Do you know how hard it is to fake your own death? Only one man has pulled it off: Elvis.

OH HELLO! Happy Friday evening! I hope things are good with you all. I've had kind of an annoying week. Well, annoying with a few high points. Nic and I went out for burritos with Rick and Lauren on Monday night, which was great. I finished my yellow cardigan, which I will blog about soon, and I got some frankly fucking OUTSTANDING shoes in the post on Tuesday...

SHUT THE DOOR. How good are these?! They're from Miss L Fire, and I pre-ordered them last month. Yes, I plan to wear them with my Lobsterlex dress because duh.

These bright spots aside, work has been exhausting and a bit stressful. I had to organise an event for next week at very short notice, and it was one of those things where it came together really quickly and then, bit by bit, it started to fall apart. Anyway, I got it sorted out in the end and it's going to go ahead on Monday but, man. These last two days have been kind of a pisser.

Also, the man who was looking at our Macbook came back to me on Wednesday to say that it was going to cost a minimum of £570 to fix it, as the logic board and keyboard were damaged beyond repair. He thought that the other things could possibly be cleaned, but couldn't guarantee that more parts wouldn't be needed. But, we agreed to do a part-exchange on a brand new, sealed in box Macbook of the same spec with a years' warranty with Apple for a really reasonable price, so it's all good. After using this little Chromebook laptop for a day, Nic was all, "I don't care how much it costs! I want our Macbook back!" Fair enough. I know though, talk about first world problems. My wallet is too small for my fifties and my diamond shoes are too tight!

Me, from now on.

That has been the craic this week anyway. And now it is Friday! The sun has been shining and we have a fun weekend lined up, starting with the bottle of the prosecco that is currently chilling away in the fridge. And, I have a new dress to blog about!

So, okay, the story with this dress is that I went fabric shopping in Birmingham with Amy, Helen and Marie a couple of weeks ago. Because I haven't been sewing all that much recently, I wasn't really in the market for much shopping but, you know, it would have been just rude not to buy anything. I bought a few bits from the market, and we went to Barry's last of all. I was mooching around when I spotted some familiar-looking stretch cotton sateen...

Bottom right is the sateen in question

Any of y'all with long memories might remember that I made a dress out of this fabric before...

Rachel dress - made in September 2013

I made that dress - a combination of the By Hand London Anna bodice and Charlotte skirt - in September 2013, and I wore the shit out of it over the next few months. I loved everything about it, but as it doesn't fit I haven't worn it in over a year and, a few months ago, I gave it to a friend. So when I saw the very same fabric in a different colour I thought the time was right to make myself a new one. And here it is!

Blossom Time dress, worn with Mel 'Raspberry' heart shoes

I feel like there's not a great deal to say about this dress! The only difference from the first one I made, apart from the size and the colour, is that I used a concealed zip rather than a lapped zip in this dress. Over the last year or so I have come to prefer them, although I think style-wise, they work equally well in this sort of dress:

Here's my bum. No pattern matching. No fucks given.

I used the size 8 Anna bodice and the size 10 Charlotte skirt pieces. I didn't move the darts on the skirt to meet the pleats/darts on the bodice as the print is so busy that the darts kind of disappear into one another! The bodice and the skirt fit nicely together, despite being different sizes, although I did have to increase the seam allowance at the top of the skirt so that it would match up with the bodice. I could have sized down on the skirt to get more of a wiggle shape, but I wanted something I could move around in and that I would feel comfortable in at work.

It was good to sew something that's out of my usual fitted bodice-full skirt silhouette. I've been wanting to add a few pencil-style dresses to my wardrobe, having given away nearly all of the shop-bought pencil dresses I own! The nice thing about that is I gave them to a colleague, who often wears them to work, so I still get to see them. 

The cotton sateen is very enjoyable to work with. It has a bit of stretch and a good bit of body, and it doesn't need to be treated much differently to 100% cotton. I used a slightly cooler iron on it, but that's about it. I pinked all of the seams - I had done that on the original dress and it held up really well. It seemed like the best finish for this fabric so as not to add any additional bulk. 

I have been heavily into florals this year. I've only made one novelty-print dress so far in 2015! (which I haven't blogged yet, but I will eventually) I think you can see why I couldn't resist this print, though. I'll have to get back to my crazy prints eventually though, right?

Anyway, it's Friday night here and I need to crack open the prosecco and start my weekend. Have a good one, everybody!

I've always said humans need more animal blood. It keeps the spine straight.

Hello hello! What's the haps, boys and girls? I am having a very restful and fun weekend after an unexpectedly stressful and annoying week. Work has been busy and a little bit irritating - well, it could have been worse on both scores, but my patience was limited this week - and, on Tuesday, Nic spilled beer on our lovely Macbook Air and...well, if that's ever happened to you, you'll know that beer and expensive electronic equipment do not mix. It's been sent to be looked at, and it's probably going to be reasonably expensive to fix. We bought a chromebook thing so that Nic can continue to work until the Mac is fixed or replaced, and it's fine. Actually, it's kind of a hilarious knock-off of a Mac except that it's turquoise, but it's doing the job for now.

So, it hasn't been a red letter week, all things considered. But it took an upswing towards the end of the week - we had dinner in the pub with friends on Thursday night and I was working from home on Friday and the sun came out! I had quite a lot to do, but it was much easier to get it done with sun streaming in through the (open) windows. Nic and I went out for a walk at lunchtime, had lunch in The Larder in The Park and got some photos of a dress I recently made. I haven't been sewing much at all recently. Work has really taken its toll on me in the last few months and it's left me with very little mental (or physical) energy for much else. I do have some projects backed up to blog about, and I haven't completely stopped sewing or anything - it just sort of feels that way because my output is so much lower than it was this time last year!

Anyway, I had a few days off a few weeks ago (just before we went to Bristol) and on the Friday morning, I got some beautiful fabric in the post:

Nature Garden by Timeless Treasures

Awww yeah, am I right?! I put it straight in the washing machine so I could wash and dry it and sew it in one day. That's how excited I was to sew it, and I wanted to be able to wear it in Bristol that weekend. I've been after a fabric like this basically ever since I've been able to sew, so I could make a dress inspired by this lovely cherry blossom Bernie Dexter dress. To show off the pretty print, I wanted to keep it simple, so I reached for the Emery dress by Christine Haynes. As far as I'm concerned, it's the perfect canvas for a pretty print. Also, I can knock one up pretty quickly because I know it fits me and I have worked out my own construction order. By bedtime Friday night, I had a whole outfit planned out...

Flatlays FTW

I didn't recreate this outfit exactly when I was in Bristol - those purple clogs need a bit more breaking in - but I did yesterday, when it was finally officially spring!

The Rural Juror dress - Christine Haynes Emery dress, worn with purple Swedish hasbeens peep toe sandals, pink Zatchels satchel and pink Hell Bunny 'Paloma' cardigan

So, one of the challenges of working with a border print fabric for a garment is that either you cut the bodice on the straight grain, but with the print running the wrong way, or you cut it on the cross grain and have the print running the right way. Yeah, that sounds like a no-brainer, but with a quilting cotton it can be a bit of a risk. It wasn't too bad in this case, although I can really feel the stretch in the skirt! I cut my usual size in the bodice but I gave myself a tiny bit more ease by leaving a bit more room at the side seams. You can probably see a bit of wrinkling under the bust and, although the bodice isn't tight, I am much more aware of the waist seam than I am in other dresses!

Totally worth it though, because I really love this dress. I bought two metres of the fabric (I bought it from Modes4U, if you want to get some yourself) and, as a result, the skirt isn't as full as most of my other Emery dresses. I think it's more than full enough, however! I didn't try to pattern match the side seams but all you constables in the pattern matching police can sit the fuck down, because I *did* make an effort to pattern match across the back...

Yes, I wouldn't win the sewing bee. But as I have no interest in going on the sewing bee, I can deal. The cherry blossoms on the back bodice don't look matched, but they are matched as close as they can be.

And here it is from the front...

So that is the craic with the dress. I really do love it and I'm glad that it's finally spring, and not too cold to wear it. I was also very happy to pair it with my purple hasbeens, which I bought in the depths of winter. Well, not depths, as this past winter has been extremely mild. But anyway, I bought them on one of those days when I was feeling cold and hadn't quite pieced it together that buying summer shoes doesn't actually make summer come any more quickly.

It also means I can legitimately use this gif to describe what I did on Friday:

I did a whole bunch of other things on Friday, including eating cake for breakfast; writing a lot of very long emails about work stuff; scoring application forms; evicting the actual swarm of ladybirds that were covering the sash window in the bedroom, cleaning the window and then putting vapo-rub on it, because apparently ladybirds don't like the smell of menthol; going to the pub to drink wine and then eating chips and watching NYPD Blue.

Anyway, on the agenda tonight is making pizza and introducing Nic to the only one of my top 5 favourite films* that he hasn't seen: 10 Rillington Place (1971) I think pizza and wine will be helpful to get through what is a beautifully grimy and depressing film. I'm not going to lie, I'm looking forward to it. Richard Attenborough, though!

So, I'm off to make pizza. But yes, the dress is named after the film of the Kevin Grisham classic. Did you know that before he was a novelist, Kevin worked at a recycling centre?

*The Silence of The Lambs, Jaws, Clueless, Short Circuit 2 and 10 Rillington Place

We're building something here, detective. We're building it from scratch. All the pieces matter.

YOOOOOOOOO! Hello everyone! What's up?! It's been another busy few weeks here at Clackett Towers. I was wrong when I said work was getting less busy, it turns out, but at least the daylight hours are longer, you know? Also, and I had a few days off and then Nic and I had a few days away last weekend and it was very refreshing. So, hurrah!

I did a little bit of sewing on one of my days off, but I mainly spent that time knitting and watching Law & Order. Knitting is so much less physically demanding than sewing, and a day of just lounging on the sofa was just what I needed. I've been really getting into knitting since finishing my blue Agatha cardigan, and since then I have finished one cardigan and am almost finished another one. Whoop! Sewing will re-commence when I have a bit more energy - I have some purple Liberty Carline poplin calling my name - but my focus has definitely shifted somewhat. For now, anyway.

So that's the craic with me. Nic and I had a lovely few days in Bristol. We were there for the Bristol Jazz and Blues Festival. I had bought Nic tickets to see Doctor John, who was closing the festival on the Sunday night but, as we were going to be there on the Saturday night as well I decided to get us tickets to see Clarke Peters, who was also performing. The whole festival had a New Orleans theme and, as Nic and I are big fans of both The Wire and Treme, it seemed like it was too good to miss. His gig was AMAZING and possibly one of the best gigs I've ever been to. We had seats in the second row, so this was our view:

Nice burgundy socks there, boss. Sadly this photo doesn't capture the fact that this dude was wearing SPARKLY LOAFERS.

The gig was eccentric and funny - he opened with Way Down In The Hole and, towards the end, sang Treme Song. This delighted me because, as you might know, I'm all about the TV theme tunes. He also did an adorable duet with his son Max and one with Lillian Boutté, who we got to meet after the show. It was kind of mind-blowing to be in the same room as Lester Freamon, to be totally honest, but the gig would have been good even if he hadn't played such a well-loved TV character. STILL THOUGH.

Neither of us had ever been to Bristol before, and it's such a fun city. The whole experienced was helped by the fact that the sun was shining and it was actually warm when we arrived at lunchtime on Saturday. I'm talking about coats-off warm. We were staying in the oldest part of the city, which was convenient for the festival and a great location for exploring. The pedometer on my phone told me that we walked 13 miles on Saturday, which was easy to do in the sunshine in a beautiful city. I was doing it in new shoes, too! I also took my newly finished cardigan out for a spin:

'Dilly' cardigan - Miette by Andi Satterlund - worn with my wedding dress and Swedish hasbeens Flora wedges

I know, another Miette cardigan! After finishing the Agatha cardigan and the revelation that I had been wrapping my purl stitches in the wrong way, I thought it would be good to practise my stockinette stitches with a cardigan that is mainly knit in stockinette. The yarn is Sublime Yarns aran, and it's just what happened to be available in a colour I liked in Hobbycraft. This cardigan took me around two weeks to knit, and I knit most of it on various trains and rail replacement buses! I seem to have mastered the art of not allowing my knitting to slide off my knee and underneath the seat behind me.

I did two things differently on this cardigan from the other Miettes I have knitted. I knit the size small, rather than medium. I'm really really happy with how it fits, especially around the back and through the shoulders (although I forgot to get photos of this) and I used petersham ribbon to stabilise the button bands. Now, this was a qualified success. I stabilised both the button band and the buttonhole band, into which I stitched buttonholes using my machine. The ribbon I used wasn't really stable enough to take the buttonholes and they don't look great. That's an understatement. They look like they were drawn by John Wayne Gacy. But I think the ribbon has made a positive difference to the button-bands so I think on my next cardigan, I will sew the ribbon on the button side only. Or, I'll find a better way to do the buttonholes and stop asking serial killers to help me with my craft projects.

This picture really adds nothing to the post, but I loved this outfit. The fact that the colour of the cardigan so perfectly matches the roses on my dress was accidental, and it makes me really happy. And I LOVE these shoes, too.

I steam blocked this cardigan, just to try that method out. I think wet blocking is probably better, and I'm going to get some pins so that I can make the lace pattern open out a bit more. The other thing I decided after finishing and wearing this is to use a more flexible cast-off for the waistband and the sleeves, as the sleeves in particular are a bit restrictive. I followed this tutorial to bind off the body of the cardigan I'm knitting at the moment and it's much more suitable. I also bought some Knitpro needles, which are MUCH nicer to knit with than the cheap metal ones I had been using up until now.

So, yay knitting! Sewing is still my main squeeze but I am so enjoying having the ability to knit my own colourful cardigans as well. The next step will be to master cables so that I can knit a Marion cardigan and then it will be time to branch out into other knitwear designers, I think!

Anyway, back to Bristol. After a day of wandering in the sunshine and eating tasty food, Nic and I went for cocktails at a bar called The Milk Thistle. Bristol seems to have cornered the market in those bars where you have to find them and then ring a doorbell to be admitted, and this is one. We got there early and were seated at the bar in one of the rooms - which seemed to have some sort of bizarre taxidermy theme - and had a few cocktails before going to the gig. If you're ever that way, I very much recommend it. It was eccentric and friendly and fun. I wish Leamington had somewhere similar.

Nic and I had tickets to two gigs on the Sunday and there was another, free gig that we wanted to go to. Also it was rainy in the morning, so we didn't do nearly as much roaming. We still had a wonderful day, and Nic found where Fabricland was so I could check out the shop of my favourite website. And look - that link isn't an affiliate link, but if you've never visited the Fabricland website and you're in need of cheering up, I strongly recommend that you click that link. Very pleasingly, the shop is very much like the website.

lol okay then

We also walked down to the harbour, partly because Nic wanted to see the statue of Cary Grant. It's sort of a sad statue, to be honest, because it's in a horrible newly developed shopping centre area. It was perfect for taking twatty tourist photos with though...

The Doctor John gig was pretty awesome. The man is 74 years old and he had to be helped onto the stage, but he played until they had to basically drag him off. He was joined for a few numbers by saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis, who is 73, and was playing his third gig of the day. The band leader was the incredible Sarah Morrow, who plays the trombone. I've never really thought of the trombone as a sexy instrument, but she was fucking awesome.

Aw, who am I kidding. The trombone has ALWAYS been a sexy instrument...

(That one's for lols, but I'm not going to lie. I have a major crush on Wendell Pierce that his role as trombone-playing Antoine Batiste in Treme has only escalated.)

After the gig we had a late drink at Small Bar and went back to our hotel. I had a bath and read a trashy book, and it felt very holidayish indeed. We'd only been away for two days but it was a truly lovely holiday.

It got better, though. When we got to the railway station the following morning to catch our train back to Leamington, Clarke Peters was there with his wife, catching his train back to London. I didn't want to bother him by asking for a photo or autograph or anything, but I did want to thank him for both amazing gigs (we saw him a second time on Sunday, taking part in a big band celebration of Louis Armstrong) and he was SO sweet and charming. He even shook Nic's hand and wished him happy birthday. Lester Freamon!

It was back to real life with a bit of a bump on Tuesday, when I had to go to Slough for work. That's not a sentence anyone should have to say, but I did get a lot of knitting and reading done on the journey to and from that charming town.

Right, anyway. It's Friday night and there's wine to be drunk. It's been a short work week but at the same time, it's been long as fuck. I need to go and do some relaxing because I have a fun-filled weekend ahead. Happy Friday night, everyone!