'Where the Fox At?" Cambie Dress

Welcome to my fantasy airstream home. This is what dreams are made of....

I'm excited to introduce you to my new dress, it has super cute yellow foxes on it:

I've been wanting to sew up the Cambie pattern since Tasia and Sewaholic released it many, many moons ago. It has such a fantastic design including a heart shaped neckline, gathered wide shoulders with capped sleeves and either a pencil or gathered skirt:

I knew it was the perfect pattern to show off my super adorable Japanese cotton that I got on a work trip to Japan (alas I didn't really see anything of Japan except the conference centre BUT I did make it to a fabric store in the evening. YAY!). I picked up and have been hoarding this fabric for the perfect project. I knew I wanted a pattern that had a straight up and down design that would really show off the foxes (without two many pieces or darts so as to distort my wee foxes). And the Cambie pattern is perfect for such a fabric!

I knew I had to take pictures of such a special dress in a special location. Enter the Notel in Melbourne which consists of six airstream trailers on a rooftop right in the heart of Melbourne city centre. I was lucky enough to make it to Melbourne before the pandemic really took hold.  The ambiance of the hotel is really neat with the building behind the airstream painted in pink hues and a little patio area for each airstream:

There's a tennis court in the middle and each airstream is pretty comfortable. There's no one on site but you can order food in advance from local restaurants and you can order that your mini fridge be stocked up (though they provide some nice free goodies).

From the rooftop you can see the skyline of Melbourne and one of the airstreams even has it's own hot tub.

I'm definitely going to come back next time I'm in Melbourne...it's such a cool and funky location and fulfilled all my vintage airstream trailer fantasies :)

I paired this dress with a me-made jacket I made from a 1940 McCall pattern (check out the blog post here). 

Overall, the instructions on the Sewaholic patterns are impeccable and this dress didn't require any major fitting alterations. Though I do notice that the front bodice gapes ever so slightly, so in future iterations I will probably just take some width out of the bodice top front. I love that the pattern includes instructions for lining the bodice...it makes it look really pretty on the inside too.

I'll definitely have to try the pencil skirt version at some point as well. It's such a flattering design.

So I'm curious if there are any unique or unusual hotels/accommodation that are on your travel bucket list (for when we get to travel again....)...I like to dream of new locations and would love to hear where you really want to go and stay!

The Bleeding Heart Skirt

This is a project that started with the fabric...

I had seen this IKEA fabric many moons ago when it was in the store and I fell in love with the dual heart design. When I saw it, I immediately thought it would make a great A-line or pencil skirt.

But I didn't buy it and then I forgot all about the fabric....
Until one day I was in my local vintage store -- Armstrong's --and lo and behold they had 1.5 metres of this fabric. I couldn't believe my luck. It's only sometimes that they have good fabric finds in the store and usually not fabrics that are modern.

I knew I wanted to make a simple skirt--so I turned to Tilly and the Buttons 'Love at First Stitch' book. I had made this skirt pattern before--ironically also with fabric that I found at Armstrong's (though it was vintage fabric)--Check out my previous make here (with the most awesome handpainted bird fabric).

The only change I made was to make this more of a pencil skirt--that was primarily because I didn't have a lot of fabric to play with. 

I also had to think whether I wanted the hearts to go across my body or down. I think I made the right decision--I think horizontal hearts would have looked strange. I kind of like how you can't really tell they are hearts unless you look closely at the fabric.

We took these amazing photos down at Edinburgh's little lighthouse.  Isn't it cute?

Especially with the moody Scottish sky.

Overall, super happy for my heart skirt--and now I have a ready-to-go valentine's day outfit for infinity! hahaha.  Have you ever fallen in love with a fabric and then have it miraculously appear later in your life?

The 'Intramuros Dress'

By far my best sunny location traveling dress! Check out my crafty new make...

This dress is a copy of an existing store bought dress (from a boutique in Florence--see photo below for the inspiration dress), that is actually quite a straight forward design.

The dress includes a sleeveless bodice and v-shaped neckline with vertical darts in the bustline.  I basically laid the original dress out and copied the shape (adding some extra space for the bust darts) onto tracing paper and then played around with it until it fit correctly.

The dress closes with a side zip from the underarm to just near the hipline.

For the skirt, I pulled out some existing pleated patterns I already had--specifically Tilly's 'Lilou' dress pattern from her first book, Love at First Stitch.  Here's that dress that I had made previously and you can see the pleats in this dress:

So I basically made the pleat area larger but used the pattern to help me figure out how much fabric I needed!

We took these photos on my recent trip to the Philippines where I got to visit the 'Intramuros' or the walled city. It was really fabulous and the entire neighbourhood is of old buildings and churches!

One of my favourite things about this dress is the fabric. I simply adore this fabric from Gertie's line. It's a lightweight cotton--so absolutely perfect for traveling to warmer climates and I love the colour scheme and tropical look of the flowers:

So excited to have this a basic and quick pattern I can turn to for warm weather dresses (also good for layering!)  I've got another couple in the works as we speak :)

What about you? Do you have a go-to pattern for summer dresses?

Photographer: @jerf.k 

MUAH: @sunkissedbonita

The 'Last Days of Summer' Dress

I know that technically the last day of summer isn't until later in September but for some reason end of August starts to feel like a transition into Autumn.  I'm sharing my latest make which is a summer dress but with some autumnal hues.

This fabric is one of those hard cottons that is sort of stiff--but washes quite nicely and was a gift from some colleagues.  

The dress pattern itself is a hack of one of my favourite dresses.  I basically self-drafted the bodice copying one of my existing dresses:

For the skirt, I adapted the skirt pattern from Tilly's Lilou dress pattern from her first book 'Love at First Stitch':

I do quite like the v-neck bodice and pleated skirt effect.  The dress is sleeveless --so works perfectly with layering:

The dress closes with a side zip --which I just find way easier than back zippers for functionality!

Very pleased with how it came out and I'm already planning more dresses since it's such a quick make.

How cool is this location? Hard to believe it's within Edinburgh--Dr. Neil's Garden.  It has almost a beachy feel to it!

Excited to do more autumnal sewing--time to dig out my tweeds and wools again! yipppeee!  What about you--planning new seasonal outfits?

Photos: Darja Bilyk
MUAH: Vanity Thrills

Put a Bird on It: The Delphine Tropical Bird Skirt

It is right that my first sewn item after over HALF A YEAR of NOT SEWING (eeks!) is a summer skirt with giant birds on it?  Well, I am originally from Portland after all.

I delved into the Delphine skirt pattern in Tilly's book 'Love at First Stitch' and I love it.  It's a great shape and very easy to sew together.  It's way shorter than I normally wear (after all, my closet is mostly 1940s outfits) but this sort of skirt is great for a hot summer day.

Speaking of warm weather (which we don't really have in Scotland – we haven't broken 70 degrees yet and it is the height of summer), these photos are from the lovely Florence, Italy.  The Boboli Gardens to be specific.  Talk about a comeback post – giant birds, sunshine, ancient gardens, amazing views....

This fabric is really fun.  I found it in W. Armstrongs, which is Edinburgh's largest vintage store.  It's all hand painted and I had to work really hard to make the pattern fit on the fabric I had available.  The poor pink bird on the front almost lost his head.  But luckily it sort of stayed on (as long as I stand up straight and don't slouch!)

I am very proud of my invisible zipper.  Can you believe it's my first one EVER?  Tilly's book walked me through step by step. I found it much easier than putting in a normal zipper!  I'm still going to insert my zips the old fashioned way on my 1940s dresses, but this method is great for modern patterns.

Italy....so pretty....It really is such a good vacation spot.  David and I were there house sitting for a friend and had such a great time.

Overall, I'm very happy with the skirt.  I love the shape and will definitely make more.  Plus they pack up really easily (a good incentive for vacation sewing).

Thank you Tilly for drafting such a great pattern!  And thank you David for putting up with my non-sewing self for the past year.

I don't know about you, but I get really antsy if I don't have my creative outlet.  So it's nice to be back in that space.  And thank you everyone for your comments on my last post – it feels really nice coming back into such a great community.  YAY!