What a Liberty!

Today I just wanted to take a look at a couple of gorgeous fabrics by Liberty of London.

It isn't something I thought I would like having always seen Liberty as very floral and twee however I was doing myself out of some good fabric finds.

It all stemmed from finding this AMAZING fabric - involving two of my favourite things, both lizards and tortoises no less (swoon). I had no idea it was a Liberty print when I saw the image but it certainly changed my mind about the designer. I figured this was a slightly more grown up way of getting reptile print into my clothing right? (A possible Anna dress me-thinks)

Gustav and Otto by Liberty of London

 I found it on a fantastic website AliceCaroline who sells a vast range of Liberty prints, sometimes ones not available through Liberty themselves. I'm not kidding I bought reems of this stuff...and its beautiful! Its 'tana cotton lawn' and has like a silk feel about it but with the sturdier less-flimsy quality of cotton.

There are some cool pigeon/doves in our new garden that alway eat our neighbours berries and when I saw a fabric that reminded me of them - 'Strawberry Thief' -  another deal was done.

Said bird...

 I have a simple shift dress in mind for the dark blue version - and well the other is all bright and tropical so I just got that for the stash...

I ordered the Tropical one from AliceCaroline and the Blue version from Liberty directly. Look what they sent!! What a treat....I felt so guilty it wasn't a gift :-/

How special is that!

Just so you can see colours...AliceCaroline purchase

Now these are some fabrics I don't want to mess up....I've selected a very simple shift dress pattern and will try with that, instructions and all...

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Black Prada Dress - Is it Amish?

Another day another Prada dress..... but this one took significantly less time to make - one weekend it turns out. Do you ever get those random bursts of sewing energy? I try to take full advantage and finish what I can when the mood is like that!

Lovely fabric again from MinervaCrafts - they have 11 colours of this stuff by the way!!

I wanted to try sleeves on this one so trial and error, whacked some on there - as usual it didn't fit first time around so made the armholes much wider to accommodate a small sleeve. Considering this is my self-drafted TNT pattern, I had to make a lot of adjustments to fit it which is odd, not sure I've changed shape that much! These dresses have been a lesson in going back to basics - the next bit of clothing I make will be from an actual pattern with actual instructions and everything....weird.

It is exactly the same as the other one except with sleeves....and a bit longer as this one didn't get chopped up. I can't help but feel a bit dowdy in it - I think its the neckline - something just isn't quite right. But neither can I be bothered to fix it. It reminds me of those Amish dresses that are a bit like shapeless dresses with head holes in the top.

See?

I have therefore attempted to jazz it up a bit with heels and a spiky belt to feel less weird. And have worn actual makeup which is unusual for this blog! (Just had those semi-permanent eyebrows done - amazing).

Bit more awkward posing...

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Purple Prada Procrastination Dress - was it a win?

This dress was a loooooonnnngggg time in the making! Talk about procrastination - I started it last August. And as per usual it did not turn out as per the original plan!

I found some beautiful Prada fabric from Minerva Crafts - its a lovely drapey crepe fabric that is 'self-lined' i.e. its got satin on the back of it. Its a great weight fabric and such high quality I would recommend this no end.

Back in August I started this project with such enthusiasm - I used my self-drafted shirt dress pattern and wanted to make use of the silky backed fabric by using as a feature. The centre plackets were turned outwards to contrast with the matte crepe side and sewn straight up for a chic and slick look. An invisible zip was inserted in the side seam again for a flawless finish. And that's about where the 'high-end'ness of this dress ended....and typical bodge-it-up me started again.

I have absolutely no idea why but the hem went seriously awry...It was so uneven that I had to start trimming and trimming around to get it vaguely the same length all the way round - it started out as knee length!! I had also made bias strips from the satin side with the intention of making a lovely collar and contrast bound armhole...

Then work stopped. For months. I think I just had no idea how to finish the hem, or daren't try. So there it sat until a couple of weeks ago when I just wanted to get rid of it.

Spurred on by having hemmed the circle skirt I figured I would just get on and do it, it wasn't so scary hemming a curved line after all, particularly with the slight stretch of this fabric.

I then added the bias binding to the neck and armholes - then promptly had to cut the armhole ones off again - sigh - they made the dress way too tight. In order to just have done with the matter then got serged and hemmed normally  no fancy trim!

So this was the end result after all this time! In the end it was quite comfortable and not too bad - weirdly enough I used the black version of the same fabric to make an almost identical dress in only 2 days! (I'll post that one up next :-)

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