The Purple Darling Dress

Pattern: Darling Ranges Dress by Megan Nielsen

So finally come February I have some time to show off my 2nd Darling Ranges dress. Since my last post, my boyfriend has returned home after living on the other side of the world for one and a half years, so it's suffice to say I've been a little preoccupied. We've been camping (camping pic below just for something different), climbed Mt Warning (and killed my knee in the process), explored the gorgeous city of Brisbane, bought a 14 ft catamaran, and booked a trip to Tasmania for next week to hike the Overland Track. So while it's been exhilarating, the sewing has been put in the back seat. While we had a few quiet days last week though, I insisted that he help me out and take a few pics of the dress I made back in December last year. 

The Spotty Darling Ranges Dress

Pattern: Darling Ranges Dress by Megan Nielsen

During my last uni break (way back in July), I got bored  not having to study all the time and thought it would be the perfect time to really start improving my sewing. So I took myself along to a weekly lesson with my Darling Ranges dress pattern in hand. I thought this dress would only take me a few weeks to complete, but it turns out it took a whole lot longer, though not due any difficulties with the pattern itself. It turns out that when you have a room full of the female variety and only 1 teacher, well, a whole lot of chin-wagging ensues but not a whole lot of sewing.

The Oversized Ikat Top

Pattern: Simplicity 4127 

I've always known that I hate the feel of polyesters on my skin as they feel scratchy and make me itch. Because of this, I usually stick to 100% cottons. It's becoming clear though, that most of the patterns I like are summery dresses and tops, and I find that cottons don't tend to have quite the right drape for them. So, after looking in my wardrobe at the clothes whose fabrics I preferred, I discovered that rayons (aka viscose) are my poison. What ensued, was hours on end of online searches for rayon fabrics, which left me feeling largely unsatisfied. I either don't like the print of the fabric, don't want a plain unpatterned fabric, or I find a gorgeous print that is so expensive that 1 metre of it costs more than 3 weeks of my grocery budget. However, I persisted and finally found some rayon shirting on Fabric.com that was on sale. So, I went ahead and bought 3 very similar ikat print fabrics for a very reasonable price - I would only have to go without food for 1 week!

The Hippie Shorts

Pattern: Maritime Shorts by Grainline Studio

These shorts have been dubbed the ‘hippie’ shorts because that’s what my Mum said about them when she saw them. Since I’ve only just started sewing seriously and am pretty strapped for cash, I didn’t want to buy good fabric only to sew something completely unwearable, so I found some old fabric that I’d bought for a dress I never made. So these were really supposed to just be a practice pair of shorts, but I like the final result better than I thought I would, so I’m pretty chuffed and will no doubt put them to use when Summer rolls around.