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After more than six months of blog silence, I’m back with more sewing adventures (sew-ventures??? Hmm, no, obviously not. Sorry, bear with me, I’m out of practice!)

Now, I hope no-one takes this the wrong way, but whenever I read on blogs and social media about people providing elaborate warnings or apologies for their breaks or absences, my usual response may tend towards eye-rolling. Since I reckon that, for the vast majority of people, being absent from various online fora has a grand impact of precisely ZERO on others. So, don’t worry, I’m not at all offended that you didn’t even notice I’d been gone…

So, with a humble sense of my own lack of importance to anyone out there, I’ll refrain from lengthy justifications for my absence. I wasn’t in the mood to do this for a while, so I didn’t.

But, I think it’s worth elaborating a little further about what has brought me back.

Why it is that I am again enthused to throw more words into the dying genre of ‘the blog’…

(Here’s a useless aside: as someone who persists with long form blog posts, I kind of like to picture myself as akin to an 18th century heroine, penning fabulously detailed letters during the golden age of letter-writing, blissfully unaware that the medium would one day become utterly irrelevant. Except that rather than being ‘blissfully unaware’, I think of myself as ‘stubbornly defiant’. As I’m sure many 18th century heroines were!).

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The first reason I’m blogging again is a purely capitalist one (I hope you’re not here for starry-eyed romanticism). A couple of months ago, I received an email announcing the eye-glazingly expensive cost of renewing my blog hosting service and website for the next three years. And, I immediately thought, ‘fuck it, I’m done. I’m not using it anyway. I’ll shut it down’.

And then, over the subsequent few weeks, I worried about whether I could really discard my blog baby. So many hours down the drain, just to disappear forever (yeah, yeah, I’m aware of the sunk-cost fallacy…) And I discovered that I could renew the website for just one year at a slightly less exorbitant cost. So, here we are, I’ve given the blog a one-year lifeline and we’ll see if I actually use it again!

Now, the other element that brought me back is that along came Me Made May 2024.

I’ve written elsewhere about how an article in The Guardian about Me Made May is actually what led me to discover sewing in the first place. So, during Me Made May 2024, after having not shared a single post on Instagram for about six months, I was inspired to just post my shitty, poorly lit daily me-made outfits on my Instagram feed.

And I promptly remembered how damn nice it could feel to simply share a passion with other people.

It’s kind of like the polar opposite of screaming into the abyss. Gently calling out into the kind and supportive cocoon of fellow sewing and textile lovers.

And so I’ve decided to give this another go. Me Made May brought me to sewing in the first place and now it has brought me back to the world of sharing my sewing.

But I’m going to do it on my terms.

I won’t be linking to pattern or fabric companies’ websites anymore. I am not an advertising service and I don’t want to feed the capitalist machine that’s destroying the world. If you want to learn more about something you’ll see here, you’ll need to google (yeah, I know, I’m forcing you to engage with another capitalist machine, but I didn’t create the system…)! And I won’t be trying to keep a schedule and be regular with my posts. I won’t necessarily be taking the time to include links to other blog posts or content I’ve created. It takes too much time and discourages me from blogging it all. And those links are usually just a vehicle to try to get more ‘views’ and it’s been many years since I’ve even checked how many views this blog gets. As it really doesn’t matter since I just do this for fun! If my mother is the only person reading this, that’s actually fine with me!! And, finally, fuck SEO! (Don’t worry if you don’t know what that means, your life is all the richer for it!)

In sum, I’ll share when I’m excited to do so and in the way I feel comfortable.

None of which is designed to say that I don’t appreciate everyone who reads here and interacts with me. I really do! It amazes me still that anyone reads at all. But, I really do this because it brings me joy to throw my sewing thoughts out into the universe. And if some other people out there just so happen to also enjoy it, that’s a wonderful serendipity…

Cuz, I actually find it fun to ‘pen’ a thousand words about my fabric adventures… (hmmmm, I bet I would have been a very good 18th-century letter-writer…)

So, today’s sewing is all about a couple of different colour ways of this printed heavyish weight linen that I purchased last year as coupons from Zyga Paris. I loved both colours and, in my mind, they each went through about a thousand iterations of what they might possibly be turned into. Ahhh, the luxury of imaginary sewing.

But here’s what I ended up settling on…

Hacked Myosotis Dress

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Ahhh, yellow.

I don’t have much of it in my wardrobe. But everytime I put it on, well, mind the corniness, but IT KIND OF FEELS LIKE SUNSHINE!.

I love wearing it, I really do.

So for the yellow and white fabric, I decided to hack the Deer and Doe Myosotis Dress. I started using the bodice that I have already used many times for this pattern. It is at least a size or two smaller than what would actually be recommended by the pattern for my body measurements, because the pattern is very roomy.

So my usual sized-down version was quite appropriate for what I wanted to achieve here. The bodice I already had cut out gave me about two inches ease at the waist which was a good balance of looking a little fitted but being roomy enough that I wouldn’t have to create any new closure method. The sleeves are slightly pre-hacked too. On prior versions, I’ve learned I need a full bicep adjustment for upper arm comfort.

Obviously, however, the main innovation is that I’ve added a circle skirt!

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When I was sewing this, I found myself upstairs while my telephone was downstairs. Going down to get the phone so I could search the words ‘Circle Skirt Calculator’ created the dangerous risk that I might be seen by the son or husband, who might make demands of me that would drag me away from my sneaky sewing moment.

So I decided I had to do it without the use of technology.

So I hunted for a circle skirt pattern in my stash and settled on the skirt from the Sew Over It Penny Dress. It’s a 3/4 circle skirt, if anyone is wondering. And I just trimmed it down to the size of the waist of my bodice and lengthened the skirt by the maximum my fabric would allow. I think it was about 15cms.

Given the waist ease and the buttons, this just about lets me wriggle it on and off without needing to worry about adding a zipper. At least on my own unique body.

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Ashton and a Circle

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And as I swirled around in my new Myosotis dress, I promptly realised that I loved this frickin’ fabric in a circle skirt.

Those contrasting lines in different directions are divine!

It was also very sturdy and wasn’t sagging anywhere. It just looked crisp and flowy and swishy. (OK, I know an 18th century letter-writer would likely have a better adjective game than that, but you guys get the picture!)

So I decided that the blue version should also become just a stand alone circle skirt.

Ahhh, there’s nothing more satisfying than a project that can be achieved from start to finish in just a couple of hours but somehow still has a wow factor to it!

I again used a modified skirt from the Penny dress, cutting down to my waist size, adding length and adding a waistband.

And, then, was I done?

Obviously not.

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Cuz when I like a garment, I have this tendency to want to make a matching Ashton top with the leftovers. I guess it feels like a reward system: ‘Yes, new garment, you are so lovely that you deserve to have a friend. I will make one for you’.

Hmmm, am I playing god here much?

Or is that just what all creative pursuits are about, one way or another…

So that’s what inspired me to add the Ashton top. And I do love them together.

See, I knew they would be besties.

I’ve cropped the Ashton top based on the best length to sit with the skirt, so it’s a couple of inches shorter than the pattern as designed. I’ve also previously slightly modified the Ashton to have a bit less room at the back neckline as it’s a tad gapey on me there out of the envelope. But apart from these minor changes, it’s a regular run-of-the-mill Ashton.

I made the Ashton up with its facing option to finish the neckline, armholes and hem, as I love the satisfaction of a nice neat facing on a sleeveless top. Burrito-method me up!!

But I realised afterwards that with this print, I probably should have gone for the bias binding. As I didn’t like the look of either dark thread wandering across the lighter parts of the fabric or of lighter thread across the dart, I realised that I had to hand stitch the facing to the top, which was a tad more involved and pain-staking than I usually prefer in my sewing. Especially for such a delightfully simple pattern like the Ashton!

If I had just gone with bias binding, visible machine stitching right along the edges wouldn’t have bothered me too much, but with the facing, I would have found it too distracting.

All worth the hand-stitching effort in the end though!

So, bottom line, I love both of these makes and I’ve even had fun sharing them with you again!

So, not much else to say, except look at these circle skirts go…..

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