April...ing

 Hello,  I haven't done an 'ing' post for a while so here goes...

Planting lots of seeds both inside and out, it is wonderful to see things starting to come up now and things are now doing well in the greenhouse.  I had a few false starts as something ate, dug up, destroyed my first lot of seedling in the greenhouse!  I don't know what as is is sealed in there, the base did used to be the base of our raised pond so it is unlikely anything was getting in there but the young shoots just looked like they had been snipped with scissors.  Well that seems to have stopped and the next lot have done well.  I have also been starting some on a sunny windowsill upstairs because it gets so much light all day long, all of those plants are looking good too.

Sewing lots of things but one of the main things this last week was my new hoodie, it is very warm I had it on to walk the dog on Friday and it will come in very handy.  The pattern is the Tilly Stella hoodie, from the sewing stretch book and the fabric is from minerva.

A bit of sunshine this week too, what a treat I am now onto the next hoodie but that one will be a zip up.

I also made a t-shirt and I have no images of me in that yet so I will share that later this week.

Challenging myself to make and list an item for my shop each day of April, the main reason I chose this month for this was I knew I had a holiday for two weeks of it.  So far so good but I am back at work this week and it is getting harder as we go, I am also trying to reuse and scrap bust as much as possible with this so as you can imagine as the month goes on my bigger pieces are all but gone.  I did allow myself to buy a couple of fat quarters this week as I had a few sales last week.

So I will not bore you with every single item but as you can see I have been busy and with making photographing and listing it will be more tricky when I have been in work all day.  I will stick at it though as it is my aim for the month. 

Reading not as much as I would have liked and that is mainly because I have got stuck on a book I just don't like and have not had the inspiration to start anything else.  I was reading Where the Crawdads Sing because it was recommended to me by two people, plus all the hype everywhere.   The lady in the library even said to me when I collected it 'oh this had had so much attention' well I don't know why?  I must apologize to anybody who has enjoyed it but for me it has been one of those books where I pick it up get bored only read a little, repeat then eventually it has just sat beside my bed and I look at it and think I can't be bothered with that!  Now books are very personal so pleased don't be offended if you loved it but sometimes you just get one that you can't get into to and for me it was this one.   I have ordered  The Element by Ken Robinson and I am looking forward to that arriving, maybe I need a bit of a run of non fiction for a while.  I was saddened to read he had died last year, I was only watching one of his talks for the second time last week when I noticed a comment someone had left.

Watching Gasmaman on Prime I think it was, it is a Swedish drama and there are three series. It is worth a look though I have to say as it got to series three I was losing all sympathy for the main character.  She did rather appear to be bringing on all her own misfortune, get out of that life I was saying, you know getting all over involved!

Walking around Dam Flask first thing in the morning when there was hardly a soul there, it was lovely.  I really don't understand all these people so keen to get in large crowds outside pubs and events, give me a deserted bit of countryside any day.  I don't need crowds of people to have a good time.

Feeling excited about a new venture, I won't say too much now as I am still feeling like it might not happen so we will just have to wait and see.

Looking forward to getting away in the caravan soon, my husband gave it all a clean so not too long and maybe the weather will be warm enough.

That is all for now, stay safe and have a lovely week. 

 

Free Dress Pattern From V&A Museum

 Today I am sharing this dress that I made for frugal frocks on instagram, I have had this fabric for quite some time and I don't usually do that but I wasn't sure what to do with it but it just stuck around.  Anyway this challenge was to use up an existing piece and pair it with a free pattern.  We all love a free pattern, and how super is it to make a dress for free using only fabric you already have in your stash.

I found my  free pattern on the V&A website and it is for the Mary Quant Georgie dress,  The original dress is made from a stiffer fabric and has stripes but mine is very sheer and floral so a different take on this.  I found the pattern printed off nice and clear and also was colour coded for sizing which I thought was a nice touch.

As this dress is so sheer I have had to wear a slip underneath, the slip is actually orange so with the sun shining on it you can see it a little.  I may have to do another in white but for the purpose of this I just wore the one I had.

I do like the frill and I wasn't sure if I would, as ever I did not follow the instructions as that is one of my things that I never do with sewing so I cant really let you know if they were clear or not.  However I can say the sizing is accurate, I did have to jig around with the wrap over bit but then I always have to do that with a wrap.  I think it is because maybe I don't have enough to hold it out in front!

In all I think this fabric worked well with the dress, it certainly suits the style with the frills and when we have the right kind of weather I will be wearing this.

I had not used patterns from the V&A website before and there a re a few on there so if you are not familiar with it why not go and have a look.

Mostly this week I have been making purses and bags I was setting myself the challenge to list something on Etsy every day this month but when it hardly makes any difference to the very few views it is quite demoralising.  I will keep it up for the month as planned and if all else fails that is Christmas presents for some time sorted.   It is currently more an exercise in self discipline, but it would be lovely to just be home and sew.  I think a few of us feel like that right now.

This was leftover from the coat fabric from the last post, so I have been quite busy sewing and will happily do that with the music blasting away.

What have you all been up to?  I did manage to get out for a walk with friends today and that was lovely.  Seeing people in person what a treat!   Take care everyone. 

  

Coat Making

 Today I thought I would share a bit of the mystery sewing, I have made an anorak.  Now it is not water proof fabric although I do have a spray for that I have just not got around to spraying the jacket yet.  I think I will do a test piece first.  I have used the spray before on a proper outdoor coat so we will see how effective it is.  This is meant to be a spring / summer coat so hopefully not getting too wet (that is an optimist British comment!)  I did enjoy making this coat after a few initial blunders, one of them was I left the middle bit out of the hood and had it all topstitched with cord in and all, so that came out.

   The sleeves were also a bad fit in the arm hole so I unpicked those about three times and cut and faffed until I had a good fitting sleeve.   I do appreciate things like sleeves are not always going to fit first time so I will let the pattern off with that.   The pattern is again from Burda magazine this time the March issue and is style 109.

The fabric is art gallery fabrics from minerva and is a  poplin, I ordered a dusky pink lining but this hot pink one arrived.  I used it just the same and I think it works well.  

You spend so much time tracing off the patterns from the magazine I now feel I need to make another coat like this one to justify the time spent, although I don't really need one.  Anyway here are a few pictures, if you follow me on minerva.com you will have already seen it.  I am Sewing Green Lady on minerva if you want to follow me there.  You can also read more about the process there.

I must also add that I received the outer fabric as a Minerva Brand Ambassador so if you read my post on there please leave a comment I would like that.  I am not as good with the photos as many of the other makers on there, a lot of people seem to have exotic locations so thank you for bearing with me with my back garden and local park images ;)  When we can get away there may be some variation!

It is the 31st tomorrow so I will share my other make after that, did anyone else make anything for frugalfrocks?  If so let me know in the comments.

I'm off to cook the dinner now so I'll be back soon, enjoy the week.