That Wim Wenders effect

We headed out to Mersea Island, hoping for an Indian summer type shoot on their lovely beaches. We left our house in blazing sunshine, and arrived all of 10 minutes later enveloped in spectacular mists. 

I love being in Mersea in mist and fog. Sounds are amplified, colours pop against the muted grey, everything slows down to the pace of some art-house film circa 1987. I had a good lollop (you couldn't call it running) in the sand and then we downed some posh snacks from the deli before heading off for a walk.

Grey is good background for my coral red cashmere cardigan.

The dress is one I made earlier in the summer and have worn a lot. The vintage fabric is a fantastic mid-century linen which makes me think of Irish tea-towels. It's soft and sturdy and comfy to wear, washes like a dream and it cost a whopping £2.99 from a charity shop in Harrow! At only 44" wide and 2 yards long I was fearing that it would never amount to a dress, but that was before Christine Haynes came along with her Emery pattern. Thank you Christine.

Long back zipper and crazy wind blown hair.

I changed the invisible zip to a hand-sewn lapped standard one, which worked ok until I realised I couldn't do the "clean" finish lining as instructed. I worked out a way but it was messy. I love "hand picking" a zipper. A pick-stitch is incredibly strong, it's quick, and you have so much control over what you are doing. It's seen as slow, but you are not ripping the thing out three or four times to try and get it right.

The zip finish is one thing, the actual existence of a long back zip is another. Now who invented that? And why are they so ubiquitous? I get them done up to my shoulder then struggle and wriggle the dress up, grabbing the zipper from over my head. What a faff. I am going to have to avoid them from now on. That's what home sewing is all about, you do it all and you do it your way.

I am liking my hair after my latest Henna and Indigo session. That stuff is smelly, messy and takes AGES but my hair is now less stressed than it was with chemical dying. It's not quite covering my grey, as in the grey is a funny brown, but I am going to keep on going with it for now. 

We had the beach mostly to ourselves and after a short walk my hair was dripping with damp. The blurred pics are not just the mist but camera issues with resolution. Strangely apt results, a bit like those pre-digital soft grainy film cameras which are so fashionable again.

I am now properly in the mood for a bit of Autumn outdoor-ness. Time is flying and I have foraging to do and hot chocolate to drink.

Adios for now.

All matchy matchy for my first blog post!

How fabulous is this print? I loved it the minute I saw it in my local fabric shop.
I bought this in January and it has waited for the Sew Dolly Clackett challenge and the lovely Emery pattern to come along to liberate it from my stash. When Roisin and Nic decided to marry I bet they didn't count on unleashing the tide of fun and madness that has been Sarah's Sew Dolly Clackett challenge. It's a feast for the eyes and the heart.

Sew Dolly Clackett Kimono Dress & Parasol.

Not only is this the best fitting dress I have made so far, it has a matching upcycled parasol! I love it to bits. I am planning the next "set" now, I want to make the whole outfit from some vintage fabric.

Back to this dress. The print is covered in kimono clad lovelies strolling through a springtime garden. So I thought I would take the pictures in a downtown beauty spot (aka. a little patch of green hidden behind a car park) where a pear tree was covered with the fluffiest fattest blossoms I have ever seen.

The pear tree which must be 100 years old,  in full glorious blossom.

Upcycled Parasol:  Perhaps it was the print itself that suggested the idea of a parasol - there's dozens of them on there. The matching dress and parasol set idea was probably last 'big' in the 1950s, as seen in this McCalls pattern for a border print  dress.

I love those old umbrellas with their curvy handles, pointy ends, beautiful fabrics and matching covers. They are so impractical but so cute. This parasol started off as a faded 60s umbrella. I removed and used the original cover as a guide pattern for the new one, following some online instructions on the Threads site.

It was fairly straight forward, I cut it out in the most frugal way I could without matching anything up. I did a really thin fell stitch with a zig zag for strength. I finished it and then realised it was UPSIDE DOWN! So I did another, and used the upside down one as a lining. So much for frugal.

I don't normally use invisible zips but for this print I had to, and hurray it worked! See note below.

The Emery pattern:  Emery is really good for full on prints like this, and as everyone says the fit is very easy to perfect. I took an inch altogether off at the waist, I also increased the shoulder darts quite a bit, but that was it. The BEST thing about Emery for me is that it takes up very little fabric. I can get a full skirted dress for not much more than 2 metres (depending on the fabric width). I think I did some matching on the sleeves and the back (and the bigger the print the more fabric you need to pattern match) so I probably did use more than like 2.5 metres on this one.

This is a quilting cotton but I didn't wash it before I made it up, and it has shrunk a bit after its first wash. Hey ho, it's still lovely.

That invisible zip bit: I really don't use invisible zips, but with this print it seemed a good idea. I did one before (in a class) and learned enough online to know invisible zips are easier on stabilised openings. I used a couple of strips of very lightweight fusible interfacing, a woven type so it has some give. And once it was stable I was able to match the pattern perfectly as I put the zip in.

I confess, I went back and bought more of this fabric. I really want to make another dress with it but I have promised I would to make a shirt (front panels only with this print) for my partner. His and hers matching outfits were big in the 50s too. The visual effect of two people wearing this print may be a tiny bit too much, but I won't let that put me off.

When Sew Dolly Clackett was announced two months ago I thought it was a nice idea, but seeing all the love and effort spent on these dresses really is life affirming (for us sewing obsessives, for normal people it probably just looks mad). Well done to everyone involved and best wishes to Roisin and Nic for their wedding!