The Staple Dress

I'm searching for the perfect-for-me-summer-dress pattern because it is time to let my ever favourite Schoolhouse Tunic go! (or maybe just until the weather cools down again....)

I looked at the Washi Dress pattern, and even downloaded it, but decided The Staple Dress is more my style.

I made it, I shirred it - shirring for the first time ever using the assistance of the excellent online tutorial from Made by Rae (who designed the Washi Dress that I didn't end up making- oops!) - and now I have a new dress for summer! Hooray!!

And is it the perfect-for-me-summer-dress? 

 

I don't think so, but I'll have a better idea after I make it again with a purpose bought fabric rather than grabbing any old fabric I happened to have in my rather limited stash at the time.

With that, my search continues, but as I already have another pattern traced and ready to cut, hopefully it may not be too long before I get there!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend.

xx

 

P.S. Don't you just love Ken in the bottom corner of the dress photo? He's such a schmoozer!! Can you just make out the other dolly on his right side? Ha!!

First Felting

 

 

 

I've never felted before. I love wool, but I've never done any felting. So when I saw that my now Local Yarn Shop, 'A Good Yarn'* was offering an Introduction to Felting workshop, I felt (hah!) the urge!

 

It was brilliant fun! Liz did a fantastic job and we all completed two felted scarves in the three hour session, with my first attempt resulting in a subtle piece - when I was placing the colour accents over the top of  red wool fibre base, I only used a variety of mid-toned colours.

 

 

Making my second scarf was essential in helping me to memorise the processes involved. I went for grey this time, but I made sure to use both light and dark tones in the overlying design for balance and definition. It's a definite keeper!

 

So, thanks, Liz. I had a great time! I enjoyed the rhythm and the repetition of the felting methods. I enjoyed watching what looked like a huge hairy patchy caterpillar turn into fabric. I also enjoyed the fact that we all knew who we were talking about when someone mentioned Lucy**. And I enjoyed that we came away with a really good knowledge basis on which we can develop our felting techniques if we choose to.

 

And I'll be choosing to felt again!

 

 

Sam xx

 

*50kms down the road in Denmark, but worth a trip!

**Attic 24 Lucy