This bag is just full of knives and bras... and loose onions

Hey guys, happy Thursday! Ugh, this week has been a bit of a struggle, I'm not going to lie. I'm going to get straight in here with the complaining, right, get it over with in the first paragraph and then I'll be on to bright and shiny and pretty things. Do feel free to skip ahead, I won't mind. This week has been a struggle. For some unknown reason my mood took a major nosedive on Sunday afternoon - I'm talking actual tears when my laptop was slow to load an episode of Luther I wanted to watch. And I mean, Idris Elba is pretty and all but I'm not THAT into Luther. It was one of those attacks of the blues that September seems to be so generous about handing out. I have a work thing that is making me really anxious and it's kind of seeped into everything else! I finally got a handle on it today, and I'm still feeling jittery about it but a lot better.

Sorry to be vague-booking here, but it's not something I can talk about openly just at the moment. It's made this week crawl by, I've had a tension headache for what feels like forever - you know the drill. I broke my special short keyboard on Tuesday by spilling tea on it, which sucked because it meant my keyboard AND my tea got ruined, and I dealt with that stress by buying shoes. Then yesterday I went to the park after work with Nic and felt what I thought was a leaf or something fall into my dress. Got home, felt something squirming around and found a LIVE BEETLE. IN MY BRA. There are no words to describe how weird that was. The beetle was fine - I fished him out and Nic put him on the windowsill and he flew away. I was like this: But, you know. My week can only get better from the moment when I retrieved a LIVE FUCKING INSECT FROM MY UNDERWEAR. Because, duh. Actually, let's be real here. I'm not cool Beek 2.0 - I'm this... That will never stop being funny. Ever.

Anyway. Seriously the beetle bra thing did pick my week up and after that, I was feeling happy enough to sing along loudly to the theme tune to The OC. Our poor downstairs neighbours.

So that's the craic with my week. Thanks for indulging me there, lads. Now on to the dresses!

You might recall me saying a few posts back that I think I sorted out the fit on the Sewaholic Cambie dress. After lots of you guys weighed in with helpful advice on how to sort out the bodice fit, I gave it a go. I did a quick bodice toile and experimented with curving the darts under the bust and making them more...I guess, bullet-shaped? This is an alteration that Liz recommended to me when I first met her back in April, and it did the trick. I sewed the darts as drafted then pinched out the excess and redrew the darts. All good! Then I cut into some fabric that has been sitting in my stash for a while and got sewing. Tammy 2 dress - Sewaholic Cambie dress with pleated skirt and Lola Ramona Angie shoes*

It's kind of hard to tell from the photo but curving the darts under the bust made a huge improvement to how the bodice fits. I omitted the waistband again because I think that works for me, and just for a change I used the skirt from Simplicity 1419. Because I LOVE THAT SHIZ. It's a really nice skirt pattern.

If the fabric looks familiar, it's because it is. I've used it before - in the Meta dress, which I sewed at the end of 2011. I used the pastel colourway that time, which I had bought from Barry's Fabrics in Birmingham. I loved that dress and wore it loads but it doesn't fit any more and I didn't feel up to altering it so I gave it to a friend. I've had this colourway of the fabric since the spring - I bought it from that online store that shall remain nameless, along with the sunflower fabric I used to make the At the Indie Disco dress. So anyway, yeah. The fit is still not totally perfect, like. But I'm broadly happy with it. I might take a peep more out of the tops of the darts, but I might not. I want to see how it works with the sweetheart neckline that the pattern is drafted with.

You know what, though? I freaking LOVE this dress and I'm so happy with it. I think the bodice works brilliantly with the pleated skirt, which looks really cute with the measuring tape print of the fabric. And the fabric is SO fun. I wore this to work on a day when our statistician was in - she's usually based in Sheffield - and she was tickled with all the numbers. I have big meeting with her next week and she's one of my favourite work people, so I'm going to wear it to the meeting. I'm super cool like that. Woah, bright eyes, that's not a super invisible invisible zip, is it? Oh well, wevs. I like the way this dress fits through the back. And I like that one stubborn little flick of hair that would not just sit the fuck down. You go, stubborn little flick of hair. You do you.

So anyway. This dress is not perfect, but it was a nice pattern alteration to have a go at, and it was a quick win in terms of sewing. It's bright and cheerful and fun, and this fabric still makes me laugh, because it reminds me that this exists in the world: LOOK HOW HAPPY HE IS. I like his little hat. I wonder where you get hats where the brim is at the back rather than the front. Does anyone know where they come from?

Oh no, hold on, I've worked it out... Okay. I'm talking a lot of shite here so maybe I should tip on out. My friend Sybil gave me a bottle of Burleigh's gin as a gift yesterday, so I'm all set to put my Gin School lessons into practice and make me and Nic a perfect gin and tonic. I'm going to leave with one more picture of my dress because I love it. It's awkward as fuck, though. Pigeon toes!

Oh, and I should say - this dress was totally inspired by one of my very favourite sewing bloggers, Anna from Paunnet. She made a Cambie from this fabric aaaaages ago, and it was gorgeous. Thanks for the inspiration, Anna! And regarding the name - well, I made this dress when Nic was away for the weekend and as well as chain-watching Luther, I chain-watched Parks and Recreation.
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