Vintage Vision

On my most recent trip to Abergavenny I stumbled across a lovely vintage store Vintage Vision which is handily situated just down the street from my brother's restaurant Pizzorante.

I was very restrained (there were a lot of gorgeous clothes in there!) and, almost, didn't buy anything. However when I saw this pattern I practically squealed with delight and couldn't leave without it.  This pattern is so similar in style to one of my favourite dresses - a stripy sun-dress I bought in Iguana Vintage Clothing in Los Angeles.  When I bought the dress it had stripes in the v-neck like the yellow version on the left. Not just one stripe like shown but three, and in a luminous pink fabric that I really wasn't sure about.  Apart from the stripes I loved it so I bought it and quickly cut the stripes off.  There's no zip on my dress, just some thin elastic at the waist and some buttons on the shoulders which I never need to undo to get it on and off, so I know I could make it again without the zip (another bonus!).

I get so much use out of the dress I have that I'm looking forward to making another one up and I particularly like the blue stripy version with the contrasting stripes on the shoulders. 

Minus the pink stripes

Wearing my LA dress for a friend's wedding

Officially hooked on sewing!

As I sit at the window writing this it is pouring down with rain outside, there's just been a flash of lightning and the last thing I can imagine wearing is a flowery summery dress but oh well, there you go, that's British summer's for you. I'm just so incredibly pleased with myself that I managed to get my dress refashioned in time for the wedding on Saturday!

The first thing I did was change the hem from a full-on scalloped hem to a lovely straight hem.  I then laid it over the back off a chair and couldn't stop looking at it - that's how pleased I was with my handy-work.  I was very good the first few nights sewing and listened to music - I'm totally addicted to Alela Diane's new album at the moment, especially after seeing her live last month.  However last night Oliver was out which gave me a rare chance to watch some Five USA AKA Jerry Bruckheimer's TV Channel - yes I watched an episode of Numbers then 2 hours of CSI, I'm not ashamed of that, ok maybe just a little bit ashamed, but it's an addiction I can't seem to shake!

You can see all the before photos - the hem, the broken shirring, the ribbon straps - on my Flickr and in the great Flickr group set up for Make&Mend 2011. It took me one night to do the hem, another night to do the straps and last night to do the shirring.  I imagine all these things will get quicker as I learn more, I mean at the moment I still have to check my sewing machine manual every time I have to fill up the bobbin or change the stitch length!

The dress - BEFORE

You can see in the before photo how shapeless it was with all the broken elastic on the shirring, and I was just a bit bored by the scalloped hem and the straps as I've had this dress for years.   So all the time was worth it as I now feel I have a new dress and all it cost me was the price of some white thread and elastic thread.  I think I can safely say I am now officially hooked on sewing!

The Dress - AFTER!