pink and grey Prima-Emery dress

It's done. My endless fitting has finally resulted in a wearable garment. Earlier this year I decided I wanted to nail the fit of a basic darted bodice as it's a versatile shape and displays prints really well. My Prima and Emery dresses both feature darted bodices so it made sense to pick one of them. Both patterns have their pros and cons so I created a hybrid - a Prima bodice with an Emery skirt and pockets. A Primery?

Somewhat annoyingly I see there's some odd wrinkling going on down the one side of the bodice. I don't know if it's due to dodgy ironing or the shoulder being too big?! Perhaps I overcompensated.

I chose the Prima bodice as the dart placement on the front fitted better than the Emery. That was one less battle as I knew either way I had loads of work to do on the back bodice. I thought I had conquered the back fit on my Emery last year but having worn it multiple times I know it's not right. I also preferred the fit of the Prima sleeves which have a wider, shallower sleeve head curve compared to Emery's high, fitted style. A shallower curve allows greater arm movement but creates more sleeve wrinkles. I like gesticulating and having the option to reach top shelves in shops so accepted Prima's wrinkles.

Although I highlighted my adjustments in my last sewing post I'm going to run through them again as I made a few more tweaks. I cut out a 12 and made the following adjustments: 

• 1" wide shoulder adjustment (2" added in total.) I have massive shoulders. Man shoulders. Moulders. (Too far?)

• 5/8" (1 1/4" overall) broad upper back/prominent shoulder blade adjustment. This made my back shoulder bodice piece wider than my front so I had to ease it in to fit. I didn't manage to get it completely pucker free but I'm fine with it as it's disguised by the print.

• 1/4" (1/2" overall) widened at the back armhole where my back/shoulders are at their widest - it was such a minor alteration (just redrawing a little edge) that it barely affected armhole circumference.

• 1/2" high round back adjustment as apparently I'm a little bit Quasimodo.

• restored the centre back seam (which went askew with the high round back adjustment) by cutting open a 1/4" neck dart on each side. I liked the neck darts on the Emery dress so it made sense to put them on this dress.

•  1/4" (1/2" in total) broadened across the back, which consequently deepened my back and neck darts. After my last toile I decided I still needed more room for my massive shoulder blades so I tried this adjustment. It made the world of difference.

• 1/2" pinched out from each side of the neckline, tapering to nothing towards the shoulder. This mysteriously seemed to solve the tilting/pulling backwards feeling I was experiencing with my bodices. I suppose it works a bit like a square shoulder adjustment, as it flattens the angle of the shoulder.

• 1/2" sway back adjustment. Somewhat ironic that I need to remove length from my lower back when I need to add so much more space to the upper back.

• lengthened the sleeves by an inch so they were more like the Emery.  

• added a skirt lining. I used the Prima skirt pattern as it reduced bulk.

Aaaaand I think that's it. Phew! I debated taking in the bodice side seams as there's quite a lot of ease at the waist, which is visible in the photos above, but I came to the conclusion that I prefer to feel comfortable. I like being able to eat a big slice of cake without fear of bursting out my dress. 

Let's move onto my nice cotton fabric. It's part of the "Chic Neutrals" range by Moda and I picked it up in Mandors (Glasgow) last year as part of my "Happy-Birthday-to-me" mini fabric haul. I'm generally not drawn to geometric prints but the sketchy, drawn quality of these little triangles/pyramids really appealed to me. Grey and pink is also a lovely colour combination; soft and feminine. I don't wear a lot of grey so it's nice to have a something a bit different in the wardrobe.

 Ooh, I do love a handfinished hem.

I know sewing people say that grey is the most neutral colour to use for overlocking thread, but I couldn't resist using this bright pink thread I originally bought for my Turia dungarees. It makes me feel happy knowing that the innards of my dress have a jazzy finish.

My only sewing blunder with this project happened with my zip insertion. Usually I leave my skirt lining separate after attaching it to the waistband with the main skirt, handstitch it down around the zip and sew the remaining seam down to the hem so it hangs separate to the main fabric. However, I had a brain derp and sewed the lining and the main skirt as one whilst inserting the zip. I couldn't face unpicking the zip as it matched up at the waist perfectly. It would have been criminal to unpick such a beautifully inserted zip.

I couldn't continue to treat the lining as one, like an underlining, as it was a different shape and would affect the hanging of the whole skirt. I also couldn't sew it to the hem in my usual fashion as it would create an unsightly lump below the zip. After some head scratching I decided to make a split "feature" by folding back the raw edge and stitching it down, leaving the lining to swing open to the hem. Not the most attractive solution but a solution nonetheless.

Skirt lining blunder aside, I'm really pleased with this dress. The fitting took a hell of a lot of patience, involved much head scratching and some frustrated tantrums, but I persevered. It isn't perfect, after all I'm entirely self taught and still learning by trial and error, but it feels great to have finally made a sleeved cotton dress where I can move my arms around without my whole bodice riding up or straining across my shoulders.

Oh Doris, you're such a glamorous model.

The best thing though, is that this dress matches my latest knitted cardigan PERFECTLY. As soon as I purchased this fabric I had this outfit in my head, so it's a personal triumph to have completed both.

I have my next length of fabric marked for another Primery dress, so who knows, you might see another one soon.

knitted: steggy Steve

I've been so excited about sharing this project but had to wait until I handed it over as it was a birthday present. My brother turned the grand, grown up age of 30 this month and I thought he would appreciate a knitted dinosaur from the "Knit Your Own Dinosaur" book he bought for my birthday last year. You're never too grown up to receive a knitted dinosaur.

He said this was the most useless yet wonderful present he's received. I'm so pleased that was his response, not "ermmm, wtf is this?!"

Doesn't Steggy Steve look rather majestic strutting through the wilderness? I felt an on location photoshoot was necessary.

Although I lovingly referred to the stegosaurus as "Steve" whilst knitting, he has been renamed Danny since changing ownership. I guess it's a bit like when folk adopt cats or dogs from animal shelters. You see those adverts on TV or Facebook where they say "Give Simon a loving home" and you're sitting there thinking "No way is that dog a Simon, he's definitely a Brian".

So there you go, he's called Danny.

 Hiya!

On the whole the project didn't take particularly long to knit. The most time consuming part was the sewing. So many bloody ends to sew in! It felt neverending. 

He also took a *lot* of stuffing. That felt neverending too. No matter how much I stuffed him he wanted to lurch to one side in a drunken fashion. Danny obviously loves a good dram of whisky.

 *hic*

The only problem I ran into was with the spikes/plates. Either I was being incredibly dense (entirely possible) or there’s an error in the book regarding the colour distribution. If they’re meant to be staggered down the spine with alternating colours then what’s written doesn’t work. I ended up with a cluster of one colour on one side which didn’t look good, so I reknitted a couple of plates.

I was originally going to knit red and orange spikes but thought that might look too jazzy. Green and turquoise felt a bit more grown up and "manly". Haha.

So overall this stegosaurus was a bit of a pain in the arse to sew together, but definitely worth the effort. He looks so loveable! Perhaps I need to knit another one for myself.... and call him Steve. After all, Brenda needs company.

birthday baking bonanza

Four birthdays in my family fall between the end of April and middle of May so a lot of cakes have been baked and consumed around here recently. My sugar intake became so severe at one point that I developed an ulcer which threatened to take over half of the inside of my mouth. Guess what... I carried on eating cake. Sure, it made the ulcer angry, but damn it I love cake. Haha.

Instead of getting in a flap trying to blog each cake separately I thought I'd round them up in one post this year. Sit back and enjoy.

First up is my sister in law's birthday carrot bundt cake. I used the Hummingbird Bakery's carrot layer cake recipe from their first book which I've baked a few times before (here and here) and it's always a winner. I particularly like it in bundt form. Somehow carrot cake is more pleasing served as a big slab than in towering layers.

Next up is my brother's cake. He's the last birthday in our birthday run but we celebrated it a couple of weeks early as he couldn't get home for his actual birthday. It worked in his favour as he got to celebrate twice like the Queen.

He's a big fan of sticky toffee pudding and caramel flavours so I adapted the Hummingbird Bakery's sticky toffee pudding cupcake recipe into a cake. I've baked the cupcakes a couple of times before with great success yet somehome they've never been featured on the blog properly (wait, they're here). I doubled the ingredient quantities to create a triple layer cake but ended up only using two layers as it would have been ridiculously huge with three. This was a heavy but very tasty cake. I think it tasted even better on the second day.

Next up is my eldest brother's cake. He requested a lemon drizzle cake this year and who could say no to such a classic.

I used my favourite all-in-one Mary Berry recipe which has never failed me. We ate the cake with meringues, cream, strawberries and raspberries. Needless to say it was a delicious combination.

And lastly we have my youngest nephew's 3D Tractor Ted cake. I wasn't sure how well this would turn out but I think it looked pretty cool complete with laminated birthday banner and nephew. I can't take all the credit for this one though as my mum did all the modelling, I just provided the sponge cake for construction.

Not pictured is a plain traybake covered in chocolate icing and crushed Cadbury flake (to be a field for the tractor) and a big trifle. I had given up on photographing things by this point.

That's me up to date with all my baking. Now I need to catch up with everything else. I have a newly sewn dress, another finished knitting project and some charity shop purchases to share as well. What has everyone else been baking/making/doing this month?

knitted: pink cardigan

Ta-dah! I finished knitting my second cardigan last month. It's another cute Andi Satterlund pattern called the "sunshower cardigan" and like many of Andi's patterns it's constructed from the top down and worked in the round.

I was immediately smitten with the lace work when I first saw the pattern, especially the heart shaped motif around the waist, and knew it had to be knitted in pink wool. Somewhat frustratingly I didn't have any luck trying to purchase the pattern through Knit Picks' website but the lovely Jo from Making It Well came to my rescue! So thank you, Jo for allowing me to complete my pink cardigan knitting dreams. Jo is also knitting a pink version so there will be two Jos at opposite ends of the world both rocking pink sunshower cardigans.

Once again I used Jamiesons of Shetland  DK wool (what can I say, I love their stuff.) The shade I used is called Lipstick and it's a pretty, dusky pink - quite possibly my favourite shade of pink. Interestingly when I washed my first cardigan it had a very "sheepy" smell whilst damp, which is completely normal for 100% sheep wool and disappears once dry, but this cardigan didn't seem to smell at all.

Showing off my gigantic man shoulders here, haha.

As much as I love my first cardigan it's a bit on the big side (although I have enjoyed being able to layer long sleeved tshirts underneath it on cold days)  so I decided to size down to 3.25mm needles for a neater fit, still following the instructions for a size medium. The resulting fit is comfortably snug. I was a bit worried that the sleeves might end up too tight and make my arms look like stuffed, knitted sausages but thankfully but they've come out fine.

Other changes from the pattern included adding more length in the body, picking up more stitches for the buttonband to account for the extra length in the body, and lengthening the sleeves as I don't like 3/4 length sleeves. Why knit a cosy, wool cardigan but leave your forearms and wrists cold?!

I'm so pleased with how well my buttons match the cardigan. I found them in my local wool/haberdashery shop and they were the last five buttons in this colour. It was fate I guess.

 Clever side shaping using decreases. No seaming, yay!

Although it took me the same length of time to knit as my first cardigan (3 months) the whole process was so much easier. This was partly down to it being a much simpler stitch pattern to read and memorise but also because I have more knitting experience under my belt. I still made some daft mistakes but that was mostly down to knitting too late at night when I was tired. If fellow knitters want to laugh at my mistakes or find out more about my alterations I've documented the project on ravelry.

Now I just need to finish sewing the dress that I want to wear with this cardigan. Watch this space!