Uncovering the UFOs - Roswell Week Challenge

Now as you may have gathered lovely people, I am both terrible at keeping on top of things in long challenges (Spring Palette was a dismal fail..) and good at working to a super strict self-imposed deadline (hence all my stuff I start on a whim just before I have to wear it!). I have also just been stunned into silence (ish!) by the astounding and lovely Mena at the Sew Weekly’s amazing self challenge – the 7 in7 challenge in which in 1 WEEK (yes-that’s 7 days) she shall make 7 dresses from the Colette Patterns range (that’s not 1 week a dress-that’s 1 week for all of them). And this is potentially on top of her making another outfit for the standard sew weekly challenge! (She just did a Crepe for the challenge but I’m not sure if that’s included… or if next week’s is.. I guess we will find out!)  This is probably the most mental challenge I have ever seen, as most of those dresses are quite complicated! She is also allowing the followers to have a say in the fabric of the dresses (as if it wasn’t complicate enough!) so if you want to input into 7 of the quickest made dresses ever-head on over!

Now this has shamed me, as I am always starting things with grand plans and then not finishing anything. Therefore, I have assigned myself my own super swift 7 day challenge – UFO finishing! (for those that don’t know -  a UFO is an UnFinished Object, of which I have many)

Roswell week (which starts today!) will include me trying to get as many UFOs finished or abandoned entirely as possible, ideally all of them. Conditions - I have to do something sewingy everyday if reasonably sensible (ie going to the pub counts as an excuse but watching friends repeats on tv does not). I shall post every day about my (hopeful) progress -this is to stop me chickening out! I shall not sew or plan anything else (unless drastic repairs are needed urgently). I can decide to just chuck projects but I have to really mean it (otherwise they will still just lurk in my mind!). For the purposes of the challenge the week starts when I get home from work tonight.

Now obviously this is only a challenge I have just made up on the spot, but I made a badge anyway (picture-not jazzy html), so if anyone else fancies trying it and uncovering the horrible truth about their UFOs feel free!

My UFO list (bearing in mind I am not currently near my sewing stuff so there are probably more I have forgotten about!) currently includes things in a number of different levels of unfinished. 

Glee Dress for Charlotte – technically I finished this, and she wore it, but the back zip and waist seam are a complete mess and I have been promising to fix it for ages, plus the inside seams are all over the place. Also I never took any pictures of it.

Christmas dress (yes I hang my head in shame) –I never finished the seams on the inside so I can put it through the washer! – only been about 6 months on that one…

Silky cami top - it just doesn’t fit right, so it has been sat at the fit tweaking stage for about as long as the Christmas dress.

Jersey skirt for Spring Palette challenge – So long Sarong. I couldn’t get the gathers to sit right (I hate knits!) so I just left it. I will have to take the waistband off and try again.

Shifting skies skirt – I am about 2/3 of the way through the underskirt, with the over skirt not started. Hmm, this one might prove a bit of a challenge (but I will try!)

Pendrell homage.  Again, stuck on the fitting. I got so sick of tweaking this that I lost interest, but I need to try again! It might be too much for the week but I shall give it a shot!

Green dress refashion. About 6 months ago I bought a shapeless green patterned smock form Shelter and decided to refashion it, I pulled the neckline off and pinned out the darts, then abandoned it (I don’t even remember why). Should be pretty easy to finish.

Flowery dress refashion. In the same Shelter trip, I got a misshapen babydoll tunic that was about 3 miles wide with a stretched neck you could drive a car through. I actually finished turning it into a dress, but it is still a bit shapeless and I have been meaning to go back in for a more thorough job.

Napkins. When I made my brother a picnic rug for Christmas, I only had chance to finish 2 of the napkins, and promised to finish the other two immediately. I haven’t.

Black skirt repair. A month ago I bent down in my favourite pencil skirt and ripped it down the back seam. It has been awaiting repair ever since.

Agnetha. Ok so this one is only here because she doesn’t yet have a stand. If I get a chance I might pop to the scrap yard and see what I can find.

Oh dear. Making that list was rather depressing! I think I may have just given myself an intervention! It worries me how many of these I have already slightly blogged about and then just abandoned! BRING ON THE CHALLENGE! BRING ON ROSWELL WEEK!

Roswell Week day 2 (sort of)

OK, I have managed to photograph things so the second half of the stuff I made on the first two days will now be revealed.

Item (s) completed - Shoulder cape vest

State before Roswell Week - had pinned some bits (wrongly it turned out)

Reason for abandonment -no idea

Time spent as an UFO - about 2 weeks actively, about 6 months overall

Time used to finish - 20 minutes 

"chump" factor felt for not having done it sooner - high - this was extremely easy

I had bought the original vest from a charity shop months ago, as I loved the colours and pattern and it looked easy to fix. The vest was slightly weird in its original version, as it was a) one of those odd tops that is really wide and hangs down much further at the sides, and b) had odd shoulders where gathered flippy bits were attached at the front and back, so you had both a vest strap, and a droopy bit of jersey frill halfway down your upper arm. I felt that this was not the most flattering of garments (for anyone surely?) and so decided to fix it. 

It was a pretty simple fix. I laid over a vest I already have and cut round it to get rid of the tent like droopiness, and matched up the bottom hem (It doesn't look straight in the photos but it is!) I then just sewed the gathered bit up onto the vest straps to make more normal fluttery sleeves. What is still slightly bizarre about the vest is that the position of the straps is such that its more like a square from the top, the distance between the straps at the front and back is about the same as the distance under the arms. This means that the fluttery sleeves are actually rather large and are more like mini capes! 

So another top made, and another knit! I am not as scared as I was.

Item (s) completed - Kneely chair recover

State before Roswell Week - boring blue cover with a hole in it and several stains

Reason for abandonment -Hadn't got any fabric I wanted to cover it with.

Time spent as an UFO - about 10 years!

Time used to finish - 10 minutes!

"chump" factor felt for not having done it sooner - high - It is pathetic how long it took me to do this.

I have had my kneely chair since I was a teenager, its meant to make you sit up straight, but I frequently use it wrong-there's just so many ways to sit on it! About 10 years ago, whilst still at my parents house, someone (no one ever owned up) ripped a hole in the cover. Over the following 10 years, as it followed me to Edinburgh, and via an uni architectural studio where I sometimes slept on it (I know, it doesn't look possible but you would be surprised) it collected a number of marks and stains as I spilled chocolate, beer, glue, wax etc on it. Given that it was a boring blue to start with, it didn't look good. Ever since the hole got ripped I have been meaning to recover it, but to no avail -until now! I used the rest of the fabric from the blue chair yesterday and just stapled it all on. JOB FINALLY DONE! It looks awesome!

You can see that my rug is suffering slightly from sewing of late-really need to get the hoover out!

Roswell Week 2 - day 1 (sort of)

OK, I'm back, the rain has returned and fun things in the sun are now much less likely to distract me!

This is a slightly incorrect post, as I did not do all these things on day 1, some were on day 2, however, as I have not been very good at taking pictures of things, some of day 1 remains undocumented. Therefore this is half the stuff I did on days 1 and 2!

Item (s) completed - Blue Chair

State before Roswell Week - boring brown chair.

Reason for abandonment -Hadn't got any fabric I wanted to cover it with.

Time spent as an UFO - about a month

Time used to finish - 10 minutes for each coat of paint, 5 minutes covering the seat

"chump" factor felt for not having done it sooner - high - this was soo easy and looks so much better!

I had a chair left in my room that used to belong to a flatmate (well he had bought it to cut up and make into crazy architectural models but then didn't need to). After he moved out it just sat around my room with piles of stuff on it (as is the way with chairs I find!) It was hidden in a corner because it wasn't very pretty-just a high backed wooden chair with a horrible plastic leather seat. I considered painting it, mainly after seeing pretty chairs on pinterest like these and these. I was going to go with white,but then I found some lovely fabric (Amy Butler - Soul Blossoms Twilight Peony in Azure) and immediately changed my mind-the chair would be bright blue like my front door (as I had plenty of paint left!)

I rejected (through laziness) any talk of sanding and priming, and just painted the thing, 2 coats later it looked amazing! I then stapled my pretty fabric to the seat (I added a layer of wadding for comfort-this meant I had to knock the seat back in with a hammer as it was too big) and VOILA!

The colour it used to be.

There is s slight follow up to this but I haven't photographed it yet.

Item (s) completed - Pattern testing - the flamingo shrug

State before Roswell Week - print off pattern printed but not assembled.

Reason for abandonment - needed to iron the jersey and then got distracted

Time spent as an UFO - only 2 weeks or so but I needed to give the designer feedback.

Time used to finish - half an hour

"chump" factor felt for not having done it sooner - high - very easy pattern, only 2 seams!

The lovely Karin of Acien-Nouveau asked via Burdastyle for some volunteers to try out her new pattern, a cute jersey shrug, so that she could see if she had scaled the sizes correctly. I had printed it off but not got round to cutting it out and sewing it. It was super easy to make, it's all one piece and only has two short seams (unless you decide to hem it). Of course, as I am incapable of following instructions I manage to mess it up by sewing one armhole shut (i really don't know what is wrong with me!). So after I had unpicked that it was done!

As I took the pictures to show Karin the fit, they are not the most flattering or cheerful shots of me I have ever taken-but the shrug is very pretty- I made it out of more of my bright pink jersey and it is very jolly and cosy.

Roswell week 2 - a slight delay!

OK, so you may have noticed I have not been doing my Roswell Week posts. I have actually finished two things, but my plans over the last week  have been somewhat sidetracked by SUMMER!. Over the last few months Edinburgh has had pretty terrible weather, and very little sunshine, even when the rest of the UK has been having a heatwave, but in the last week it has finally improved, and everyone has gone a little mad for the sunshine! Consequently there has been a lot more "leave work early and got the pub" type stuff going on which has cramped my sewing urges a little! My lovely flatmate also had a birthday so there was festivities to be had about that as well. But Roswell Week is not cancelled, oh no. I have just paused it after 1 day, and it shall be picked up again once the rain comes back.

Roswell Week part 2!

Well, as is very clear, the last few weeks I have not been feeling the sewing love. I pulled myself out of the slump with the Flamingo tee, but the following week just involved me starting about 4 different things, only to abandon them after about half an hour. So all I have done is create a big pile of UFOs. But that doesn’t matter! Because the Sew Weekly’s theme this week is UFOs-so bring it on! ROSWELL WEEK PART 2! For anyone who didn’t notice my previous Roswell Week (my most productive week ever!), it is a weekly challenge that I made up where over a period of 7 days (ish) you try and finish as many UFOs as possible, posting every day. It’s actually quite motivational and you get a huge buzz from finishing things, and you can finish something every day if not more often (as frequently you don’t actually have that much left to do so it’s very quick).

                                                                                                          

                                 

This will hopefully give me a chance to finish the few items I failed to finish last time, and I shall be similarly industrious this time. It is perhaps a slight concern that it is only about a month since the last Roswell Week, and I have added many more items… I have such a short attention span. Never mind. It is also very appropriate to connect to the Sew Weekly’s UFO week, as most of my recent UFOs are half finished Sew Weekly projects!

So, the new list (which does contain some old favourites..)

The Glee Dress for Charlotte. Only about 6 months so far on this one.

The Pendrell Homage Blouse. Similar, and not even cut out yet, just years and years of fitting. Frankly I have to finish this soon, as it is starting to be a serious mental drain on my motivation and confidence levels!

Shifting Skies skirt. Not too bad, I have at least kept doing things to this. And it’s a Sew Weekly inspired item, so is very appropriate.

Shrug. I said I would test out a shrug pattern for the maker and have not made a huge amount of progress on it!

Red jersey vest refashion. This was the first thing I started to hack about for the Sew Weekly refashion theme last week, I didn’t get very far.

Men’s shirt refashions. After giving up the red vest I then started pulling some shirts apart, and then gave up on them..

Spotty vest. I sort of stalled on this but I have fitted half of it.. it is made from two pillow cases so another Sew Weekly UFO.

Chair jazzying. Ok not entirely sewing but I started making a cushion and reconsidering painting a chair in my room the other week.

Cushion covers. And I have been meaning to make some additional cushions for the kitchen chairs for ages and have only done half of one.

Roswell Week Summary

Well I am done with Roswell Week finally.

Overall I can say I am pretty impressed with my results. I haven't made much progress on some of the larger UFOs, but I have totally cleaned up all the small jobs, several of which I had completely forgotten and I would ever have made a priority normally. Today I had a little blitz on projects and I feel pretty sheepish about how little time it all took n the end but also quite proud!

So lets go over the list.

COMPLETED

Green dress refashion.  - the unusually tropical dress, 

Flowery dress refashion.  - the preloved dress

Napkins. 

Black skirt repair. 

Agnetha. 

90s skirt

Christmas dress 

Jersey skirt for Spring Palette challenge – So long Sarong. 

INCOMPLETE BUT PROGRESS MADE
Glee Dress for Charlotte – not finished. I have unpicked the ropey seams, but need to fit it back on her. 
Shifting skies skirt – I need to hem both, and put on fastenings. I want to let them hang a bit longer though. 

ABANDONED
Silky cami top - it was just never going to work without completely reworking the pattern and recutting it out. 

INCOMPLETE
Pendrell homage.  I didn't even try and do anything to this, I didn't have time for the fitting.




All in all, not bad, I have a much smaller pile!

Roswell week day 7 (sort of), So long Sarong, Agnetha's legs and other stuff

Ok, so I fudged this, as I couldnt get anything done at the end of the week, I included Sunday afternoon too.

Roswell Week Day 7

Item completed - So long Sarong

State before Roswell Week - taken in at the waist but not shortened

Reason for abandonment - The hem was all over the place and I couldn't be bothered to get my flat-mates to try and fix it on a stretch material. I also thought the waistband looked terrible, but on reexamination, it actually looks fine. I think the stretch fabric had warped my mind a little!

Time spent as an UFO - about 4 months

Time used to finish - about half an hour, after I had fixed Agnetha (see later)

"chump" factor felt for not having done it sooner - not too bad, whilst I only had to re-hem it, it was MUCH easier when I could use Agnetha. 

This is yet another item from the productive Shelter trip when I first started sewing. When I picked it up I thought it was a skirt, but I then realised that it was actually a rather odd sarong. I say odd, because more than half the material was in the front fold, so the whole thing was really weirdly unbalanced wight wise, and I am not really sure why you would want such a heavy jersey sarong.. (it would make more sense as a wrap skirt but that wasn't the way it was attached at the front. 

I cut it off the waistband, and cut the skirt into a rectangle without the odd tie bits from the front. I then sewed it up with a side seam, and reattached it to the waistband. So far so good, except that I somehow had managed to sew it on totally crooked so the hem was all over place. Plus I had forgotten to shorten it. At this point I gave up. I think my fear of stretch fabrics got the better of me. 

And so it sat for several months, even through the previous Spring Palette Challenge, when I planned to finish it and then continued to ignore it! 

But Roswell week was the line I wouldn't cross! I was puzzling at how to fix it, as my flatmates are a little cautious about hemming things, and the stretch made it more difficult. But then I had a brainwave, which I shall come to later, and managed to make Agnetha a stand! so I just popped it on her, chopped off the bottom and zigzagged it. Result. 

It isnt a very complicated refashion or skirt for all that delay, but it is a pretty cute jersey skirt, and I still love the colour and fabric. 

Item completed - Agnetha

State before Roswell Week - body made, but no stand (body phase 1, body phase 2)

Reason for abandonment - I couldn't think what to make a stand out of, I was considering a hat stand or something but I hadn't got round to doing anything, plus I couldn't think how to attach it. 

Time spent as an UFO - only a few weeks since I finished her body

Time used to finish - about 10 minutes once I had worked it out!

"chump" factor felt for not having done it sooner - ok, plus if I had tried before we got the new beds I wouldn't have had lots of spare plastic packaging to use. 

I couldn't work out how to make Agnetha a stand, which made it tricky to do dresses or skirts on her. We have been moving stuff round our flat a lot and as I shifted and tidied I found a lamp that I didn't need in the hall. It was just a standard IKEA lamp, but it had a very heavy base, and I realised that it would probably be robust enough to support Agnetha without continually falling over. Also, as it had big lamp bit on the top, I could use that to anchor the whole thing. I just stuffed the top of Agnetha with some plastic bags (we had some beds delivered and so we have had a lot of plastic packaging lying around!) and then popped her over the lamp. I then just filled up the gaps round underneath with more plastic bags and taped up the bottom. She leans very slightly backwards but is otherwise perfect! Also I marked my knee height on the pole with tape to make hemming easier. I am extremely pleased, she looks very fine and isn't as scarily huge looking now that she is the right height (though admittedly she now does appear to float magically in the air..).

Item completed - Napkins to match the Christmas picnic rug 

State before Roswell Week - had made one, 3 left to do

Reason for abandonment - Ran out of time before going to give them to my bro, and promised I would make the rest later

Time spent as an UFO - since Christmas

Time used to finish - about half an hour

"chump" factor felt for not having done it sooner - high, I should have done these ages ago, they aren't even slightly difficult. 

I also finished pinking the seams of the Christmas Dress, which was shamefully overdue. 

RW day 5 - working on the shifting skies skirt

Roswell Week day 5

Well, OK, I said I would post a lovely item everyday, but I haven't finished anything!

Glee Dress  - I had finished this, but the back seams, gathers and zip were all wonky. This was mainly due to the stretch of the material, and I just couldn't get it straight. After putting it back on Charlotte to see how much I need to alter it, it turns out she has also lost some weight, so it was even worse than it had been! I have unpicked the back now, and will pin it all back together on her, possibly basting everything in situ so that I can try and beat the stretch fabric! I just keep missing her in the daylight though, and I need it! It was back enough unpicking it in daylight. I hate black on black.

Shifting skies skirt
This was one of the big jobs, and it continues to be a bit of a trial. I have finally finished french seaming the joins on the ruffles of the underskirt, (horrible job-dont even attempt this on slippery lining). Frankly its a mess, I have caught different bits along each seam, and this rucked up all the levels at different points. I pulled some of it out again and redid it, but the fabric just wasn't having any of it, so after a certain point I just carried on. I did this so many times that it is now fairly level as all the errors have ended up canceling each other out (ish)!. I think if I could go back in time I wouldn't try this again, even on better fabric, I have now made 3 petticoat like skirts, and all of them have been a nightmare to make, and been underwhelming when done. (a white muslin underskirt for a Red Riding Hood costume- I kept attaching the pieces inside out so all my seams were the wrong way round, and a net skirt for Charlotte that drove me mad with jamming my machine and then turned out to be too small!) I may just buy them in future!

I have also got round to cutting out and assembling the outer skirt. It is made out of the soft cotton I was going to make my Weeping Angel costume out of before I accidentally dyed it too dark and too blue! It is just a basic circle skirt, and I pinched out a back seam and have (half) put in a zip. I seem to have put the waistband on wonky somehow (think I got carried away when working with a sensible fabric!), but I shall tweak the back seam to fix it easy enough. They are now both hanging up to stretch out. I am NOT looking forward to hemming ether of them, but particularly the stupid underskirt, which has 3 hems, all about 10 m long, and super frayed. sigh.

So progress.. if not anything actually finished... Its not looking hugely like all the list is going to get done.. but its getting there.

RW day 3 and 4 - the 90s skirt

Roswell Week Day 3 and 4

Item (s) completed - The 90s skirt, (also fixed pencil skirt seam, and abandoned the silky cami)

State before Roswell Week - taken in at the waist but not shortened

Reason for abandonment - I think I realised it was very full and I couldn't be bothered to hem it!(pathetic aren't I!?)

Time spent as an UFO - about 2 months

Time used to finish - less than an hour

"chump" factor felt for not having done it sooner - high, I had already done most of the work, pure laziness!

Well I have to say that the weekend wasn't as productive as I had planned (I'm not sure mind you that in the history of weekend planning I have ever been early as productive as I intended to be! I always forget that my ideal weekend involves lounging around the kitchen with the flatmates watching terrible/amazing films randomly on tv (this weekend-the Spanish Main -some fine pirate action, followed by Calamity Jane! I quite fancy Calam's yellow dress, before she falls in the creek!). 

Anyway I kept doing bits and bobs but nothing was really coming together, I cut out bits, and drafted bits. but no final outfit. I also realised, after hacking at it a bit, that the silky cami is just not going to fit, I think I need to completely redraft the bodice if it will ever work, the gathers are just all wrong. So that is off the list altogether. I did resew the back seam on my pencil skirt, but there seemed little point photographing that (though I am pleased to be able to wear it again).

Then as I was looking through my fabrics for muslin I found another UFO- a turquoise skirt that I had started to refashion but had then not finished. YAY (not exactly ticking stuff off the list, as it wasn't on it, but progress none the less). The skirt was originally an awkwardly long quite full skirt that was about 3 sizes too big. I had already taken in the side seam to make it fit widthwise, but I hadn't finished shortening it. I therefore chopped off about 8 inches, about 10 off the lining and hemmed it (quite badly actually in places, the material kept stretching at the wrong moment, but it makes it quite flippy)

I realised after I did the bad hemming that I had also made it slightly shorter than I had intended (Roswell week seems to have become about making mini skirts and dresses for some reason!). But I like it, It reminds me of the flippy flowered skirts I used to wear in the 90s, but much fuller and less limp!

better sense of the fabric than the overly yellow shots above.

RW day 2 - The Pre-loved dress

Roswell Week Day 2

Item (s) completed - The Pre-loved dress

State before Roswell Week - half sewed, not fully taken in 

Reason for abandonment - couldn't decide what to do

Time spent as an UFO - as before, about 6 months..

Time used to finish - 1 hour

"chump" factor felt for not having done it sooner - Medium. Well it didn’t take very long, but mainly because I gave up on making the neckline higher. It wasn’t so much the work as the decision that was necessary.

Here is me wearing it on the lovely Meadows in Edinburgh. It was a little chilly and the wind kept trying to blow it over my head hence the slightly tense pose!

I bought this dress in the same Shelter shop as the tropical dress just after I got my sewing machine. It was one of those amazing charity shop trips where you just walk in and want the whole shop! This was the dress that made me walk in; I could see it hanging up through the door and I just loved the vivid colours and print. The dress itself was slightly underwhelming, as it has clearly been very heavily worn before. It was a basic empire line babydoll tunic, but the scoop neckline had become very very stretched and misshapen. The dress was about only 2 sizes bigger then me, but with the excessive ease and stretched neckline, the top of the dress was about 15 inches larger than me, even including my substantially larger than b cup upper half! When I put it on the neckline exposed my entire front torso and hung down below the bottom of my bra.   Clearly something had to be done. As I started this before I considered having a blog, there isn’t a before photo, but hopefully you can picture it from my description!

The main problems were the width of the bodice, and the neckline in general. In addition, it was very short, so I didn’t want to cut the skirt off and reattach as I didn’t want to sacrifice any length, as I know from experience that I don’t wear tunics. Therefore, my method of taking it in, as most of the excess was in the stretched front section, was to fold the front so that I took about 10 inches out at the empire line in a massive single pleat and made the scoop neck into a curved v. I just sewed the pleat in along the empire line seam and down the edge of the fold across the bodice, so that the width remained further down the dress. I had partly sewed this already, but I had stopped because the neckline was still a bit low, and the waist still a little baggy. I couldn’t pull it in any further without distorting the sleeves to a stupid level, and there was no fabric spare to raise the neckline. I can understand why I left it, I think I thought inspiration might strike me at a later date. But it didn’t. After considering several other half-baked schemes, I made the call to just wear a vest underneath it. I therefore took a further tuck out of each side to make the waist fit better and finished the sewing up.

I like it a lot; I don’t really have any problem wearing a vest underneath, as the fabric is very thin and it makes the whole thing seem slightly less see through! It is slightly short, but it’s ok for summer. I also noticed when I wore it that the previous owner, who had clearly worn the dress a lot, had fixed a ripped hole in the back with a matched pieces of thin fabric so that it looks like part of the pattern, so well in fact that I hadn’t noticed until I caught it with my hand when wearing it. This dress has definitely been well loved in the past, and I am glad to continue its life!

RW day 1 The unusually tropical dress

Roswell Week Day 1

Item (s) completed - The unusually tropical dress

State before Roswell Week - cut off neckline, slightly pinned 

Reason for abandonment - cant remember.

Time spent as an UFO - about 6 months, it was one of the first things I planned to do.

Time used to finish - 1 hour

"chump" factor felt for not having done it sooner - high, it was really easy, and more than half the time was just spent redoing stuff I had already done but the pins had fallen out. 

Now I know I said that this one was ready to sew up, all pinned and darted. I was wrong, over the last 6 months of chucking it around and stuffing it in cupboards, pretty much all the pins had fallen out. So I had to do it again. I don't have a real before pic, but it was a loose dress with a slightly odd scoop neckline (one of those "should either be higher or lower" necks). There was absolutely no shaping below the neck and sleeves, just a straight sack. But I liked the pattern and lovely bright green colours. This is a picture of it on Agnetha which is a sort of before pic-  before I put any tucks in (though after I took the neckline trim off-which actually made the neckline look slightly better than it did originally). It is also longer than it looks here, but its tucked underneath her. 

My main approach was to change the neckline using the belt as a trim, and to sew in a few gathers around the waist to give it some shape. Here are the gathers pinned, I put a big one under the bust at each side, and a small one down the each side of the bust to take some flab out of the under arm area. I then did 2 small ones on the back to pull the waist in there.

I wanted the neckline to be slightly lower, so the whole thing was less balloony, and a V neck. I could probably have bodged the original neck trim into a curved V but the dress had a simple self fabric belt so I decided to use that instead as it was much easier. I folded the trim to make the bottom point of the V and then placed it on Agnetha and worked out how I wanted the neck to go and pinned it on.

This is a really simple rough refashion, and therefore I used the traditional rough finishing method - pinned gathers and topstitching. This method won't win any construction prizes, and depending on the fabric can look a bit rubbish, but in something this busy you can't tell at all.  I pinned where I wanted the gathers to go (keeping them short) and marked with a pin at each end where to stop sewing. You then just sew a top stitched line between the pins (taking care to not sew it to random other bits of the outfit-its so easy to do that on refashioned things - luckily on this I only did it once!) On the big gathers at the front, because I was taking in so many bits of gather, I also did a 1cm cross stroke at the top and bottom to get them all in (like a I). Then the stitching is just a small line. It all worked perfectly, except I had to go back and length the gathers at the back as it poofed too high up originally
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I then just sewed along the both edges of the neck binding to hold it on.

I wasn't really sure about how this was going to turn out, I was slightly worried it would end up too short once I had done the gathers, and also that I wouldn't be able to get it over my head as it doesn't have a fastener, but it was all great! I now know that if I can squeeze it over Agnetha, it will easily fit me (benefits of having skin and the ability to bend I guess!

Its a slightly unusual dress for me for a couple of reasons. Firstly the pattern is more tropical than the prints I normally choose-I feel a bit like I'm wearing a Hawaiian shirt. It is also somewhat short, particularly as something I could wear without tights. Most importantly however, as I tried to stick to the spirit of the original garment, and keep it slightly blousey, it is now pretty much the only item of clothing I own which has proper ease. Most of my clothes tend to be very tight. I really like it though! and don't feel at all like I am wearing a tent, the shaping works really well. It just feels like a very relaxed dress. I immediately threw on some tights (it had got a little chilly) and went to the pub in it! Here are the finished pics (thankyou to the lovely Lindsey for acting as photographer!). All in all, an excellent start to Roswell week!