I’ve made this rather awesome new dress, if I say so myself!! Paprika!! Rust!! Kinda… burnt orange/dark red/burgundy/wine!!! It has a strongly autumnal-flavour in colour and feel, but actually it’s beautifully cool and breezy enough for summer too. I wore it today and it was super comfortable in spite of the 38C heat. Phew!
The pattern is the Cissy dress pattern by new company Homer and Howells; I discovered and started following them on instagram a few months ago and was thrilled when they asked if I would like to try out this particular design… because I knew it would make a lovely summer frock 🙂
I had this glorious richly-coloured lace that’s been languishing in my stash for hmmm goodness knows how long … I can barely remember its purchase! I’m pretty sure I bought it at Tessuti’s in Melbourne on one of my holidays over there with Mum and Cassie. Like about 95% sure. #youknowthingsarebadwhen… It’s one of those fabrics I’ve taken out and petted every now and then, even laid out pattern pieces on it before having second thoughts, but finally I felt this particular project was just the right thing.
The pattern is an exceptionally easy thing to make. It does have pockets, beautiful great big pockets too, absolutely perfect; but in the spur of the moment I just couldn’t think of a way of inserting them nicely or invisibly enough into my underlined lace dress, so left them out this time. Who even am III????!! but really. I’m a little ashamed I didn’t think a bit harder, because right now I can think of two separate ways I could have made it work, hmmm. But I’m feeling too stressed out to unpick all that overlocking to put some in right now. Maybe later. After the wedding… 🙂
Of course I needed to underline, because it’s lace, and therefore completely see-through. I had a length of white cotton in my stash too, inherited from Mum’s stash; that was just the right sized piece, and I thought the white underneath would be really cool.
But you know what? it wasn’t … when the dress was finished, I decided the white cotton was actually really awful; just too harsh of a contrast. So I dunked the completed dress into a dyepot of mixed orange/red/brown/hot pink dyes. And now I think it’s lovely! the underlining is almost the same colour now, just a shade lighter than the lace, and I think absolutely perfect. I’m really going to enjoy wearing this chic thing!!
Notes; I shortened the sleeves by about 9cm, and the dress by about 17cm from the top edge. At full length, the dress was just a little too “granny-ish”, and yes I know I AM now an actual granny! but there’s granny-chic which is cool; and then there’s just “granny” but not in a chic way. The lace that I chose, combined with the long skirt tipped the original look into the latter but I do really love it at this slightly shorter length! I actually do have fabric in mind for this pattern at the designed-for longer length, but that will probably not happen until after Cassie and D’s wedding… ha! I have so much to do!!! #notevenlaughing #cryingjustabit #ineedaholiday
I managed to incorporate the natural scalloped lace edge into the hemline, which I think is super pretty! but sadly didn’t have enough lace do the same for the sleeves. They’re just hemmed.
Details:
Dress; Homer & Howells Cissy dress pattern, lace with dyed cotton underlining
Shoes; caramel/ivory clogs are made by me, and my own design, all details here. White shoes are also made by me, at a shoe camaraderie workshop, all details here
I made the matching onesie using my current favourite onesie pattern, Burda 9434. I made it using a scrap of cream coloured cotton jersey, and white plastic snaps, that I bought along with their matching tool from Spotlight. I don’t know why I haven’t used these before! because they really are far superior to the metal versions… I’m only sad that the white plastic did not take up the dye, like AT ALL. Oh yes, I obviously dyed the cream onesie to make it motley brown, like Yoda’s robes. I used dark brown thread so it would match the final colour.
So, I made a dress… or something?! I’m not 100% sure about this one. Is it a dress? or a nightie? or maybe a choirboy/celestial angel robe? The jury is out!
Actually, this top started out as a dress too, but surprisingly she wasn’t into it as a dress. I’d gone to great lengths to find a piece of matching cream-coloured fabric for the yoke for hers, and was very pleased to unearth an old cushion cover of a really nice cream coloured cotton damask from my stash. Normally, Cassie prefers, nay demands! cream- or ivory-coloured tops, so I was a little nonplussed when she suggested the yoke be dyed! Who is this person and what have you done with my daughter?! However I could appreciate that the all cream number as a dress was a little, um choirboy, thus the snap decision to lop off the bottom to make it a top. Fortunately she was satisfied!
Yes, I know; a complete mis-quote of an already mis-quote… *braces oneself for outraged Holmes enthusiasts*
That’s not a criticism btw, just an observation. I really love my new Sherlock Holmes jacket, and I really loved making it too; but I’ve admit; it was not a particularly easy project. Even given the fact that I complicated things for myself a. dyeing and b. deciding I absolute HAD to have in-seam pockets – which were a big success in the end if I say so myself. I’m so glad I put them in. Actually I can’t imagine a jacket without pockets of some kind.
A person could be forgiven for thinking that I had abandoned my totally local, 1 year 1 outfit project, since there has been no mention of it here for months!… *blush* however, it has been plodding along, slowly but surely, and is now FINISHED!!!! Hurrah! At last!
Acid yellow; from sour grass stems and flowers,
Pink, from avocado pits,
and that lime-y green colour at the neckline, and seen in closeup a few pictures down, was the result of over-dyeing, soaking some of my spare indigo yarn in a sour grass (oxalis) dye bath and then with just a single coreopsis flower (orange) tossed in to give it a bit more oomph when I realised the yellow was a bit weak.
Pride of place of course goes to Mum’s skirt… 
a fully hand-embroidered and hand stitched Alabama Chanin skirt; with embroidery in the reverse appliqué method, and using the four panelled, mid length skirt pattern from the book Alabama Studio Sewing + Design by Natalie Chanin. The cotton jersey fabrics were originally white and Mum dyed them herself in two different shades of grey and blue. Mum traced and cut the stencil design June’s Spring from p116 in the book herself, enlarging by 300% as recommended, (
When snipping out the motifs she carefully left a very narrow border of the cream stencil round each one.
A month or so ago Mum mentioned how she specifically wanted an unobtrusive, very plain white top to wear with this skirt so I offered to run one up for her… I chose the Esme top pattern from Lotta Jansdotter’s book Everyday Style and a slubby plain white cotton from Fabulous Fabrics. I measured Mum all over, secretly storing the measurements away for future use, mwahahaha… no one gets away from the handmade in my family!! and drew the pattern so as to custom fit it or Mum’s measurements. Instead of the neckline facings I finished the neckline with a bias cut strip, because I think it’s a much nicer and neater finish for a neckline edge. Mum wants to know how to do this herself so I’ve promised to write a tutorial sometime.
t the ways. It’s easy. It’s breezy. It’s the palest of soft cloud-grey with teeny ivory stripes. It’s crinkly-linen-tastic on the outside, and lusciously silk-lined on the inside. It’s a midi length #currentcrave The skirt can be styled in multiple different ways.
O hey-a! After finishing my own Kelly anorak and having it admired to the nth degree by family members, I made a few more! a pale grey one for Cassie, and I also made a deep cobalt blue one for Tim’s girlfriend Kelly. Well, it seemed only right that she should have a “Kelly” too!
I quickly snapped that top picture of an unsuspecting Cassie waiting to meet up with me in town before she noticed me heading towards her… I know it’s a bit blurry and not very posed to show off the anorak to modelly perfection, but I just really like it nonetheless… to me it attests that she’s been wearing it a tonne, in fact every single occasion that I’ve seen her in the past three weeks since I finished it and gave it to her she has been wearing it. There’s no greater compliment to a seamster than that! as well as a testament to the pattern being an absolute style winner. Kelly’s worn hers each time I’ve seen her since I gave it to her too, but I’ve not taken any pictures of her in it.. will update if she sends me one 🙂
Both the anoraks are in a nice weight cotton drill from Spotlight, in fact, all the other bits and pieces are from Spotlight too. In both anoraks, I added a few inches to the length of the body and modified the pockets to have separate pocket flaps so as to close the pockets; otherwise these are both made up exactly to the pattern.
This picture below of Kelly’s anorak has been my most “liked” picture on instagram ever! far more than anything I have ever made for myself! Interesting, no? Well, I think it is, anyway 😉 I don’t know what that “says”, if anything at all, but maybe something. Social media is such a funny phenomenon. Something else also interesting to me is how a person, any person, can have a certain number of followers and the number of “likes” never ever reaches anywhere close to that number. Honestly, I have no idea about how or why this is so, but it’s just a curious thing.
I’d got enough of the same white cord for Kelly’s anorak , but since I’d found a nice, perfectly colour-matched blue zip for hers’, and used blue thread for all topstitching and there was no other white anywhere in the jacket; the white cord looked all wrong. And naturally there’s no such thing as blue cord in the whole of Perth! so I just had to dye it. And, when your regular dye-pot is HUGE and there’s just one little length of cord what’s a mad maker to do? but of course, improvise.
