he's completely supportive, He'll never say no to helping me with things that make me happy, like fixing or cleaning my bike, driving me to the airport, and more ridiculous things like covering me in parcel tape to make a mannequin, and more tedious things like proof-reading a blog post.

Anyway, we don't celebrate Valentine's Day. We're both pretty anti-"stuff", where "stuff" is mass-produced cards, and anything else destined to end up in the bin. Instead, we'll go for a nice meal with friends this weekend, and then we'll snuggle up with my crochet and his mountain biking videos and our cats, and be grateful for our little life, and excited about adventures still to come.

I hope you enjoyed this post! What are you grateful for today?

xx

My Bettine / Frankentine Kimono wrap hack

I've written about my first Bettine attempt already. I hadn't been convinced that the bodice and neckline would suit me, and I was right, but I loved so many details about the dress (tulip skirt, kimono sleeves and deep pockets are some of my favourite things) that I couldn't let it go.

I LOVE wearing wrap tops, but before I started sewing I usually found them a bit lower cut than I'd like - so I usually ended up with a safety pin in the middle of the bust, or wearing a vest underneath, and then I gave up. No excuses now, though.

With that and the kimono sleeves in mind, I thought I'd stick with a theme and go for a super high wrap neck. Inspired by My recent make from Rosie Martin's book, and fresh from a trip to the charity shop where I'd bought some duvet covers for making toiles, I traced the Bettine top onto the fabric, with the edge centred (not on the fold), then I flipped it over and traced around it again. For my version I measured 16cm from the waistline, then drew a straight line between the this point and the corner of the front neckline. As my duvet fabric was already doubled over, I cut around the shape and ended up with two mirror images. I then cut the back of the bettine bodice out once, pinned everything together, sewed, and tried it on. The fit seemed pretty good, though the duvet fabric was relatively stiff.

I did the same on my new fabric. Sadly I didn't have enough of the pink '80s viscose left, but that's probably just as well since my pal Nikki somehow chose the same fabric for her Bettine dress (this blew my mind). Mine will become a skirt once I've unpicked the top.

Here's the fabric I went for second time round. It's a cotton lawn and was <£5/m from Abakhan, but it's now sold out! This was my first time ordering from them, and it arrived really quickly.

To construct the dress I first sewed the shoulders and then applied bias binding the whole way round the neckline, from the waist to the neck and back down to the other side of the waist. It was probably a little bit easier than the original Bettine, just because I've had quite a bit of practise with binding now, and I think I found the facing on the original pattern a little fiddly at the time.

The rest of the construction went well, though I was getting a little nervy towards the end of the hem, as I knew my bobbin was running low. In the picture below, that little piece of thread is all that was left on the bobbin when I'd finished! I'd used the same reel of thread for my spot pocket skirt, so this isn't as bad as it looks!

Anyway, if you've read any of my other posts then you can probably guess where this is going, and you'd be totally right... It's unlikely that I'm going to wear this an awful lot. Sigh.

 

I think the fabric's totally fine, and it'd probably look awesome on a fitted dress, but it's still maybe not quite drapey enough for the loose-fitting top. It also didn't occur to me at any point before I'd tried this version on that the neckline and sleeve combination bears more resemblance to hopsital scrubs than a kimono; I think the shape's fine on the toile because of the contrast between the skirt and bodice, but on this I just don't think it works at all. It looks marginally better with the little black belt I wore it with, but I think it really needs some exposed binding around the neckline, or some other detail. I don't really know what to do with it, so it'll live with my unfinished projects until I have a brainwave...

Moving on, I'm currently working on a Coco dress, a Rosa shirt, and an Anna dress, and hope to have at least one of them finished in time for a post next week.

If anyone has any tips on choosing fabrics then please let me know - I do an awful lot of thinking and reading before I buy anything, but feel like I'm still getting really basic things wrong. I hope all your makes are going better than mine!

xx

In the library

Recently I've rediscovered my local library. I was an avid reader when I was young; though I can't remember a thing about them now, I believe I once read 4 "Babysitters club" books in a day. I was, and still am, an awkward and shy person, and books were my greatest escape. Most of the books I've read are memorable to me because of a particular moment or feeling. I remember relating to the novelty for Mary of simply being outdoors in the Secret Garden, and I remember thinking Judy Blume was describing a belly button in a book that, in retrospect, I probably read a little too early...

This is a picture of my cat, because I don't have any photos of books.
She's also much prettier than books <3

Reading fiction consumed a huge part of my childhood, and it was only when I started studying English Literature at 18 that I fell out of love with reading. I lasted less than three months on the course before dropping out. The volume of books to be read and the restrictions placed on what books should be read, and the intimidation I felt in having my own interpretations scrutinised by others sapped all my joy out of it for a very long time. Over the years I've gone through phases of reading incessantly, the best of times buried night after night in the Count of Monte Cristo and the worst reading identikit "thrillers" that didn't deliver. Mostly these phases have ended with me - literally, in one case - throwing an infuriating read against the wall. I should say now that I'm not naming names because however much anger I harbour over the nonsensical denouement; writing is hard, and I know I couldn't do any better, so apologies to anyone who wanted to read a takedown.

I made a vow to myself not so long ago never to re-read another of my "favourite" books. I don't know how much this applies to anyone else, but each time I did so I found less to like. It would be naive not to understand that my taste has changed over the past 20 years, but I want to preserve the original memories and feelings that I have for a book more than I want to remember the details of the stories or the characters, however much I loved them at the time.

So onwards to pages new. I mostly read eBooks these days, though with so much time on my hands I have recently started to visit my local library. Somewhat unsurprisingly, things have moved on since I last used a library; I now have a PIN and an online account, and I can apparently return my books to any library in Dorset. Requesting books can take a while - I've currently been waiting a week for a book to be delivered from who-knows-where, but I'm so absurdly grateful for the continuing existence of libraries, and so scared that they'll one day disappear, that I love the slowness, all the more so for the librarian's description of the delivery service as "random", when I suspect it is anything but.

Anyway, here are the two novels that I've read so far in 2017 (clicking the links will take you to Amazon - I might get some pennies if you decide to buy them)

The Secret Life of Bees first has been on my digital bookshelf for probably a year now, and I'm not sure why I put off reading it for so long when it'd been so highly recommended; it was predictably excellent.

Hidden Bodies was a book that I wasn't aware of until I listened to Emma Gannon interviewing the author on her excellent podcast CTRL ALT Delete. I devoured You, the first book in this series, a year or two ago, and had actually been keeping an eye out for other works by Kepnes, but this one had passed me by. Like everyone, I imagine, I was a bit worried to discover that Hidden Bodies was a sequel and would revisit the same character, Joe, but these worries were totally misplaced. The book takes Joe out of New York and away from his old haunts, and although he is the same character, the circumstances and relationships around him present new challenges and surprises, and the whole book just feels fresh and alive and keeps you guessing right until the very end.

I've also picked up some crafty books, as I was finding it hard to use online crochet instructions without access to a printer. My top tip for anyone wanting to find simple descriptions of stitches is Basic Crochet Stitches: 250 Stitches to Crochet (Harmony Guides) by Erika Knight. This was one of not-that-many crochet books in Weymouth library, but it's awesome, with clear pictures and descriptions of 250 different crochet stitches - exactly what I was looking for, and more than I imagine I'll ever need.

Next on my reading list is Ctrl, Alt; Delete: How I Grew Up Online, which is the book that launched Emma Gannon's podcast of the same name (or is it the other way around?).

I hope to be back with a post on some of my makes over the weekend, but it might be more of a summary of wips rather than completed makes.

I'd love to hear your book recommendations, so do let me know what you're reading!

Nicky xx