Heya’all. I’ve made this new dress. Actually, I made it ages ago. 
And took most of these photos ages ago too. Bad lazy blogger!
I wore it recently as my “travelling dress” when we holidayed in Broome, and it was the most AWESOME travelling dress… why? well it’s a loose-fitting, baggy, dress made in a comfy fluffy fleece, so just about the most amazingly comfortable thing EVER! pretty much like wearing a blankie. At the same time, there’s something about the curved, slightly cocoon-y lines of the dress that I think makes it quite smart, chic and pulled-together. This is actually my wearable trial of the pattern and I absolutely love it. I might almost love it more than my “real” version. Almost. I actually love that one a bunch too. To appear here very soon.
Pattern: So, yeah; the Inari tee dress by Named patterns. SUCH a popular pattern, and as I now appreciate, for an excellent reason. It’s terrific. Simple, yes; and basic, and bordering on a boiled-down-to-the-bare-bones kind of a pattern with just a few very subtle features like that slight cocoon shape, the side seams drifting gently frontwards, the split hem and an up-down front and back hem. And I love it. I’m normally attracted to a more complex design for a dress, but this one just hits all the right buttons for me right now.
Fabric; a red and white stripe mid-weight fluffy fleece from Spotlight. This is the same fabric I used for Tim’s Christmas hoodie and for Kelly’s hoodie too. Yep, I bought quite a lot! there was a sale… um, yeah *awkward self-justifying of excessive fabric acquisition* Well, at least I’ve used it all now. This has been kicking around in the stash since pre-Christmas, since I’d decided it didn’t really suit anyone else in the family. I think it suits me though!
My stripes are matched up as perfectly as my obsessive little soul could manage. I’m smugly and complacently satisfied with how well they turned out… the only way I know how to achieve this level of stripe matching is to pin each and every junction and go nice and slow. Tedious but failsafe, and all my stripes here match any which way and everywhere. *primly pats self on back*
sewuthinkucan asked me on instagram whether I found the high slim sleeves on the design to cause the dress to ride up when you lift your arms up as above: not that I pull this pose all that often and probably will be careful now I’ve seen these pictures! but it does a little. Not enough to stop me from wearing it! I think the effect is not too bad because of my fabric being a little stretchy. However, in my next, “real” version of the pattern, I altered the sleeve so as to successfully fix the problem… and will post details on that in my next Inari post.
Alterations; the most obvious one is inseam side pockets! Well, of course. It’s baggy enough and the side hems curve forward slightly to the front, an even more comfortable position for your hands than the true sideline of your body; making inseam pockets an almost foregone conclusion.
My neckline has neither facings nor bindings; partly because my fabric has too much fluff and loft for bulky extras with incorporated double seam allowances etc, and also because this is basically my wearable muslin for the pattern and I just didn’t want to fuss around with it. I overlocked the raw edge and simply turned it in once, topstitching in a single line of stitching from the right side. My fabric is all of thick enough, stretchy enough and stable enough for this to be totally fine. I did do the sleeve cuffs though.
Details:
Dress; Inari tee dress by Named Clothing, red striped fleece
Shoes; designed and made by me, details here
taken after a plane trip, a week rolled up in a suitcase, another plane trip, and precisely zero ironing. LOVE.
‘s kinda crazy and huge-skirted and possibly a bit over the top, but you know what? it’s also extremely comfortable and cosy, and so swirly and swishy. The instant I finished it and put it on I immediately felt simultaneously relaxed, like I had put on a warm comfy dressing gown or something; but also a bit chic as well. The big feminine skirt with a nipped-in waist does that, but I really like how the volume below is balanced out by the mannish style shirt top with cargo pockets and flaps, and a notched collar.
#awkward!! Yes, well; obviously most of us don’t actually twirl very often. Twirling is something of a fashion blogger contrivance… although if I do want to get in a bit of highland flinging I am all set. 😉
make another one!! Doh!! Clearly there’s something terribly wrong with me… #madvogue1247addict
aaaaaand, my week of exclusively wearing Vogue 1247 skirts, in a nutshell…!
Firstly, two sage green/pale coffee, checked tweed skirts. I inherited this beautiful quality piece of wool tweed from my grandmother’s stash after she passed away. Although I earmarked it straight away as two skirts for Cassie and myself I just hadn’t got around to it and have sat on it all this time. It was one of those fabrics I couldn’t bring myself to cut into… you know, inherited from Granny, plus exceptionally good quality, equals inevitable thoughts of sewing tragedy followed by eternal self-damnation…. but I’m making myself get over that nonsense nowadays. Make it! Enjoy it! Live dangerously! So, finally… it helps too that I think Cassie has now grown into fabric of this calibre 😉 not that she didn’t deserve high quality fabrics before, but you know what I mean! it’s very much a grown-up fabric and makes a very smart little work skirt for her now that she has a serious and professional career. The fabric really is beautiful stuff… fine and evenly woven, and there are flecks of all sorts of colours in with the sage green/coffee check… blue, red and gold, caramel brown, forest green, and a hint of purple and black. It has no identifier on it but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was a fully English tweed. My grandmother was very much into that sort of thing 🙂
sie moved out of home she left this fabric behind and I almost started to factor it into my own plans mwahahahahaha… but of course she hadn’t forgotten it, o no! The reason she had deviously left it behind was so that I could make something for her with it! HA! She chose 
Details:
what’s with the ballet pose? I have no idea. Anyway… I have a 
I’ve kept the selvedge from off the fabric, and have sewn these inside one of the pockets! just because I love information like this… namely: this design is by prominent Finnish designer Maija Isola, and was created in 1964! out by a year but definitely still of my era, haha. “Pieni unikko” translates literally to “little poppy” I’m not sure what KI 2009 means yet, but I’m investigating…. Also, how cool is it that the laundering info is printed on the selvedge?! so classy and very considerate really, it’s been along long time since I’ve seen such consideration in a fabric. That information’s the kind of thing I usually forget the very minute I swan out of the shop with my new fabric tucked under my wing.
The loose front pieces also allows you to have these big loose comfortable pockets that you can shove your hands in, while still maintaing quite a slimline dress overall. As a result, the pattern uses very little fabric. I managed to squeeze my pattern pieces out of 1.5m, which is not too bad, not too bad at all, I think *preens oneself on an exceptionally economic layout* I had the merest of scraps left after cutting out my pieces, scraps, I tell you! The pattern has you line the dress, and after a bit of um-ing and aah-ing, I decided to not. Reason? summers here are very hot and I think the breeziness of this lovely cotton fabric is going to be perfect just as it is.
Hello!
I just adore jackets with tonnes of hardware and detailing, like zips and lots of different bits and bobs and interesting pockets. So set about planning for this one to be chockablock with loads of that sort of thing. I considered using the same Burda pattern I used for the previous one, but I had to make lots of additions/adjustments to that in order to make it the complex, feature-laden army-style jacket that I wanted, which is fine! but since making that one, lots of great patterns have popped up with all those features already incorporated into the pattern. Eventually I settled upon the 
There is tonnes of topstitching all over, so satisfied that part of me that adores precision sewing. I’m that weirdo that LOVES topstitching! and am pretty much totally and blissfully happy when I’m hunched over the machine, chugging along; churning out lines upon lines of precise, neatly and evenly spaced, stitching. The wonderful thing about this ripstop is that the little squares in the weave of the fabric make precision stitching and lining up pieces to be perfectly square very very easy.
