An apology

I'm afraid it's only four days into Me Made March and I'm having to pull out. Yes I've  seriously failed already. All of the clothes and accessories (and at the moment there's only a few) that I've made or altered are short sleeved, made of thin material or are in some way suited for spring/summery weather. So unfortunately mother nature has decided that this week in the North East (England) it will be frosty and very cold, so in other words not good weather to wear a skirt or short sleeved top. Typical.

On top of the rubbish weather, I have to hold my hands up and admit that I completely overestimated how many pieces of clothing I could alter or make from scratch in the run up to Me Made March. I got ahead of myself and probably wouldn't have been able to finish the challenge without wearing the same garments several times throughout the month. Oh well. So I'm offically declaring myself out of Me Made March this time but I will definitely participate again in the future, as I still think it's a brilliant idea and I enjoyed the laughably short amount of time I took part.

For now I have a couple of refashions/alterations ready to do and I'm making my mam's birthday present and mothers day  present this year (sorry in advance mam), but as she isn't very internet savvy and I had to spend half an hour explaining to her what a blog is, I don't need to worry about her reading the blog and discovering what she will be getting. I'm making a hot water bottle cover for her birthday with maybe some chocolates or flowers and I haven't decided what to make for mothers day. Any suggestions are welcome!

As for my party dress, I missed my deadline and wore I different dress to my neighbours party. I failed (again!) but the dress will be getting finished at some point, for now for the sake of my sanity I have put it aside and I'm focussing on my mam's presents, my refashions and a summery top that I have in the pipeline. More news on those projects soon! So to end, sorry again for pulling out of Me Made March so early on and bring on spring/summer and the warmer weather!

Me-made-March: My pledge

I am really excited right now because I've just signed up on Zoe's blog for Me-made-March! So without any further ado heres my pledge:
'I, Hayley from http://gohandmade.blogspot.com/ sign up as a participant of Me-Made-March '11. I endeavour to wear one handmade piece of clothing or accessory each day for the duration of March 2011'

Woohoo! This is the motivation I need to get some serious sewing done by March as at the moment I only have one belt and one skirt that I have made myself and I need to make a slip for the skirt before I dare wear it in public as I realised too late that the material is kinda, well, thin. Oh well, live and learn. So right now the plan is to finish New Look 6789, which unfortunately I'm still having trouble with the instructions but I'm slowly getting with help from the mother. Then I'm going to make some more skirts using New Look 6004 and have a go at making some long T-shirt dresses that I can wear with leggings. I'll have to make another one of Tilly's belts too, as I love the black one I made. Maybe I'll make it in navy blue or postbox red, ooo the possibilities!

Getting on with New Look 6789

Hope everyone had a good weekend, I scheduled in some proper sewing time and got to work on New Look 6789. The pattern and fabric was cut out ready, so I sat down to pin the pieces together and immediately hit a problem. The instructions said to sew the front section to side front sections so in theory I should have had one front and two side sections but I had four side sections... hmmm. An hour later after rereading the instructions several times and actually pinning all four side bits to the front (well you never know, I could have been having a dippy moment) I still didn't understand why I had so many pieces. So I asked my mam for help (I've had to do that a lot up to now *sigh*) so she read the instructions and didn't understand it either. Eventually we got the other piece of paper that tells you which pattern pieces you need for each view and realised that one of the two of the pieces were actually side BACK despite having side FRONT on the pattern piece in capital letters. Grr.



Just started 6789 and already annoyed at the pattern lol

 After correcting that "slight" mistake on the pattern I finally got going and I'm onto putting the interfacing on the band that goes around the top of the dress. Has anyone else ever had problems like this with patterns or instructions? I'm hoping its not just me! =)

Starting New Look 6789

So with my skirt completed I can move on to my new goal, making a dress to wear to a 40th birthday party. I've got the pattern, fabric and all the bits and bobs I'll need (hopefully) and the fabric is cut out, ready to sew. On Wednesday night, I took over the dining room table again, as my desk wasn't big enough and cut out the pattern. I pinned the pattern to the fabric... and the net table cloth underneath, which my mam found hilarious (thank god I realised before I cut it out or my mam would not have found it quite as funny). So I've cut all the pieces out and they are ready for me to sew this weekend.

Above is the pattern and the fabric I'm going to make it from. Instead of putting the ribbon with the bow across the top of the bodice, I'm going to try using a wide piece of ribbon as a sash around the waist because I think it will look nice and nip the waist in. I'll soon find out!