roarsome moneta

Another Colette Patterns' Moneta dress. Sorry, not sorry. For my fourth incarnation I used a cute lion print jersey I purchased from Elephant In My Handbag, added a black peter pan collar and in seam pockets.

The collar, according to the instructions, was meant to slightly overlap in the middle but mine didn't want to. I thought it would be unwise to force the collar pieces to overlap so I let them meet edge to edge at the middle where they wanted to sit. In all honesty I prefer this look anyway. The only thing I hadn't considered is that it makes the seam allowance sitting under the collar ever so slightly visible. Luckily the main fabric has areas of plain black so it isn't obvious.

Now on to every dressmaker's favourite addition... pockets! I intended to add pockets to my last Moneta dress but completely forgot so I made sure to cut them out for this dress. Ever so handy for tissues or just my hands so I can feel smug and nonchalant.

SMUG PERSON.

My only change to fit this time was removing a wedge of fabric from the bicep area of the sleeve since I found them strangely baggy on my last dress. It has definitely improved the fit although I could probably pinch out even more if I was being annoyingly fussy.

So yeah, that's four moneta dresses now. Will I make more? Will I try out all the collar variations? Yes. And most likely, haha. I've just bought two delicious lengths of stretch velvet and one of them is definitely destined to become a collared Moneta dress. I'm thinking full length sleeves for winter cosiness. Mmmmm.

kitty feet - my first hand knitted socks

I think we all need to take a moment to admire my feet. Not a statement I make often, but look at the little kitty faces!

Earlier this year I decided it was time to learn how to knit socks. My Granny used to knit wooly socks for me pretty much every winter when I was growing up. I loved padding about the house in them before bedtime or wearing them over another pair of socks inside my welly boots for extra cosiness to play outdoors. Although I still own a couple of pairs, I stopped wearing them a few years ago for fear of wearing them out. I've come to the conclusion that this mentality is ridiculous as I'm now perfectly capable of making (or mending) handknitted socks.

However little did I know, until I started looking for sock patterns, that there are many ways to knit a pair of humble socks! They can be knit toe up or cuff down, on dpns or magic loop, not to mention the mind boggling variety of heel techniques:  heel flaps, fish lips kiss heel, short row heel, afterthought heel... SO MUCH CHOICE.

The pattern I used is "Yin Yang kitty socks" by Geena Garcia on Ravelry. Apart from the obvious appeal of being free and incredibly cute, I like that they are short, almost slipper-like, therefore quick to knit and the minimal stranded knitting and sewing of whiskers adds interest without being complicated. The socks are constructed toe up on dpns with a short row heel, which suited me fine as I'm used to dpns and familiar with knitting short rows after knitting Andi Satterlund cardigans.

The wool I used is Jamiesons of Shetland Spindrift in Natural White and JC Rennie Supersoft Lambswool in Silver/grey and a tiny scrap of pink for the kitty noses. I only used 41g of wool in total here so this project is a great stash buster.

Why yes, I did knit these socks specifically to match my grey kitty faces pyjamas :D

Casting on and knitting toe up felt weird but it was a fun experience. At one point my knitting looked like a little hat for my foot, or toe warmers, which amused me greatly.

It took a couple of attempts to cast on correctly with the first sock, but I got there in the end thanks to YouTube tutorials. I wonder if this technique is easier with magic loop method? It felt a bit cumbersome on dpns, but the second sock was definitely easier.

Although there is absolutely nothing wrong with these heels, I think I prefer the fit of a heel flap after comparing it to my mum and granny's handknitted socks. For my next pair I'd like to try a different heel and perhaps top down construction to see how that differs. Despite naturally being a person who shies away from new things I surprise myself by being a relatively fearless knitter. I enjoy new techniques and stretching my skills and I have a feeling sock knitting could be all kinds of fun!

(Not that I need more socks. At the beginning of the year I counted how many pairs I owned... 64!! And that didn't even include bed socks..... How is that even possible when I mostly wear tights?! I have since donated a few pairs to my Mum, haha.)

a marvel-lous moneta

Haha, see what I did there? This is the dress I made for my birthday at the beginning of the month. If you can't wear a dress emblazoned with superheroes on your birthday, then when can you?!

Anyone remember those online quizzes on Zimbio which were all the rage a few years ago? My family took the "Which Marvel Superhero Are You?" quiz and Mum and I both got the Hulk, Dad got Captain America and my brothers got Thor and Loki. Although it was a silly quiz, the results were weirdly apt for each person. Haha!

The dress is yet another Colette Patterns Moneta dress, but this time with a roll collar and longer length sleeves. As the Marvel fabric is quite "out there" I made the sleeves and collar in a plain, contrasting black. I really like the result and it gives the dress a totally different feel to my two previous Monetas.

Unlike my second Moneta dress, I actually followed the collar instructions which say to attach it with the seam allowance sitting underneath the collar on the "right" side. I was worried this would prevent the collar from sitting flat so I understitched the neckline to tack the seam allowance down. I also sewed a short, red zig zag stitch on the inside of the back neckline, hidden under the collar from the correct side, so I can easily tell the front from the back.

My only fitting adjustment with this dress was grading back down to a size medium for the width of the shoulders as I came to the conclusion that although my shoulders are broad, grading up really wasn't necessary on my previous Moneta dresses. The armholes definitely sit better across my upper chest on this dress.

My only (minor) gripe with this dress is that the sleeves are unusually baggy in the upper arm, which is weird considering my upper arms are anything but small. I guess it'll come in handy for when I burst into a Hulk rage and need expansion room for my ripped muscles, haha! It's not worth re sewing but I altered the sleeve pattern for the next Moneta. (Oh yes, there is already a fourth...)

And that's it really, not much else to say about my dress except it's comfy, elegantly shaped and makes me feel like a total bad ass. Perfect combination, really!

 HULK SMASH!

millionaire's shortbread cake and a duff for dad

October has been rather busy and cake filled for my family. My birthday is at the beginning of the month, swiftly followed by my friend/future sister-in-law then my Dad a couple of weeks later. As a chocolate fiend I knew my friend's cake needed to be decadent so I took inspiration from a millionaire's shortbread cake I found on Jane's Patisserie blog.

 

Considering my family were still working through my large birthday cake I didn't think it was wise to bake a monster triple layer cake. Instead I adapted the cake to be smaller by using a standard 4 egg victoria sponge recipe baked in two 8" cake tins and swapped the caster sugar for soft light brown sugar. I also made my own caramel and millionaire's shortbread pieces as I felt like being fancy.

I don't know what it is about me and caramel but it's always a bit of a disaster. Every time without fail I burn the first batch. EVERY TIME. Also, it's always lumpy. Recipes say that if the caramel hardens and goes a bit lumpy after adding the cream just to put the pan back over the heat until it melts. Mine doesn't want to melt, even if I practically reboil it. Should I fully reboil it or will it go further wrong and burn? Should I warm the cream up first so it's less of a hot/cold reaction when adding it to the sugar? Tips or suggestions welcome!

The millionaire's shortbread, however, was an absolute triumph. Man, that stuff is addictive to eat. In fact it was the best thing about this cake. I don't know why, but the cake itself was a bit underwhelming. Perhaps I slightly overbaked the sponge, the chocolate icing was too thick, or maybe I'm just not that big a fan of cakes without a jam or curd filling or a fruit element as they're too sweet (gasp!) and lack contrast. It could be a combination or just personal preference.

It's a shame this cake didn't quite hit the spot for me, especially considering how cool it looked and the effort I put into making it, but I can highly recommend the millionaire's shortbread. You can find the recipe for it in my archives here. I only make it once every few years for fear of eating it all and becoming morbidly obese!

For Dad's birthday I baked a duff (clootie pudding) as it's his favourite along with a tray of buns/fairy cakes for my nephews as they're not fussed with boiled fruit pudding. I think this duff turned out better than the last one I made a couple of years ago (you can find the post and recipe here) as I kept a closer eye on the water level in the pot. Dad has had a really tough year health wise so he fully deserved a celebratory duff with a mahoosive exploding candle.

After a week's break I'm just about ready to start thinking about cakes and baking again. Roll on Hallowe'en!

my birthday - a pink house and knitting stuff

It was my birthday at the beginning of month and I took the whole week off work to enjoy it. Annoyingly I immediately caught a cold and consequently spent most of it feeling rubbish but that didn't stop me from having a nice day and eating cake.

Speaking of cake, how ridiculously cute is my birthday cake?! Mum's cakey creations never disappoint. This year she built my dream house: pink and quirky complete with flowers, a clothes line and a cat. One day, perhaps...? Haha.

Poor Mum felt a bit disappointed with her handiwork as it wasn't as neat as she had envisioned, but personally I still love it. Structural problems and all!

I was perhaps slightly greedy overambitious when cutting a gable end sized portion to eat, but my opinion regarding birthday cake consumption is go big or go home! Sadly I disappointed myself by not managing to eat the whole slice after a large family dinner, but I ate over half. I was also delighted that the Great British Bake Off *and* a documentary on the history of Barbies were on tv on my birthday.... it's like the tv gods catered specifically for me.

There was also a knitting theme to my birthday presents this year. I had been not so subtly dropping hints about wanting a ball winder and swift so was delighted that's what Mum and Dad gave me. I spent the whole of the following day winding ALLLLLLLL THE WOOOOOOL. Even old skeins from Mum's stash weren't safe from me.

 Living the dream!

I genuinely cannot express how much fun I had that afternoon. Winding yarn cakes and eating birthday cake is pretty much the best way to spend a day. It was blissful.

I also received some knitting patterns and books ranging from the beautiful "Yokes" collection by Kate Davies to the hilariously bizarre "Knitted Cats" by Joy Gammon. No surprises for guessing which one my sister in law found in a charity shop!

And after feeling inspired by my recent foray into sock knitting (that's another blog post coming eventually) my Mum knitted a pair of socks as a belated birthday present. They're so long, cosy and incredibly funky. Needless to say I love them. I like that they're not matching yet still "related." Would you believe that this is the first pair of socks my Mum has knitted since she was about 15? You wouldn't know it.

My Granny used to knit socks for me every winter and I had forgotten the joys of wearing squishy, handmade socks. They're a real treat for your feet. My Mum and I now have a lot of sock knitting plans for the next couple of months!

two moneta dresses - floral and polkadot

After the storming success of my Kitschy Koo Lady Skater dresses I decided to try another jersey dress pattern which dominates the online sewing community: Colette Patterns' Moneta Dress. I initially hesitated whether to order this pattern, thinking it was perhaps too similar to the Lady Skater, but came to the conclusion that there are enough differences to justify purchasing both. Lady Skater has a scoop neckline with neckband and a flared skirt, whereas Moneta has a high neckline with scoop back, collar options and a gathered skirt.

For my first version I kept it simple and went with the plain neckline and short sleeves. The fabric is a gorgeous medium weight floral jersey I ordered online from My Fabrics. I originally bought 1.5m of it with the intention of making a long sleeve top, but as soon as it arrived it demanded to become a dress.

Size wise I'm more or less a small on Colette's measurement chart. However after looking at the finished garment measurements I cut a medium, grading up to large for shoulder width and between a medium and large for the waist. My reasoning for this was that I didn't want lots of negative ease around the waist as I prefer my dresses to skim rather than cling. I also always fear that if I actually fit to my waist then the resulting dress may not fit over my big shoulders! After a quick compare with my Lady Skater pattern pieces I saw that I didn't need to lengthen the bodice but I did add 1 inch of length to the skirt.

Other changes I made whilst sewing were adding stretchy, fusible seam tape to stabilise the neckline, using elastic to stabilise the shoulders and sewing a small, looped ribbon onto the inside of the back neckline so I can easily tell the front from the back. Although not an alteration as such I also followed Abigail's tip of adding more marks to the elastic for more control when gathering the waistline. I highly recommend her post if, like me, you've never sewn with elastic before as it removed any fear I had about working with it.

The dress ended up a bit roomy, but I always think it's better to be cautious and cut bigger for a first attempt at a pattern. Although I didn't bother unpicking the skirt to take in the waist, I did take a wedge of excess fabric out from the ribcage area to give the bodice a more flattering shape.

I really like this dress and have worn it a lot. The style, floral pattern and colours all feel very "me." I've actually read that some people aren't keen on the low back and high neckline of the Moneta and prefer to wear it the other way round. This baffles me as I love the neckline! I find the style very elegant to wear.

For my second Moneta, I added a fun tie collar. This is one of the variations which can be downloaded for free on Colette Patterns' website. I don't know why there aren't that many tie collar Moneta dresses out in the wild (from what I can see anyway) as I think it's the cutest thing ever! Combined with the polkadot fabric it gives the dress a 1950s vintage feel which I absolutely love.

The mustard polka dot jersey is from Girl Charlee UK and part of their Bolt range. It's on the expensive side but I managed to snap some up over a Bank Holiday weekend when they had 20% off. That made it much more affordable! It's very soft and snuggly however I found it a little bit see through so I self lined the bodice. I didn't bother for the skirt as it wasn't necessary with the gathers.

In terms of construction, I deviated from instructions and sandwiched the collar between the two bodice layers so all raw edges are enclosed, grading the seams to reduce bulk, and understitching to keep everything in place. I then treated the bodice and lining layers as one for sewing everything else. I think it made a tidy enough finish.

In terms of fit I graded back down to a size medium at the waist and transferred the bodice changes I made on my first version of scooping out about 3/8" from the underarm to the waist. It makes a more concave shape to the side seam, similar to the Lady Skater bodice shape actually, which seems to work better for my shape. I'm happier with the smaller waist on this one too, although I definitely stretched it out slightly when trying the bodice on before adding the skirt. I guess I got too excited about seeing what the collar looked like on me!

All in all, I absolutely adore this dress and think the collar is the best thing ever. Look at it with the scoop back. Ughh, love it.

I had no idea a mustard polka dot dress was missing from my life but it clearly has been as I have enjoyed wearing it so much. I didn't think another pattern could overtake the Lady Skater dress in terms of love but Colette Patterns' Moneta has certainly won a special place in my wardrobe.

Stay tuned for more Moneta goodness. I have my Birthday Moneta to share and another one in the pipeline. It's safe to say I have been properly bitten by the sewing-with-jersey bug this year!

lady skater lovin'

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last few years, you've likely heard of or made yourself a Kitschy Coo Lady Skater dress. I bought the pattern early on last year and I am utterly ashamed that it took me a whole year to sew as it has kick started a complete love affair with sewing jersey.

My absolute favourite thing about sewing with jersey is that it is so forgiving regarding fit. I have spent the past two or three years labouring over woven bodices and feeling increasingly frustrated with things not fitting comfortably. I love how this all disappears with jersey. "Got big, awkward shoulders? No problem, I'll stretch over that." THANK YOU, JERSEY!

 This is my triumphant "I am an unstoppable jersey dress making machine" pose.

For my first Lady Skater I chose a navy blue, medium weight jersey from Girl Charlee as I wanted to sew a replacement for an old shop bought dress which gradually shrunk to the point of looking indecent. This jersey is lovely and soft to wear and my only complaint is that it loves to pick up any bit of fluff or hair - but that's navy fabric for you I guess.

For this dress I cut a size 4 according to my high bust measurement. The only changes I made to the pattern were grading out to the width of size 5 for the armhole to account for my broad shoulders and lengthening the skirt by 3 inches as I'm tall(ish) at 5ft 7 1/2.

I usually need to lengthen bodices by at least 1/2 inch but I had read comments that the Lady Skater bodice is long so I didn't change it. If anything, it came out slightly too long on me(!) but not annoying enough to unpick. Essentially, this dress was a toile but I'm delighted with how it turned out and I have worn it loads. It turns out that a plain, navy dress was definitely missing from my wardrobe.

Spurred on by the success of the first dress I immediately set out on my second. Shock horror, I picked another plain fabric! This time I used a deep green jersey purchased from My Fabrics. It's feels a little bit lighter in weight to the first one and not quite as soft/cotton-y to touch, but still a nice jersey. Although I like the little cap sleeves on the navy dress I fancied something different so I copied the length of my Tilly and the Buttons Agnes t-shirt and twin needled the hems. My only other change was shortening the bodice by 1/4 inch.

 My "WOOH, this dress has longer sleeves" pose.

I'm really happy with how this dress turned out as well, although I probably wear the navy dress more.

Tidy insides.

For my third Lady Skater, I finally felt ready to cut into my "posh" fabric which I purchased from Kitschy Coo at the same time as the dress pattern. It's a medium weight jersey (organic cotton, I think) and feels gorgeous to handle and wear - really soft and weighty. It's worth paying a little bit more sometimes for quality fabric, especially if it has a ridiculously cool print. This fabric is covered in sewing paraphenalia - how cute is that?!

I had forgotten that I could only get hold of 1.3m of this fabric so I was worried there wouldn't be enough for a dress. Thankfully I *just* managed to squeak it out. YAY! This dress makes me so happy.

Actually, all three of my Lady Skater dresses make me ridiculously happy. I genuinely feel like I've turned a corner with my sewing. I'm producing clothes that I want to wear all the time, not some of the time, and are continually in the washing basket. I had it stuck in my head for so long that I wanted to wear woven cotton dresses when actually what I wear most, and love wearing, is jersey. I think I even enjoy sewing jersey more! There's a weird satisfaction in sewing a nice neckband or twin needling a hem.

I have since moved onto making Colette Patterns' Moneta Dress, another lovely jersey pattern, but I definitely see more Lady Skaters in my future. They hit that perfect balance of being incredibly comfortable yet flattering and potentially quite smart.

Apologies for the headless photography throughout this post. I'm not photogenic at the best of times, but I really didn't feel like having my face in shot when I took these photographs in the summer. I did daft poses to make up for it though!

knitted: turquoise blaster cardigan

It feels like an eternity has passed since I finished and photographed this project. May, I think? Anyway, I managed to finish knitting a wooly cardigan just before the start of summer. Smart, eh? I only wore it a couple of times before it got packed away with the winter jumpers. Oh well, not long now until it can come back out from the drawer!

(worn with my yet-to-be-blogged Kitschy Coo Lady Skater dress)

The pattern in question is yet another Andi Satterlund design, the Blaster cardigan. What can I say, I love Andi's cardigan patterns. I've knit 3 now and still have at least 2 more in my knitting queue. They just look so pretty with my fit and flare dresses. Like my previous two cardigans (here and here) I used Jamiesons of Shetland wool (again, what can I say, I love their wool) but this time in the colourway "Caspian". It's a really lovely dusky/dirty shade of turquoise.

Sadly this cardigan wasn't the most fun to knit, but I must stress this was entirely due to tension problems with my knitting, not a reflection on the pattern. My first gauge swatch was absolutely massive so I knit a second one on smaller needles with a tighter tension. It was still a teeny bit bigger than recommended but I calculated from the schematics that my tighter gauge would give me a good fit as I run between sizes with Andi's patterns.

It turns out that it's one thing altering your tension for a small project over a couple of evenings, but another entirely for a longer project. Sadly messing with my natural gauge resulted in irregular tension: it's slack at the beginning around the upper back then gets tighter towards the waist. Thankfully I'm broad shouldered with a small waist so weirdly the tension blunder works in my favour, but it irks me nonetheless. 

My second drama was the first sleeve. I had knitted down to the elbow when I tried the sleeve on and decided that it felt uncomfortably tight. I wasn't sure whether I was still having tension problems or my upper arms are disproportionately large - a bit of both I suspect - but I bit the bullet and frogged the sleeve back to the short rows at the sleeve cap. For my second attempt I knitted double the amount of rounds between the decreases and I'm much happier with the fit. I also knitted the sleeves to full length.

The third drama was the knitting of the buttonholes as I didn’t understand how to do them from the pattern's instructions (they were knitted differently to my previous cardigans.) Then when I figured out the method after watching a KnitPurlHunter video on YouTube (seriously, if you ever have knitting problems, check out her channel) I had to undo them all because my buttons were too large to fit the holes. Doh!

My final gripe is that the top buttonhole wants to bulge upwards. I don’t know whether that’s down to how I picked up the stitches on the buttonband or the fault of the ribbon I sewed onto the reverse to stabilise the buttonband (never done that before, it looks pretty!) I had to sew the top buttonhole vertically as the ribbon was too narrow to sew the hole horizontal to match the knitted hole - perhaps it has stretched the hole out? 

I'm aware I've spent the vast majority of this post complaining, but I genuinely like the finished cardigan and think it looks pretty despite my blunders. I love the simple lace pattern, especially the detail around the waist, and the fit is surprisingly lovely despite my tension woes. I imagine it will get as much wear as my two other Andi Satterlund cardigans.

I'm undecided which of Andi Satterlund's cardigan designs to knit next. Hetty and Anouk are already in my pattern library, although I'm also really tempted by Andi's newer design, Salal. I would need to order wool though (oh, the hardship!) if I want to make another cardigan and it would be a good idea to finish knitting my first pair of socks before I start anything else. I'm ready to turn the heel - exciting!

caramelised apple and cinnamon cake

How on earth are we in September already?! Crazy. Anyway, here's a cake I made for my sister-in-law's birthday back in April. It has an autumnal feel so I guess it's appropriate that I'm sharing it later in the year. Sis-in-law is a fan of cream cheese icing so I generally plan my cake choices for her around that. After a flick through my recipe books I felt most tempted by the apple pie cake in Edd Kimber's first baking book, "The Boy Who Bakes."

I've actually baked that cake before for my brother's birthday years ago, but it is a *huuuuge* cake and the sponges involve some time consuming elements. To make things quicker and easier for myself I baked a standard victoria sponge cake but added some warming spice.

For the cinnamon cream cheese icing and caramelised apple topping and filling I followed the original recipe but scaled down the quantities. The overall flavour was tasty although from what I remember I thought I was a little heavy handed with the cinnamon in the sponges. I also slightly overbaked them which was annoying, especially since I was baking for someone else, but sometimes these things happen. Luckily the incredibly tasty cinnamon cream cheese icing and juicy, spiced apples provided enough moisture to stop it feeling like a sad, dry cake.

On the subject of cake, is anyone else watching the new Great British Bake Off series since it moved to Channel 4? Although the programme hasn't particularly changed, the absence of Mary Berry makes me sad. I also find Sandy Toksvig intensely annoying. Thoughts?

Sticky apple and cinnamon cake
Recipe adapted from Apple Pie Cake in "The Boy Who Bakes" by Edd Kimber
(I think this is what I did...)

cinnamon sponges:
I used the classic method of weighing out my softened butter/margarine, caster sugar and self-raising flour to the same weight as my eggs (each, not their combined total weight, if that makes sense.) I used 3 large eggs for this recipe which weighed around 6oz (about 170g?)
1tsp ground cinnamon (perhaps use less though, I'd go for 1/2 tsp)

cinnamon cream cheese icing:
75g softened butter
175g icing sugar
125g cream cheese (full fat)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon 

caramelised apples:
3 apples (I used Braeburn or Cox)
55g butter
55g light brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground ginger

Preheat the oven to Gas 4/180C/ Fan 160C. Grease two 18cm/7 inch round cake tins and line the bases with baking parchment. In a large bowl beat together the margarine and sugar for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the eggs to the mixture one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add a tablespoon of the flour with the last egg to prevent the mixture from splitting. Add the cinnamon and flour and mix everything together until fully combined.

Divide the mixture between the cake tins and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for approx. 30 minutes until well risen, golden and spring back when touched. Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

For the icing, beat the butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy, for about 5 minutes, then beat in the cream cheese, vanilla extract and cinnamon.

For the caramelised apples core, quarter and slice into wedges. Add to a pan with the butter, sugar and ginger. Put the pan on the hob over a medium heat and cook until the apples have softened and are coated in caramel. Drain the apples and leave to cool but keep the caramel juice. Pour the juice back into the pan and cook again over a medium heat until it has reduced and thickened slightly.

To serve, spread half of the icing on top of one sponge along with a layer of apples and half of the caramel juice. Pop the other sponge on top and repeat. Enjoy!

barfing sarah giraffe dress

One of my childhood best friends, Sarah, is a bitter (single) lady. Whenever she sees a loved up couple, whether it's in person or on tv, she rolls her eyes and remarks "BARF!" It's hilarious and I love her for it. She's also one of those tall, long limbed people so we often joke that if she ever becomes pregnant she's more likely to give birth to a lanky giraffe than a baby. Needless to say, when I saw this adorable fabric covered in loved up giraffes I knew I had to make a dress in Sarah's honour. 

After the storming success of my gingerbread man Christmas dress where I finally managed to frankenstein a bodice together to fit my upper back and shoulders, I felt confident in making a second one in non seasonal fabric. I even thought I'd add sleeves! However, I hadn't realised that would essentially mean drafting a sleeve as my armhole no longer resembled either pattern I started with.

I discovered that my armhole is weird. I know that the back armhole is meant to be slightly longer than the front to accommodate shoulder blades but mine is significantly longer, by at least an inch I think. I would be more specific but most of this dress was constructed back in February and I'm struggling to make sense of the notes I made at the time.

Needless to say, this stumped me. After at least 7 different toiles *groan* and eventually settling on a style with a slight gather at the top (more forgiving to draft than a smooth, set in sleeve) I discovered that the most successful version involved a massive forward shoulder adjustment. This involved vertically slashing my sleeve pattern at both front and back notches, removing 3/4 inch of width from the front and adding it to the back, keeping the overall sleeve width the same. My sleeve pattern looked very odd, but it seemed to work.

However when it came to the final sleeves with my beloved giraffe fabric it just was not comfortable. To say I was grumpy about it was an understatement. I HAD DONE SO MANY FLIPPING TOILES. My final fabric is slightly thicker than my toile fabric which made a difference, but ultimately I think underestimated just how differently armholes are drafted for sleeves. Mine hadn't been altered enough.

I had already clipped the curves of the armhole by this point so I didn't have enough wiggle room in the seam allowance to adjust fit either. The skirt and zip were also attached and finished so I couldn't just make the bodice sleeveless using my preferred construction method without removing both. Many swear words were uttered and the dress got shoved aside for a couple of months while I happily sewed stretchy jersey dresses which all fit beautifully (more on those in another blog post soon.)

 "Ugh, they're so in love and happy. Get a room, giraffes."

Eventually, after a couple of months, I got fed up with seeing the dress hanging on dressform Doris and made some bias binding to finish the armholes. I had to tweak the shape to make it sleeveless again which was annoying, but ultimately less annoying than having an unfinished dress lying around. The armholes still don't feel 100% comfortable, but they're wearable. I'm done with this dress and its armholes.

I feel embarrassed to admit that I've only worn this dress a couple of times since finishing it, mostly due to feelings of armhole rage. It's a shame really because it is a lovely, well fitting dress otherwise. Sometimes I need a bit of space after finishing a project if things have gone wrong. Now I can wear it happily.

I think enough time has even passed to allow me to return to this bodice block soon! I got my Aunty, who used to make wedding dresses, to have a look at the armhole and sleeve and I think I know what I need to do to make them fit better next time (famous last words, haha.) One day, I will conquer sleeves!