A little Sunday sewing.

I love the weekend, staying home, getting stuff done, hanging out with Dave and seeing friends.

I did all of these thing this weekend and a little house work, but I managed to keep that to a bare minimum, phew.

Sunday has been super, we got to spend some time with our adopted family at church this morning, has eggs benedict cooked by my talented husband, had home made scones for afternoon tea with my good pals (the scones were cooked by super chef Shell), and I made a super quick dress.

It is going to be a cold and horrid week next week so I wanted something new to wear to ease the pain.

I made this dress using another jersey dress that I made at the start of the winter as a pattern.

I laid the fabric out on the floor and folded it in half. Then I laid the dress on the top and cut around it. I wanted an asymmetrical hem so I cut it on an angle.

Then I folded it in half to make sure the top was symmetrical, which it pretty much was, yay.

Next I sewed the shoulder seams using my trusty ole janome overlocker.

I popped the dress over my mannequin, to see what shape the neck was, I cut it a little deeper in the front.

Originally I planned to edge the neck in the same fabric but it is too stretchy and hard to cut, so as I was after a quick and fun project I used some black jersey left over from another project.

My mother in law taught me how to make t-shirts a few years ago and I love doing the neck.

I cut out a strip of fabric that was about 3 inches wide and about half a meter long. Then I measured it roughly around the neck of the dress keeping the band tight.

Once I had worked out the length required I sewed it in to a loop. And folded the fabrics in half.

Now for the fun bit, I marked the circle in to quarters buy folding it in half and then half again, marking with pins.

Then the same on the neck of the dress getting the center front and back by matches the shoulder seams.

To find the middle on the sides of the neck I match the center front to the center back, note it is not the shoulder seams because the neck front is lower than the neck back.

Next I matched up the pins on the neck band with the pins on the dress with right sides together, making sure the seam on the band was at the back.

Then I sewed it in to place being sure to keep and even tension on the neck band.

Once it was sewn all around, it was time to press it. I love how the jersey contracts to make a neat circle.

wobbly to start

iron on high with lots of steam

ta da nice and flat

All that was left after that was to sew the side seams and hem the bottom and sleeves.

Ready for Monday, boom.

Where did all the time go?

Wow it has been a really long time since I have blogged, I have thought about it a lot but never really got around to it.

What happened I hear you cry, (or not as no one will be reading anymore) well sadly I got a full time job  (it's not actually that sad. I get paid and it keeps me out of mischief - for the most part) and it is all I can do to fit in some sewing never mind photograph it and put it on here.

But I really miss being part of the online sewing community, being apart of the discussions and I really miss the fun of collaborating with others.

I have recently stumbled on to a bunch of great sewing blogs thanks to Pattern review and I want to dive back in to that world, do some sewing challenges and swaps, get tips and tricks from all those clever sewers.

So I am resolved to blog again, weekly to start with and we will see how it goes from there. Wish me luck.


Oh and here are a couple of sewing projects from the past year just to prove I haven't stopped sewing all together.