I thought you had your leave, Lewis. You're always on leave!

Yo Yo Yo, what is up? It's Friday night and I'm obviously being a bad party animal as I'm at home, blogging, in my jammies. In my defence, I have to be in work at the crack of dawn tomorrow. A big old boo for Saturday working. I have cava and pizza, and I have Monday off, so I'm not going to complain too violently.

Last post I promised a new dress from a new (to me) pattern, and I'm going to deliver on that. In May, when I took part in the Coventry Cash Mob, I bought a couple of Simplicity New Look patterns from the fabric stall in Coventry market. I got chatting to the lady who runs the stall who, seeing me dressed in a fairly mid-century style, pressed a few patterns on me. One of them was New Look 6824, which is hilariously badly marketed:

It took me five minutes to stop laughing.

When I looked at the line drawings I could see a lot of potential, but this envelope is like a riot of fug. First there's the Princess Diana hair, then there's that flammable peach monstrosity. And the drawings are even worse, WTF is that weird purple sub-Ren Faire nonsense? I let her talk me into it anyway though because, as I said, the line drawings. Envelopes like this usually aren't anything to go by, even if the model in this case actually looks quite pleased with herself.

I decided to keep it simple and go with the version on the far left there, the one that seems to be made from sheets. I opted out of the fabric sash though, because I hate those. But look, I'm not beyond the odd bit of WTF myself, because here's the fabric I chose:

Sorry, not sure what's going on with the image quality there but basically here are the salient points of this fabric:

• It's lilac
• It has hearts on it
• It has bones on it
• It has dogs on it
• It has one dog who appears to be being dog-shamed, wearing a sign that says "I heart You"

This was one of the first pieces of fabric I spotted when we were in Paris, it was in the remnants bin at the doorway of Tissus Toto on Rue Clignancourt. I hesitated over it, wondering whether I really would wear a dress covered in guilty-looking dogs. Nic persuaded me to buy it, telling me I'd regret it if I didn't. This is one of many reasons why he is basically the best boyfriend ever - other men would be embarrassed to be seen with someone dressed in fabric like this, but not Nic. What a guy! Anyway, after I bought this I reckon the wee man in Toto thought he'd found himself an easy mark - if he could offload this onto me, what else would I go for? He ended up showing me every bit of novelty fabric he had, near enough. I bought some with owls on it. I am ridiculous. 

The fabric itself is very nice. Toto specialises in African cottons and, while this doesn't have the typical wax print look, it does have that slight stiffness of waxed cotton so no real drape. It behaved perfectly with the pleated skirt.

The Toto dress - NL6824 worn with Vivienne Westwood for Melissa Lady Dragon globe shoes

I cut a straight size 12, as this is what corresponded to my measurements, and I'm usually between a 10 and a 12 in Simplicity New Look patterns. The fit is fine, but I think on a future make I'll tinker a bit by taking it in ever so slightly at the princess seams under the bust. I'll also take a fair bit off the shoulder seams - after wearing this dress on Wednesday, I took the shoulder seams up by an inch and it really improved it. Still, it's nothing major and as the bodice has princess seams I think it's going to be easy to perfect in future. I really like the square neckline, it's a bit different for me but I think it's quite cute, and I love how the fabric looks made into this dress.

A little view of the bodice. The other thing I will do the next time I make this is to tape the neckline - altering the shoulder seams improved how the neckline sits, but that will help as well.

But, you know, DOG DRESS. The dogs somehow manage to look even more sheepish when on a dress. I'm not sure how that works. Also, I wore this with new shoes - well, not so new now as I bought them last month, but I love them. They're sparkly, and weird, and when you walk you can feel the bauble thing bouncing around. It's an odd feeling.

So, totally fug envelope design notwithstanding, this is a great little pattern and one I can see myself getting a lot of use out of in future. 

I'm generally very fond of Simplicity Patterns, so I was really happy when they got in touch with me last week, offering to send me some patterns for myself and some to give away to my readers. I spent a bit of time picking out some patterns for myself (and ended up going for Simplicity 1882 and Simplicity 2442.) When it came to picking out some patterns to give away - well, it was obvious to me that I needed to give away one of my all-time favourite patterns - Simplicity 2444. 

Again with the slightly crappy envelope - did Simplicity get that horrible shiny fabric on consignment or something?!

I have sewn from this pattern six times. SIX TIMES. I'm not going to lie - when the patterns arrived, I briefly considered keeping one of these back for myself as a back-up. I might even buy a back-up, come to that. I love this pattern. You can have a look on my Handmade Wardrobe page to see some of my makes, but don't just take my word for it. Joanne of Stitch and Witter made a gorgeous bird-print version; Cynthia of Dapper Duds made an awesome bow-print one; Lynne of Ozzy Blackbeard made this fabulous measuring-tape one and Gemma Cartwright made this sassy gingham number.

I have two copies of Simplicity 2444 to give away, one in each size option. D5 is sizes 4-12 and P5 is sizes 12-20. You can check the size chart here. If you'd like to win one, just leave me a comment telling me which size you'd like. You can also tell me anything else you'd like to tell me - I'm always interested to hear what fabric you might choose, but you can tell me anything! The giveaway will close on Monday 8th July 2013 at 9pm BST, and is open to anyone anywhere. I'll select the winners at random.

I'm going to leave it here for this evening because cava and Inspector Morse. 

Dog-shaming in dress form, and shoes with balls on. Sometimes I surprise even myself.

It's David Niven, it's Stewart Granger, it's Nigel Havers. It's a green blazer.

Evening all! Having had an day indoors of marking, with only the builder outside and The O.C. season 3 boxed set to stop me going mad with boredom, I'm really super glad that it's the end of the work day. It's been busy as ever, and set to stay that way, but things are pretty good. After being so emotional last week I feel like my equilibrium has been restored, which is really good.

I had a very lovely weekend, which of course helped. On Saturday morning, Nic and I headed to London for a day out with some sewists. In a nice coincidence, Solvi of Delfinelise and Anneke of Annette Tirette were both going to be visiting London at the same time, so we planned a mini meet-up with Kathryn of Kathryn's Busytown. We agreed to meet at Bill's on Brewer Street for brunch, before having a nose around the Liberty sale. As ever, despite never having met any of these lovely ladies before, within minutes we were all chatting like old friends - so much so that it took us ages to even look at the menus! After a very large and very tasty brunch in Bill's, we wandered over to Liberty (and Nic and Anneke's boyfriend Dimitri went to Gosh Comics on Berwick Street.) I'd never actually been to the Liberty haberdashery, which, I know. I must admit though, while I liked it, I didn't love it. The tana lawn is undoubtedly lovely to touch but a lot of the prints just aren't really me, so it was easy to restrain myself. Although I did buy some Merchant and Mills beeswax, which is something I have been meaning to do for ages.

Meeting up with other seamstresses makes you super-conscious of what to wear. Luckily, I had a new handmade dress ready to bust out for the occasion:

The Funnybones dress - worn with Office 'Love Me Tender' shoes

After I made my Rue Paul Albert dress a while ago, I still wanted a dress made from toile du jouy. I haven't impulse clothes shopped for a while, but I bought this Alexander Henry 'Midnight Pastoral' fabric from Fabric Yard one afternoon a few weeks ago when I was idly browsing. I was really impressed with Fabric Yard, I must say. They have a flat rate postage of £1 and my fabric arrived really quickly - I'd definitely shop with them again. Anyway, the fabric is really cool. I love the fact that from a distance it looks very traditional but close up, it's something a bit different:

I love the attention to detail - the little skeletons are just like the pastoral characters you'll see peopling a toile du jouy print, but they are skeletons! Anyway, typically of the Alexander Henry fabric I have sewed with in the past, this was lovely quality and beautiful to sew with. For the bodice, I used an old faithful, Butterick B5748, and went for a gathered skirt because WHY NOT. I fully lined the dress using a lovely cotton sheet, and I hand-picked a lapped zip. Standard.

New Dress Face

Derp Back

After a browse around Liberty we caught up with the boys and headed East to Brick Lane. Kathryn of Yes I Like That is always going on about The Shop on Cheshire Street as a source of cool and cheap vintage fabrics, so we made a beeline for there. It did not disappoint, and we all bought something there. The fabrics were cheap and plentiful, if a bit dusty and once I picked out something I had to go and stand outside. I'll definitely go back, though! All fabric-shopped out, we retired to the nearby Carpenter's Arms for a drink and a chat:

A very international group of sewists - Kathryn (Scottish), Solvi (Norwegian), Anneke (Belgian) and me (Irish) - plus our English photographer, Nic! How very cosmpolitan of us.

Afterwards we went back west to meet Zoe of So, Zo... who was in town teaching at Sew Over It. Solvi suggested that we go to Brasserie Zedel, which has a fabulous art deco cocktail bar. It's to my great shame that I didn't take any pictures in there because it was so beautiful, but Nic and I are going back next week to sample more of their cocktail menu so maybe I will then! It was really good to get the chance to meet Zoe - hers was one of the very first sewing blogs I ever read, and she is just as funny and charming in real life as she is on the internet. I particularly enjoyed her skills at recognising what sewing patterns we were all wearing! I was sad to leave Zedel, especially as the cocktails were so nice, but Nic and I had to bate it back to Marylebone to catch our train back up to Leamington. It was a really lovely day out though, and I made some lovely new friends. Can't be bad, right?

I did some sewing on Sunday, making a dress from a brand new (to me) pattern, so I'll post about that on Friday along with a sewing-related giveaway! But for now, well, I've been marking today so I went out this afternoon and bought myself a treat:

Someone is going to be drunkenly live-tweeting episodes of Inspector Morse tonight. 

Ah, your Auntie Elsie, Brenda. Is she still a cleaner down the brewery?

Hello lovelies! Oh, it's been a funny old week. Perhaps it was the barometric pressure, but I spent most of the week ill and totally all over the place emotionally. I'm much brighter and more myself now, thankfully, I'm not sure I could have passed another week like that!

My new job is still going well, although things are still as topsy-turvy as ever. I got some really positive feedback from my new line manager today though, which made me really happy. There are always going to be ups and downs in my job but after being so unhappy for such a long time at work, it really feels brilliant to finally be enjoying work and feeling challenged and satistfied by it. Long may it last!

I was working from home today and the day started out really dismal and cloudy, but at lunchtime the sun peeped its head out so I scrambled around to get a recent sewing project photographed! This is a dress I made using some of the fabric I bought in Paris, some 100% cotton gingham from La Folie des Coupons on Rue d'Orsel. Unusually for me, I sewed this dress a few weeks ago and then I must have gone off the idea of it or something, because I only got around to finishing it (hemming it) this week. As ever, a bit of distance can be a marvellous thing because I'm very happy with it:

Cornflake Girl dress and Irregular Choice No Place Like Home shoes

The bodice here is kind of experimental. I was really happy with the shape of the neckline on the Shepherd's Bush Sweetheart dress and wanted something similar here, but I didn't want to break up the gingham with princess seams. So this is the bodice from the Eliza M Eliza dress, with the back from Simplicity 2444 and an eyeballed sweetheart neckline. The shape of it isn't perfect but I like it anyway. I LOVE the colour and size of the gingham and couldn't resist pairing the whole thing with my red sequined shoes. Predictable, it is me. I don't care.

Not too much to say in terms of construction here. The gingham wrinkles like anything so it was kind of a pain to work with. I lined the bodice with some cream cotton and did a handpicked lapped zipper. Standard. I hemmed the skirt with some bias binding - some pretty gingham bias binding that was a gift from my friends at Berylune.

Bodice back - I ended up not having quite enough fabric to match the gingham on the back bodice. But honestly, as I can't see it I don't really give a shit.

This picture kind of sucks, but here's my bias bound hem - you can also see how I finished my seams, by turning and stitching them. I love that finish.

It made me happy to sew a Wizard of Oz style dress to wear with my No Place Like Home shoes - along with my cherry Lady Dragon shoes, my sequined shoes are probably my favourites! But I must confess, I don't much care for The Wizard of Oz. It's fine and all, and the dog is cute, but it's not a film I'd choose to watch. It's a bit weary. I decided to name this dress after the Tori Amos song, partly because this week I was feeling all emotional and listening to Tori Amos is good when you feel that way. It's partly because, along with Anne Shirley, Tori Amos is the reason I dye my hair red. I'm talking two serious hero figures of my pre-teen and teenage years, here! Also, fuck it, the UK video for Cornflake Girl is absolutely brilliant:

The Thelma and Louise inspired US video is good too, but I think this one is better.

So, that's my Cornflake Girl dress. Not exactly ground-breaking, but certainly happy-making:

I think I'm actually getting ready to sneeze in this photo...

I wish I had more to say about this! But I had a rough night last night with insomnia and my brain has kind of checked out for the weekend. I'll be on better form next week - I'm off to London tomorrow to meet up with some sewing folks, and I have a little giveaway planned for next week. See you then!

...thought that was a good solution, hangin' with the raisin girls...

The last time I knew you, Brenda, you were living above your dad's chip shop, near the glue factory.

Evening all! One of the things I've been meaning to do forever is share some photos from the second half of our holiday to Paris at the end of April. I know it's nearing the end of June now but what are you going to do?! I also have a new handmade dress to sneak into this post too, so oooooh VALUE, right?!

So, when I left off it was the Monday evening and I'd done a whole lot of fabric shopping. On the Tuesday morning, Nic and I got up and did some grocery shopping in Carrefour before getting on the metro to Ledru-Rollin for the flea market at Porte d'Aligre. We'd been to this small flea market before on a very hot day, and had been charmed by the antiques stalls and fruit markets. It was a much cooler and pretty windy day so we didn't spend a huge amount of time browsing the stalls, but the fruit market was as lovely as it had been before, with vendors offering samples of their delicious fresh fruit. We had lunch on the Promenade Plantee before walking to Bercy to visit the Cinematheque Francaise. Which was CLOSED, because we were too dim to check the opening times before we went. DERP. Anyway, the Cinematheque is in a pretty cool area, so we headed to Bercy Village for a coffee and a little wander in the shops:

Here's me with a big red dog in Bercy Village

Coffee with the face of a bear in Bercy Village

After that the day got a bit strange as we had a long walk, got a bit lost, and got sore feet. But we eventually found our way to Rue Mouffetard and treated ourselves to some crepes. Because why not!

Three cheese crepe. I had a nutella and banana one myself. And the next day I had one with speculoos in it. YUM.

It started to rain just after this picture, so we took refuge in the comic shops of the Latin Quarter before catching the metro home to Montmartre. After a cup of tea and a rest in the apartment, we went out for dinner to the Relais Gascon - a favourite haunt on Rue des Abbesses from our previous visit to Paris, and then the Tuesday "boeuf" (jam) in Autour de Midi on Rue Lepic. This was a gorgeous evening, although despite my promises to myself, I didn't manage to finish my amazing Relais Gascon salad. Next time, though. It's worth going back to Paris just for one of those salads. We got back to our apartment late, after an evening of wonderful jazz and delicious wine. Can't be better than that!

Wednesday 1st May was a public holiday in France (and across a lot of Europe) - Fete du Travail - and the sun came out! I had planned to do a bit more fabric shopping, but all the shops were closed. So, there was nothing for it but to be real tourists. After breakfast we explored around our area La Goutte d'Or a bit more, which was really interesting:

Zola spotting - Place de l'Assommoir. The area we were staying in is where L'Assommoir was set.

I don't think I could get tired of Montmartre, and the area we were staying in - closer to the Goutte d'Or side of la Butte - was so vibrant and fun. Nic and I spent the day really being tourists in Montmartre and watching the Parisians enjoying their day off. We had a picnic lunch at the Sacre Coeur, looked in the windows of all of the estate agents on Rue Caulaincourt (planning out where we're going to buy our Parisian pied-a-terre, naturally) and explored the Cimitiere Montmartre again. Maybe it's ghoulish of me, but I love it in there. It's where Emile Zola was buried, although his body was later transferred to the Pantheon. Before we went into the cemetery, Nic stopped at a newsagent to buy an ice-lolly and the lady who owned it gave me a rose:

Zola's grave

I was surprised to find myself so moved by this monument - Zola's work means a lot to me for a lot of reasons, so it seemed fitting to leave this strange and wonderful writer a tribute. 

We spent the rest of the day as flaneurs, walking and chatting and stopping where we felt like it for glasses of wine and cups of coffee. A bit of exploring took us unexpectedly to the 9th arrondissement, where Nic found a wonderful comic shop and I browsed the afternoon away in various vintage shops and along the antiques market. After a nap and dinner we headed back out for cocktails in Clair de Lune and Le Rosie, on Rue Muller. Le Rosie was fabulous - it was like having cocktails in a stylish friend's living room!

La Roisin in Le Rosie

Le Rosie, much like Clair de Lune, is one of those bars that is really cool without being pretentious. We  were made to feel totally welcome even though most of the other customers seemed to be regulars. In fact, for the remainder of our stay in Paris the barman waved to us every time we walked past, which was really nice!

I did some more fabric shopping early on the Thursday morning at Marche Saint-Pierre and in Toto. Thursday was a glorious day - the first really warm and sunny day we'd had in Paris - and it was really delightful to potter around the fabric shops as they opened.

MOUSE

After stopping on Rue Lepic to stock up on bread and cheese, it was time for us to attempt to get into the Cinematheque again. This time, we checked the opening hours before we went over to Bercy! We had our lunch in the gorgeous gardens by the Cinematheque and fed the birds. This was really lovely if a little surreal - there's a playground there with a carousel, which was closed but still had eerie music floating out of it. It all felt a bit Twin Peaks.

Awww, isn't Nic a cutie?!

The Cinematheque is very cool, and it was well worth going back to Bercy to have a look at their permanent exhibition. We spent an hour or two in there before going for a walk and a further explore. An embankment separates the Cinematheque from the Seine, and we scrambled up it to see what was at the top and found a beautiful, undulating footbridge linking the Cinematheque to the Bibliotheque Francois Mitterand.

We crossed it, and sat by the Seine in the sunshine. There are so many amazing looking bars and restaurants down here - on boats and along the riverside. There's even a floating swimming pool, the Piscine Josephine Baker. This is a bit of Paris we'll be sure to explore a bit more the next time we're in town.

The rest of our holiday was mainly eating and drinking - and a bit more listening to jazz, as well. When Friday lunchtime came round I was sad to be leaving, but it was good to be leaving Paris with so many happy memories. And SO much fabric, as well!

Rue Charles Nodier by dusk

I've already sewed with some of my Paris fabric, and my most recent Paris make was from the Michael Miller Eiffel Tower fabric I bought in Tissus Reine. I initially planned to do something different with it, but I love the bodice of Simplicity 2444 and I knew it would let the fabric really shine.

Place Saint Pierre dress - Simplicity 2444 with a gathered skirt made with Michael Miller Eiffel Tower fabric and worn with Vivienne Westwood for Melissa Lady Dragon shoes

I've kind of got past worrying whether I look good in photos any more - Me Made May put paid to that - and this photo made me laugh so much when I saw it. There was some noise coming from upstairs, and this is what my face looks like when I'm thinking. Just thinking - not raging, although that is what my face suggests! Maybe I just suffer from chronic bitchface? Anyhow, nothing to say about this pattern combination that I haven't said a gazillionty times by now. I love this pattern. I wore this last Sunday to go and meet some friends for brunch and actually this photo is much more reflective of how I was looking at the time:

IT OCCASIONALLY SMILES

Don't be thinking that this might signal the end of my obsession with this fabric or this pattern. It doesn't. But all the same, I might lay off both for a while.

Right. All that reminiscing about Paris has made me want to eat some cheese, so I think I'm going to do that now. Au revoir, mes amies!

This isn't South Belfast, Ma'am. This could all kick off.

Hey everyone, remember me? It's been nearly two weeks since I blogged, which is most unlike me. Getting stuck into any new job would be challenging but my official first two weeks have coincided with a lot of other things. A busy period at work more generally, a crisis (which I can't really go into here, but something similar happened in the previous organisation in 2008 and the whole thing got shut down so, yeah) and seemingly constant changes in the team structure, with one senior team member leaving and two others announcing pregnancies this week! The pregnancies are obviously very happy news though, and one of the ladies is pregnant with twins!

So, the whole thing has been pretty challenging. I'll probably be taking on additional responsibilities in the next couple of months. That's exciting, though. One of the big issues with my previous job was how BORED I was, so I'm enjoying the challenge. For the time being, at least. I have been exhausted, though. I couldn't join the ladies at the big Birmingham meet up yesterday due to severe (and thankfully short-term) lack of funds, and I basically then spent most of the day asleep. I'm back in the saddle now though, and I think once I get my head around the new routine it's all going to be pretty good.

I have been sewing where I can and have three new dresses to show off soon - but in the meantime, here's a recent project that I'm pretty pleased with. I came home from work one day a few weeks ago to find a gorgeous surprise parcel from my friends at By Hand London containing their new pattern - the Victoria Blazer! Now, this was kind of throwing down the sewing gauntlet. I'm happy enough sewing dresses, but a jacket was a new challenge and one I felt I had to step up to. And I'm so glad I did!

Victoria Blazer and Il Fait Chaud dress

As you can see, I went for the cropped version. I am the queen of cardigans, but a cute, casual blazer makes a really nice alternative. I think it looks pretty sweet with one of my many Elisalex dresses!

In terms of construction, this was pretty simple. Well,  it would have been if I hadn't been sewing while tired last Saturday. I got the jacket sewed up in an afternoon but it would have come together much more quickly if I hadn't done the following things:

• Cut the front pieces too short and have to recut (luckily I had lots of fabric!)
• Sew the collar stand on back to front
• Sew the lapel seam the wrong way
• Sew the front darts in back to front

AH HERP DERP DERP. None of these mistakes were the fault of the pattern or the instructions, I should add, I was just having one of those extremely dozy days! And you know when one thing goes wrong, then more things are likely to go wrong in its wake because you've cursed yourself. Heh. Even with all of my faffing around, this sewed up pretty quickly and I am sure I will make more. One thing I do need to say, and actually this applies to the Elisalex dress pattern as well, is that the drafting on the sleeves is STONE COLD AWESOME. I mean, seriously. They ease in so perfectly and so easily, they're such a joy! For the main fabric, I used some red drill from my lovely local Royal Fabrics (as mentioned by Karen in her Guardian column!) and I lined it with some stripy floral cotton lawn I bought in Paris:

On closer inspection, I think I might have cut this out with the pattern upside down?

I actually have loads of this left, having bought it as a coupon, so I might make myself a wee matching frock at some point. In any case, it was pretty perfect as lining. I also accessorised the jacket with a portrait of my mentor:

Screw you guys, I'm going home.

Based on my measurements, I cut the 12. The jacket is designed to be a loose fit and I like it a lot, which is surprising because it's not at all something I'd go for in a RTW jacket. I think for my next one I will go a size smaller though just to get it a bit more fitted. 

Close up of the awesome

Sewing this has definitely whetted my appetite for sewing other outerwear. I know not every pattern will be as well-drafted and cute as this, but it's got me thinking that maybe there's a Sewaholic Robson trench somewhere in my future. I feel like I could take this on, in spite of the few (ha) issues I had (with my own stupidity) in sewing this. I at least need to make enough of these to match my Elisalex dresses because the patterns work so beautifully together!

I wore this today for a little swan around town, and I also took the chance to show off some new shoes!  Last week Surfdome got in touch with me and asked if I'd have a look around their site and choose something from them to review. Now, I'm not much of a surfer, being that I can't even swim! But I looked at the site to be polite, and found that as well as stocking lots of surf and skate wear, Surfdome also stock one of my favourite brands, Irregular Choice. I chose these Patty shoes because: polka dots.

Of course they're quite ridiculous, but very pretty. I'm really happy with them - and I certainly have enough red or polka dotted clothes to wear with them!

I did take them off in the afternoon though, as I spent it down in the Pump Room Gardens at the 35th annual Leamington Peace Festival. Not much to report except dancing, chatting, eating and hanging out with my friends and with my Dad and uncle. And, did I mention eating?

It was good pizza. Both times.

So, that's the craic with me. Oh, but one other little thing - Handmade Jane emailed me a while ago to tell me I should check out Cloth Magazine, and here's why!

First of all, could you not just eat Elisalex up? She's so adorable! (So is Charlotte, who I shamelessly cropped out of the photo to get to my bit, sorry Charlotte) But, this was nice to read because I agree with Elisalex's tip - when have you ever known me to be underdressed - and because she's so right about the kindness and awesomeness of the online sewing community. I was so touched to get the Victoria pattern in the post, I've had a blast every single time I've met up with online sewing friends. Damn, this stuff is good! 

Right, I'm going to leave you with one more picture of my OMG FASHUN BLOGGER POPPED COLLAR and then I'm going to finish my Elderflower Collins and go to bed. Rockstar.

I MADE A JACKET AND I'M SMUG ABOUT IT.

Aye, ye cannae beat a cooked breakfast, man!

Evening! I've been having a busy week so far, having officially started my new job on Monday. Considering how much I usually complain about work, I've been feeling great about it. Today was genuinely excellent, in fact. I hope this a trend that continues. Anyway, what with that and the suddenly glorious weather I have fallen behind with blogging a bit. I have two finished dresses to post about, and three episodes of Scott and Bailey. OOOPS! Well, I suspect that most of you aren't hanging out dying to read my thoughts on Scott and Bailey but in the interests of completeness I will post those final recaps pretty shortly.

So, things are all good here in Casa Clackett. The weekend truly was glorious, wasn't it? On Saturday, Nic and I got out into the sunshine for a walk and a picnic. In May I bought a dress on ebay that I couldn't really wear until my Me Made May challenge finished, so I was excited to wear it. I'm sad like that. We went for a walk along the canal, did some grocery shopping and then had a picnic lunch in Victoria Park.

Saturday 1st June 2013 - Fever Maui Atlantis dress, red Birkenstock 'Madrid' sandals and Zatchels 11.5" green satchel

I actually have this dress in green and love it, so when I spotted the pink one for £2.50 on ebay, I pounced. I altered the green one to make the halter straps into shoulder straps and I am considering doing that with this one, too. Halternecks are cute and summery but wearing one usually gives me a headache with the weight of my bust dragging on the neck-ties. This one didn't though, so I'll have to think about it. This was the perfect dress for a lazy Saturday, I'm very glad I bought it and that the weather was obliging enough to allow me to wear it! Saturday was also the first proper turn out of the satchel I bought in the Zatchels birthday sale. It finally arrived on Thursday 30th May - after having been ordered on 20th April. The satchel itself is beautiful and I really do love it - it's really beautifully made and is a vibrant kelly green in real life, and the 11.5" size is perfect for a small handbag. I now have three Zatchels bags and I'm really happy with their overall quality.

That said, I'm not sure I would order directly from Zatchels again because I was pretty unimpressed with their customer service. I understood when I ordered that it could take up to 30 days for my satchel to arrive, and that they'd probably be a bit busier due to the popularity of the sale. So I honestly didn't mind waiting a while for the satchel to arrive. I was thoroughly unimpressed by the emails from the director, Dean. I'm not on Facebook but I understand the Zatchels page was filled with complaints from customers. An earlier email acknowledged this and apologised but another email at the end of May to all customers basically said "they're taking longer now, be patient, you'll get it when you get it" which I didn't think was an adequate response really.

I should say that I was feeling a bit irritated having had ordering shenanigans with my satchel. It was delayed due to them running out of green leather - which I only found out after numerous emails and then eventually on twitter. Then I got an order confirmation a good four weeks after my initial one, with a new order number. After chasing this up on twitter, I was told that this was in error and I hadn't been charged. That order was cancelled, but then a week later I was refunded my initial order with a snotty email saying "we see you no longer require your satchel"! I got good customer service over the phone and on twitter, and my satchel was eventually re-paid for and dispatched, but the whole thing was such a saga it puts me off ever ordering from them again. Luckily lovely Berylune stock them, so should I find myself in desperate need of another one, I'll buy directly from them. Brilliant customer service and no waiting around, either! Or, you know, I could just have waited til the Brandalley sale 5 weeks after my order, because the people who bought satchels then got theirs a day or two later. Not too impressed, Zatchels.

Anyway, enough griping because I do LOVE my bag. I used to have a bright green handbag in my PGCE days which died from overuse, so it's nice to have another one back in my life.

On Sunday, I was teaching the second part of my Colette Patterns Hazel class at Berylune. My student, Hannah, had managed to get loads done in the first session so we were keen to crack on and get her dress finished. We were joined again by the amazingly talented Fiona Murray, who took lots of beautiful photographs. Look at her website to see who else she works with - I'm in GOOD company! We got our heads down and had completely finished the dress - zip, hem and all - by 2:30, so I helped Hannah with her next project as well. Have a look at Fiona's blog for her thoughts on the day, but I'm also going to pinch a couple of photos to show you!

L-R - a box of amazing vintage seam bindings that Hannah bought on ebay; showing Hannah how to pin a lapped zipper in place; work in progress

The finished article - Hannah in her gorgeous handmade Hazel dress, modelled in the shop at Berylune.

Hannah had bought the fabric during her travels in Thailand, and hadn't thought she would have enough for a dress. The Hazel dress requires pretty minimal yardage so we were able to use the v-shape of the bodice and the dirndl skirt to really make the most of the fabric's border print. I think I was as thrilled to see Hannah's dress completed as I have ever been with any of my own. That's the joy of teaching, I suppose! If you're local to Leamington Spa and want to sign up to my classes you can do so here.

So anyway, that's enough of me for this evening. I have dinner to cook and things to do. Watch out for some Scott and Bailey chat coming your way soon, though!

Eh, no. I am NOT dancing to 'You Can Leave Your Hat On'

Hey guys! It's JUNE. The SUN IS SHINING. I'm a BIT PISSED. This is a good thing! No, seriously though. I was teaching today at Berylune, and then I was drinking cocktails in Amy's garden. That is my kind of Sunday. My very excellent student finished her dress and looked gorgeous, and I can't wait to share the photos with you when I get them. But in the meantime, I have the last of my Me Made May dresses to show to you, and a little bit of reflection, too.

So. Here's what I wore on Bank Holiday Monday:

Honolulu Baby dress and Vivienne Westwood for Melissa Lady Dragon Cherry shoes - and, just seen, my new yellow Zatchels satchel

It was warm and sunny but windy on Monday - hence the Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka hair. I can't really remember what we did on Monday. Nic and I had a picnic lunch in the park and went for a walk, and watched DVDs. Relaxing! I knew I had Tuesday off work so there was no need to worry about fitting lots in to Monday. I love this dress, and it really needed a sunny day to show it off!

Tuesday was a bit different though, weather wise. I don't think the sun even came up.

Tuesday 28th May 2013 - Stay The Course dress and red shoes from Topshop

Ah I love this photo but I kind of hate this photo. The weather was shitty on Tuesday but as I was spending the day indoors, it didn't matter. Nic was doing a screening of Round Midnight for some American Studies MA students, so I went along to see it on the big screen. I'd seen a bit of it before, but never the whole way through. The experience was marred somewhat by the person sitting next to me sniffing actually the WHOLE way through the film, but it's such a lovely lovely film and I was surprised by how moved I was by it. Then Nic and I came home and had dinner and watched a bunch of super-sad episodes of The West Wing (don't want to spoil anyone who hasn't seen it, but for those who have it was some season 7 episodes and one of them I cried the full way through it. Like actual, heaving sobs. God.) Anyway, yeah this dress. When I was making the Rue Paul Albert dress and two zips broke, I went to put this dress on and the fucking zip broke on it too! So I had to replace it, and I did, and I love this dress basically. Good old Michael Miller fabrics. My heroes.

Wednesday 29th May 2013 - Meta dress, yellow cardigan from H&M and Poetic Licence 'Backlash' boots

I can't believe I was wearing these boots in May! Depressing. I had a busy day at work on Wednesday because the temp who is taking over my job started and I had lots of induction things to do with her. She was dressed all in black and one of the first things she said to me was about how colourful I was! This dress made my colleagues laugh because recently we had a measurement-related error in our field of work and I had lots of orders to make measuring-tape ties or shirts. Obvs I'm not going to make them, but it made me laugh. Anyway, it took til the 29th day of May for me to figure out how not to look like a total hot mess in end-of-work day photos, so maybe I'm set for NEXT May, right?

Thursday 30th May 2013 - Feckin Birds dress and Topshop shoes

Um, yeah, so clearly haven't QUITE nailed the not looking like ass thing. I was working in London on Thursday so was on a very early train and had a very full day, and this is me upon arriving home. I'm actually pretty thrilled with how good the dress looks after a full day of wear though, although the tulip skirt has flattened a little bit with lots of sitting. Thursday was lovely, though. I had a busy day, then came home and made dinner for friends, and then more friends came round and we had an impromptu mini party thing. It was great - I have such wonderful friends. Friends who understand my need to drunkenly tweet them gifs that make me laugh.

Friday 31st May 2013 PART THE UNE - Home Sewing is Easy dress and Vivienne Westwood for Melissa shoes. Thanks to Lauren for taking the photo!

I wasn't in work on Friday. Nic was out all day at a conference so I had a lazy morning then rolled over to Lauren's house to sew and watch Made in Chelsea - she's watching it from the start, and we had some excellent series 2 episodes to watch together. It was so much fun. I actually think I need to take this dress in a wee bit because it's a bit looser in the waist than I would like, but of course I always love wearing it. As it was the last day of May and also payday, I had a dinner date planned with Nic in the evening, hence the part one. After spending the afternoon with Lauren, I went home and watched more Made in Chelsea, and then got changed and headed out for dinner with my sweetie:

Friday 31st May 2013 part two - Shepherd's Bush Sweetheart dress and Office 'Love Me Tender' shoes

This was worn for dinner and then drinks and then a walk home in the warm moonlight. I wore a petticoat underneath this dress and felt pleasantly ridiculous in it. I loved this dress when I finished it, but I love it even more now. And even more than that after a few of these on Friday night:

Raspberry mule!

And then it was over. I wore a non me-made on Saturday because I could. But I wore a handmade dress today.

What did I learn? Well, let's have a look at my pledge:

I, Roisin of But It Can't Be From Dolly Clackett, She Gave Me an Easter Egg!, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '13. I endeavour to wear one handmade dress each day for the duration of May 2013, with no repeats. In addition, I pledge to sew at least two more garments during the course of the month.

This was a step-up from last year's plegde, when I pledged to wear handmade dresses at least twice a week. That ended up being really do-able, and I realised then if I hadn't tagged on the 'no repeats' bit, I could have done the whole month. I've sewn at lot since then so I thought no repeats would still work out this time. In terms of the sewing new garments - well, I managed three complete dresses, and one that's just needing a hem. So, that's good!

I ended up not having any problems fulfilling the no repeats bit of the pledge. I have a lot of handmade dresses now, and I have the kind of job where most of them are totally suitable to wear to work. So, I didn't find that I had any wardrobe gaps really. I'm used to wearing dresses throughout the year too, so I didn't find the sudden drop in temperature to be a problem really either. I was pleased to find that my handmade wardrobe was suitable for work, holiday, and even a job interview! That makes me really happy. I did struggle to get a photo every day without looking tired, and that's partly because May was an uncharacteristically intense month. I got through it though, and for that I have to offer my heartfelt thanks to my darling Nic. He takes the majority of photos for my blog anyway, but Me Made May was a big ask of him. I'm lucky to have such a supportive thoughtful boyfriend, and one who is keen to be a part of my hobby. I'm so excited some of you all are going to get to meet him on 15th June in Birmingham! I was glad to get to the end of the month, mainly so I could stop taking photos every day.

I did learn a lot from the process. Last May, Me Made May kickstarted me into sewing more regularly. This Me Made May made me realise that the way I sew - basically a lot of repeats but in varying fabrics  - works for my lifestyle and my body. I felt proud to have built a collection that I love to wear and that makes me happy. I want to thank Zoe for arranging this challenge, I can honestly say that taking part in Me Made May 2012 changed my relationship with sewing and in a good way. I have been sewing a lot more this year and it's got me through some stressful times at work, and has made me happy. This will continue. So, while Me Made May is over for this year, Me Made Living will carry on!

Right, I'm off. I'll be back later in the week!