Summers Day

A beautiful summers day and i get to wear my Knot Dress. Us English are so over enthusiastic about the sun at the moment. We don't even mind if its not that hot: T-shirts, shorts and summer dresses are out in force. So i took my time form getting sun burnt to take some picture in my mums garden. To replace the not so good ones i took in my small dark flat. See here.

I am now working on a new Knot Dress in a washed out blue flowery fabric. I really want to get it finished in time to go on holiday, but i am missing an invisible zipper. Where can i find an invisible zipper in Newport?

Anyway that's my other news i am off on holiday to Nice again. This time i am going for 16 nights and i am going to do a french course. I am so excited because i have always wanted to learn another language. I have dipped in and out of french for many years, but it is really hard to get motivated when you are learning on your own. I did do a evening class many years ago, but that was in another town and there are no local classes which will fit around my work. 

I am hoping that on this course, my french teachers can help me pull all of the french words (and i know many) out off my head and into usable sentences. Because it is quite embarrassing when somebody approached you in France and you understand almost everything they are saying, but you cant even remember how to tell them that use don't speak french. 

Burda Front Knot Dress - 3/2012 108b

I have been a bit quite on the blog front for a while, but i am not the only one. Its been quite in blog land for a while, i assume that this is because it is summer and we all have better things to do than to sew, knit, and then blog about it.

For me i have been on holiday, then to London twice; once for tennis at Wimbledon and another to catch up with a friend from my travels. And i have two weeks of holiday coming in a few weeks time, so i shall be off again then as well. 

Wow, this must be my most showy offy pose of all time.

Yesterday i finished the Knot Front Dress pattern 108b from the March addition of Burda Magazine. I was so excited to finish something,  i jumped up and took some photos in the fading light of my flat. So sorry about the quality it was so dark, i might try to take some better photos next time i wear this dress. (p.s. I have now taken better photo's).

Sewing this dress took longer than i thought. I had been reading all the reviews from other bloggers and sewers on-line and they nearly all mentioned how easy this was to put together and sewing it in just a few hours. So i went into this with a slight underestimate of how long it was going to take me. I started tracing it a few weeks ago and it has taking me a week of evenings and a Saturday to actually finish. 

I cut a size 80 tall or size 14UK. I did not make any adjustments as usually i need to lengthen the bodice as i have a really long body even though i am only 5'5". The length of the skirt came out a bit strange as the front panels were 5" shorter than the back panel. I must have made a mistake tracing the pattern but as of yet i have not gone back and evaluated what went wrong. So i ended up with a slightly shorter skirt than expected. 

Their was a lot of basting involved in the process of piecing this together and i was never quit sure when i should be removing the bastes. I made the mistake of removing the baste along the bottom of one of the knot pieces as i was making the knot. I now realise that the instructions don't tell you to remove this because it should stay, else the lining piece wont stay put.  So i spent a good hour restitching the lining back on. I therefore recommend that if you are reading this post with a view to making it, that you make this baste in a matching thread, or if you know a better way please let me know as i plan on making another. 

As i don't like my clothes not having pockets i added an inseam pocket to the right side, i would have added one to the left as well but the zipper was in the way. Next time i make this i might add a shorter zipper so i can get a second pocket.

Just a note. this dress looks so similar to two already on the Burdastyle website by lazylinchen and tsedai. I did not copy their fabric choice i swear. But we three do have great dresses.