Sometimes the best homemade dresses are the ones that take the least time to make. Dress E from Yoshiko Tsukiori's Stylish Dress Book: Wear with Freedom fits this description. It's a simple pull-over-the-head tunic with neat front pleats and two patch pockets – a gift for beginners and seasoned dressmakers alike.
I've made it twice before, first in a plaid suiting fabric and again in blue cotton paisley. The shape is flattering, it's comfortable and easy to wear.
With two metres of Poppy Europe bird print corduroy and half a metre
of emerald green needlecord, I was raring
to go. As before I lengthened the sleeves to three quarter length but this time also lengthened the hem to fall just below the knee to make it less of a tunic and more of a folk dress.
I experimented with cutting out the upper back panel in green, then trimmed the pockets and added cuffs to the sleeves to match.
The combination of brown brightly printed fabric trimmed with emerald green reminds me of the classic 1960s/70s Ladybird book The Elves and The Shoemaker. It's a book I read dozens of times as a child and spent hours studying the hand drawn illustrations (by Robert Lumley). I no longer have a copy but remember details on every page. The cover has two elves in patched clothes sewing and hammering a huge pair of emerald green shoes, and on the final pages the elves (wearing bright green suits made for them by the shoemaker's wife) are shown skipping out into daylight. I'm on the hunt for an affordable replacement copy of the book, but in the meantime will channel that good elf feeling in my new corduroy dress.
Since I made this tunic at the start of the month the weather has turned a tad chillier and so I've only had occasion to wear it once. I really should have chosen more seasonally appropriate fabrics but found an unexpected bolt end of Soft Cactus Lasting Leaves combed cotton in a local fabric shop and couldn't wait until spring to use it!
The dress is a modified version of Make It Perfect's Poppy Tunic. It's a simple sleeveless design available as an instant PDF download, which is a cinch to assemble as it has essentially just four pattern pieces. There are some beautiful versions of the Poppy Tunic on the web, especially by Jane at Lempo Bee and Laura at Craftstorming.
I love the contrast yoke but felt that it looked too small and short in the original design to suit my pear-shaped proportions so I lengthened the yoke on the front and back pattern pieces, then widened the hemline border panel to balance out the dress. For yoke and border I used the left over lining fabric from my Uptown Coat. I added pockets into the side seam – my default side seam pocket pattern piece for these situations is from Simplicity 2363, the shape is just right.
The Poppy Tunic is a
beginner's sewing pattern but I found attaching the home-made bias
binding to the front and back yoke panels very fiddly to do and this
part took me ages (the written instructions are clear but it was a
process I found tricky). However, the end result definitely justifies
the swearing and sighing involved and it does make the tunic look
lovely. I may have to make a knit or corduroy version to see me
through the winter but know that come spring this one will really
come into its own.
Patchwork is ideal for using up scraps of fabric left over from other projects. I can just about bear binning the overlocking offcuts and fraying cracklings snipped away while dressmaking, but feel uneasy throwing any other pieces of material away when there is the possibility they could be used for something else one day. At the end of each project all my fabric scraps get chucked into clear plastic sandwich bags and are stored in a big box along with the hundreds of other small bagged up remnants I've collected.
I decided to start putting those leftovers to use and make some new cushion covers. I whiled away two evenings selecting fabrics from my remnant stash and carefully cutting out three score and four squares. For backing I used the remaining pieces of Gudrun Sjödén's organic eco cotton (which had been patiently waiting for their moment since I made these ukulele gig bags) and some beige polka dot cotton left over from making my daughter's Hello Tokyo quilt. I made simple envelope backs so that the covers can be easily removed for washing.
Measuring and cutting out the squares is a meditative process but for me the great pleasure of machining patchwork is seeing how quickly the finished pieces come together when you do start sewing. The colourful finished cushions are designed to bring cheer to even the coldest, greyest November day.
I've been sewing a new batch of appliqué ukulele tote bags. They're all made from a combination of vintage furnishing fabrics with different front/back panels and have a contrasting appliquéd ukulele on the front.
They're the perfect size for carrying A4 books or magazines and are ideal for transporting your ukulele songbooks. There are five new bags in total, all available to buy now from my Etsy shop.
