Putting the Tilly and the Buttons Love At First Stitch book on my Christmas list a few years ago must have been one of the best things I’ve done, sewing wise. It’s from this book that my favourite skirt pattern, the Delphine, is taken and I’ve used it again and again.
Does anyone else get major sewing anxiety whenever they’re away from their machine? I certainly have tonight. In fact, I am so desperate to sew something I’ve been contemplating buying a travel sewing machine to carry around with me. Other ways I’ve been distracting myself include knitting a blanket and pinning to my ‘DIYs and crafts’ board constantly.
It has taken me a really long time to make up this dress. I think I had all the fabrics and the pattern through before Christmas and only made it last week. Once again, the lovely Lisa at White Tree Fabrics let me choose which pattern I wanted to make and supplied me with the main fabric and the beautiful lace for the yoke.
This dress, the Simple Sew Ruby dress, was a dream to make. It only took a few hours to sew up and, like my previous experience of Simple Sew patterns, the instructions were really easy to follow.
This dress was actually a freebie with Love Sewing magazine but it’s such a great make that the magazine rereleased the pattern a few months ago. I got mine on its original run but stashed it away for a future make. Recently I found some fabric I didn’t have a use for and, on a break from another sewing project, I decided to make it.
I’m glad I did as I really love the shape of the dress and it has a great circle skirt. One major thing I’d change (and should have done differently this time but I didn’t have enough fabric) is lengthen the skirt considerably. I really don’t like the dress length at all and even in the drawings it appears to be short. I think that’s even why I didn’t use the dress pattern straightaway. Looking at these photos I think next time I’ll also lengthen the bodice. I wonder whether other people have felt the need to lengthen the pattern?
I’m definitely planning to make more Rubies, especially as they’re perfect for the hot weather that we’ve been having lately! I guess next time I’ll order far more fabric to be able to make these changes.
This Emery kind of reminds me of a 50s dress. I know that’s the look the Emery is going for anyway, but the fabric is very 50s inspired and seems to suit the pattern well. I initially picked it up as I loved the purple roses on a white background and thought it would make a great summery dress. There are also touches of green around the roses too, which I love.
The great thing about this fabric is that it is great for hiding a few errors. I need to redo the neckline at some point and hem it (I hate hemming!), but I may keep this version longer than the other Emeries I’ve made. What do you think?
I didn’t really love working with this fabric but I think that is because I used Liberty tana lawn for the previous Emery I made and that’s a dream to work with.
This one will probably stay in my ‘to finish’ pile for a little while while I work my way through the other sewing projects I have to do and I’ll hem it on a rainy afternoon sometime.
