just in the nick of time....

Well I've been playing around with my new machine and I just love it! It is so quiet and just does everything with ease so I am definitely happy with the purchase. Haven't sewn a stitch of curtains yet (or even unrolled the fabric from the roll for that matter), but I have nearly finished a skirt for myself where I made keyhole buttonholes just because I can now, and a pair of shorts for Anna using a decorative stitch around the hem again just because I can, and I made myself a fancy dress using super slippery fabric that was no problem for this machine.

My mother's group had planned a night out sans babies and husbands for cocktails and dinner in the city on Friday night and since this is a rare and hence very special occasion for me I decided a new dress was in order. In fact, a new dress using some red and pale gold floral patterned silk satin fabric I bought from the Remnant Warehouse a few years ago and was waiting for the right pattern to come along. You know those fabrics that are too beautiful to cut into for just any old thing? When I saw BWOF 5/09, dress 117 I knew it would be just perfect for this fabric.

I even made a muslin out of some fugly satin fabric I had in the stash to get the fit right, which I'm glad I did because the skirt is super long and has a lot of ease in it due to the pleats so I ended up cutting a size smaller for the skirt than I normally would for a BWOF. Doing the muslin was also good to practice sewing the unusual kimono style sleeves on the front. Even with practice though they were majorly fiddly and the points still didn't turn out perfect on my finished version, but I don't think it's overly noticeable since they are in the folds of fabric around the armpits anyway. Thankfully Audrey over at her blog SewTawdry (tee hee, I love that blog name!) had put together a tutorial on this dress which was of a great help, and her version is just gorgeous.

Anyway, with making the muslin and other distractions I only just finished the hem on this dress on Friday afternoon, enough time to press it and put it on straight away! It came close to becoming a UFO, because it was so annoying to sew together but I'm glad I persevered 'cos I think it looks pretty good:

I underlined the silk satin fabric with some organza I also had in the stash to give it more body and to have something to hand sew the hems down on to so they wouldn't show through to the outside. This is what made it difficult to sew actually, the layers kept slipping and sliding and needed a gazillion pins to keep it in place. But again I think it was worth the extra effort because it reduced wrinkling too, even after a looong night out it was hardly wrinkled at all.

What I like most about this pattern is that the pleated front bodice pieces are sewn into the side seams which eliminates any gaping you traditionally get with a cross front dress. The neckline is of a modest and wearable height too, which is unusual for Burda patterns which in my experience seem to specialise in having acres of cleavage on show (which is fine if you some to show off!)

The night out was great too - get a bunch of mums out on the town and we go all out and make the most of it! Seriously, I didn't get home until 3am, and since my husband was up at 5.30am for golf and then Anna was up at 6am full of beans to start her day, you can imagine how extremely tired I am today. Good thing I've have nine months of sleep deprivation training. But I had some great lychee and ruby grapefruit cocktails and Vietnamese food at the Libertine in Kings Cross, which I can strongly recommend for any Sydneysiders reading this. But now I think I need a month of early nights to recover now, I'm getting too old for that sort of caper LOL.......