Halloween LBD - A Ghoulish Georgia dress

Happy Halloween! and hello on my most favourite of all the holidays. I absolutely love how year on year the UK seems to get more and more into Halloween and we are seeing so much more participation. We have a long way to go to complete with the likes of the US but I like the way this is heading. I'm even happier to be bringing you a halloween themed post.

I have been a bit slack this year and haven't managed to make the kids costumes, mostly because he wanted to be batman, and sadly I had to work on the day we could have gone to a toddler party. I also haven't managed to get out anywhere in fancy dress myself because, well, its a Wednesday BOO! 

2 nap times, 2 maternity dresses - part 2

In this second installment of the 2 nap times, 2 maternity dresses posts I am happy to show off the second version of my Megan Nielsen maternity pattern hack dress with this beautiful pale pink number.

Last week I showed you my stunning snow leopard version of the dress and talked more about the pattern and why I decided that it was still ok to sew maternity dresses into your 3rd trimester! Well this week we are going to talk all about the fabric.

Both of these dresses are made from Jersey fabric which I bought from Stoff & Stil. Stoff & Stil are actually a Danish fabric company who have a few other shops in the EU and ship to the UK. Their shipping costs are quiet pricey (I blame you Brexit!!) but the fabric isn't too dear and its such good quality I highly recommend. Plus their range of fabrics are stunning, for me much better than a lot of the stuff you can find in the UK, so if you do a bulk order it makes the shipping more reasonable.

I've talked before about my love for Danish fabric stores. One day I will make it back to Denmark to see friends and next time I'm saving up for months in advance and taking an entire empty suitcase!

The fabric for this dress is some gorgeous pale pink heart cotton jersey. As I mentioned above the quality of this stuff is amazing, it has great stretch recovery and its nice and thick, perfect for this type of project. I made a version of this dress in a cheap poly jersey from the market and you can really tell the difference with this. I think the great quality helped these two dresses come along so perfectly. They just behaved and the finished outcome really does speak louder than words.

The fabric I used for last weeks Snow leopard dress is this absolutely stunning cream leopard jersey which has a very subtle pale pink in the centre of some of the prints. This is probably the most amazing fabric I have ever purchased! I mean we all know I love a leopard print but again the quality is stunning, it was so easy to sew, the finished item looks amazing I really can't fault it.

I would say these jerseys are a medium weight though, they make perfect bodycon dresses, would be good for skater skirts/dresses and more fitted tops (like Tilly's Agnes top, in fact this is now on my to do list!), but they are definitely not lightweight so wouldnt suit something which needed more drape like a floaty, baggy top.

I purposefully picked light colours for these dresses for 2 reasons; a) summer is hopefully on its way and b) I have decided I have become too lazy to keep up with my hair dying and am considering growing out my natural colours. The lighter clothing much better complements my ever fading locks than darker ones do, so watch this space to see how this terrible hair saga goes (it will probably end in me crying from bad hair and dying it pink again!).

So I hope you liked these dresses, I finally managed to get a couple of outfits I am happy to show off my pregnant figure in and that give me some confidence, for me that is a massive thumbs up. I hope I have inspired you to do some selfish sewing just to cheer yourself up, its definitely worth it.

x

2 nap times, 2 maternity dresses - part 1

Its probably a little late to start sewing more maternity clothes in my 3rd trimester but I got so fed up of hating all my clothes and how I look in them I had had enough and decided I might as well just do something about it to cheer myself up.

I mean I probably only have about 12 weeks left, which when you think about home sewing doesn't really seem worth the effort. That being said I know I will get a lot of wear out of these in the coming weeks and as the title of the post implies these dresses really didn't take me very long at all (2 nap times in fact!).

The first one I am going to show to you in this post is this amazing white leopard print version which as you can see I appropriately wore for a recent trip to the zoo. Thankfully I wasn't attacked by a lion or adopted by the snow leopards.

The main reasons why these two dresses were so quick is firstly they are both the same pattern, meaning I could sew them simultaneously and secondly they are a dress I have made before so I already know it fits and the construction method - bonus.  The pattern is the Cara top and Erin skirt from the Megan Nielsen Maternity survival pack. I made another leopard version of this dress a month or so ago which I blogged about here. For this version I used the ruching placement for the top rather than the skirt which I think I did last time and its sitting a little higher this time giving a much better fit around the bump. I also made these versions ever so slightly longer as its getting warmer meaning I could wear them without tights if needed. The technique for this hack couldn't be simpler, just cut the two patterns out in your size and then overlay them following the contours. You will likely find the skirt is slimmer than the top. When cutting I decided to keep the bottom of the skirt the same size, graded up to the top size in the hips. because I am a very curvy figure, then follow the shape of the top up to the shoulder.

This pattern hack really is so easy to do and its super quick to sew, I really recommend it.

(It's actually snowing in this picture, I mean its April and its snowing!)

I have basically decided that this type of dress is the only type of thing I am comfortable wearing during pregnancy and its completely pointless trying to wear anything else. It fits easily, pulls on, grows with you and is not in any way restrictive so its just so comfortable. Its definitely the type of clothing I reach for every morning as long as I have a clean version so I am really happy to have two more in my rotation of clothing hence my decision that this was not going to be a waste of sewing.

I love this dress, i'm so pleased with it. I think its the fabric that really makes it so amazing and it brings my total count of leopard maternity dresses to 3!

Next week I will post the second version of this dress and talk about the fabric in more detail so I look forward to seeing you then.

How do you feel about sewing for the short term? Is it worth it? I suppose a lot of us sew for special occasions, items which might be quiet costly but only get a very small amount of wears? Is the value in the longevity of an item or the amount of pleasure you get from it? I've often previously thought it was about it only being worthwhile if it was going to get a lot of use, but maybe I have been looking at it all wrong?