Sunday 2 March 2014

My Camden Lady Skater

I finally jumped on the Lady Skater bandwagon! This dress is has just got to be my favourite yet. I'm thinking this is 50% the fabric and 50% the pattern and the silhouette. It just makes me feel fab when wearing it which is what clothes should do. I scored the fabric in the remnant bin at Rolls and Rems in London where I went on a day trip to Camden with a friend and her Mum and we had an epic day. I also had my first bubble tea which was... an experience... 
It cost me 2.50 for around 1.5m of it with a few rectangles cut out of the edges, but I didn't have any trouble with fitting all the pattern pieces onto the fabric. This was the first time that I've ever pre-washed any of my fabric, but I really didn't want to waste my time and effort on something that I can only wear once because it shrinks in the wash. Washing it was fine. Drying however was an issue, because knit fabric has to be laid flat so it doesn't stretch out of shape. This is how I dealt with the issue:

It didn't really work because England in the winter isn't really warm enough to dry anything so it just ended up on my bed folded in half on top of a towel which seemed to work okay.
I did make a massive mistake and uses 5/8 seam allowances instead of 3/8 (idiot) so I unpicked the arm and side seams and sewed them up again using the right seam allowance, but left the shoulders at 5/8 because they seemed okay and I really didn't want to start all over again. I did cut out and sew in full length sleeves but they were too tight even with the right seam allowance so I cut them short. Next time I'll grade them up to a size 2 or 3.
I do have many more planned in the future! The photos were taken at Burghley House which is just beautiful. We did take some photos in front of the main house but they didn't turn out so well as these ones so I'll take some pics in front of the main house some other day. I'll definitely be going back as it's only 15mins away from our house.

Thanks to Ed for taking the pics, and thanks to Mum and Dad for treating us to brunch!
If you haven't voted yet for the sewalong project sewn entries here, you've got still time! If my dungarees were you're favourite, feel free to give them a heart!
Thanks for reading!
Lauren xx