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I’m back after a week off! I skipped last Friday’s weekly sewing review as I was busy swanning around Vienna. We went to 5 art galleries plus another art exhibition in London and my brain was absolutely saturated by the time I got home. I probably could have done with more of a zone-out type of holiday, but I had a great time all the same - I just want another holiday immediately, please and thank you.

I got to wear my newly made Agatha dress to the opera and a fancy restaurant, all of which was fantastic. I love wearing me-mades in formal settings. It feels devious somehow.

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I’ve been working on a skirt this week - the Amelia Skirt from The Pattern Stash. For full disclosure, I was sent this pattern (and a kit including fabric) for free in exchange for an Instagram post about the skirt. This post is not part of that exchange - I just wanted to share a little about the making process.

This is my second toile of the skirt. On my first toile I did a straight size 10 - I should have known that was a silly idea! My hips are less curved than most patterns are designed for, so I always have to do some heavy modifications to make the hip curve straighter. I took in the side seams and increased the intake of the back darts, but I quickly realised that my changes were distorting the lines of the pattern - the panels weren’t nicely distributed anymore. So I decided to trace off the size 8 at the hip, and grade to a 10 at the waist. I also picked some leftover linen to make this a wearable toile. You may recognise this fabric from my April dress!

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Behold, my Fibre Mood Agatha. I can’t get over how beautiful it is. This is probably the prettiest thing I’ve ever made.

There’s a lot I love about the design of the dress. The curved waistband which rises to meet the V of the plunge neckline. The fact that the waistband is doubled, such that it provides a nice bit of structure around the waist to support the weight of the skirt. The floaty, breezy quality of the sleeves due to their being semicircles - and the way the hem of the sleeve lines up with the waistband. And that plunging neckline! I worried it might be too revealing for me, but I think it’s perfectly tasteful and just a bit flirty.

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This week I’m sharing some creative writing on the topic of sewing. I wrote this a couple of months ago in a 5-minute writing challenge on the topic of “an object related to my hobby”. PS. I’m just dabbling in creative writing, be kind 🙂

I often collect miniature mending kits from hotels and stash them in my handbags, because the time you need a mending kit is not when you are in a hotel room with your luggage – and therefore hopefully also with a spare change of clothes – but rather when you’re out and about, at a nice dinner, or in the office, with only the clothes on your back, and a significantly higher need to look presentable.

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I made my Agatha dress this week! Here’s a teaser pic ahead of the full post I’m writing about the making of this dress.

In short, I adore it. It’s not my typical style as I tend to lean more cutesy, but I’m looking to add more elegant pieces to my wardrobe and this dress nails that brief. Can’t wait to share more about it soon.

The next thing I want to share is not actually a make from this week, but a new pattern release: the Tilly and the Buttons Erin dungarees. You might have seen this pattern all over Instagram this week. I was a tester for this pattern a few months ago, and I’d never worn dungarees as an adult before so I had no idea what to expect!

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I’ve been following my heart this week. By which I mean I’ve changed my mind a LOT and flip-flopped between 4(!) different sewing projects. Remember last week I was saying I only work on one project at once? Ha.

My goal at the start of the week was to finish with the fitting the bodice of my Etta dress, and then I could switch onto another project. I’ve been working on this fitting project for weeks and frankly I’m bored out of my mind with it - and frustrated too. It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for ages, as I was hoping to turn it into a bodice block for drafting my own tops and dresses. But it’s very challenging for me.

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Loads to talk about this week, even though I haven’t actually switched on my sewing machine.

The dress hack I was working on last week hasn’t really excited me, so I’ve just let it sit for now until the urge to pick it up returns. I always try to keep a “one project at a time per craft” rule (a WIP limit of one, for all y’all in software engineering out there 👀). I’m moderately strict about it because every time I’ve broken that rule, I essentially end up parking the first project for months, and then I end up feeling guilty about letting it languish, and it’s a whole mental burden, and another pile of mess in my house, and so on.

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Welcome to the first of a new series! Each Friday I will be writing about what I’ve done in sewing land over the past week - plus any knitting or other crafts I’ve managed to slot in.

I’m kicking off this new sewing series on a bit of a tangent, with last Friday’s knit club meet-up - our first ever! Ari, Jolynna and I have been knitting online together every Sunday for over a year now - with two of us based in Yorkshire and Jolynna based all the way in Australia. Celebrating Jolynna’s recent move to the grim north of England (welcome!), we consumed a solid number of gins and stouts and got raucous in my favourite local viking pub Valhalla. Throw away all your assumptions about knitters! Although I did have to go home early and then spent a few days in an introvert hangover, so maybe your assumptions aren’t far wrong on my part.

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