Tessuti Lois Dress - A tale of desperation

Recently the UK (and most of the rest of the planet) was in the midst of a mental heatwave that I, as a pasty Scot, was totally unprepared for. I have very little in the way of summer clothes, mainly because I don't have the legs for shorts, I don't like to have my upper arms exposed too much and I ALWAYS have tights on under my dresses. So all of these problems combined with not liking many RTW clothes these days, meant that I had to really think about what I would actually be happy wearing.

I came across the Tessuti Lois Dress and thought this is the pattern for me! It's got enough of a sleeve that I wouldn't be uncomfortable having my arms out, and loose and long enough for me to not be too hot or too exposed. I had the pink fabric in my stash from when I attended the Hobbycrafts show in Glasgow in March and it was the perfect weight for this pattern.

I managed to get the PDF pattern printed and stuck together and the fabric cut out before the room got too hot so I had to leave the actual sewing until the next morning when it was cool enough again. The construction was pretty straight forward, I found the darts a bit unusual because you actually cut them as a V before sewing them together. The only real issue I had was the insertion of the side zip. I had never done one before and it had to be inserted within the side dart of the skirt which I really struggled with and ended up with the bottom of the zip making the skirt stick out.

 But even with the dodgy zip, I really liked this dress. It's soft and floaty and shows off my best assets 😂😂 It kept me cool and comfortable while having a nice wee wander round Glasgow Fort with my wee maw 💖

 And now that I have something in my wardrobe that's actually suitable for summer, the sun has now of course, gone away again 😂 Ah well, there's always next year!

P4P Brunch Blouse aka My Favourite Pattern

As you may have read in a previous post one of my resolutions is to try more indie patterns including this one in particular. I like Patterns for Pirates because they have lots of good basic patterns that I would actually wear on a regular basis, I settled on the Brunch Blouse because it's something that I can just through on in the morning and head off to work and still be comfortable all day.

Back in March I was at the Hobbycrafts show at the SECC in Glasgow and found a GREAT stall from M. Rosenberg & Son that sold loooooads of lovely fabrics, I had to actually limit myself because the fabrics were so lovely and so well priced that I could have gone on a mental spending spree 😂 Anyway, it's where I bought the lovely navy poly-viscose bird print that I made the first version of this dress.

The pattern was really easy to put together, I skipped out on the breast pocket, and made it a round neckline to be more work appropriate. I finished the neck and hem with satin bias so that it had a nice clean finish and threw it on to see how it looked. I LOVED IT! It's comfy, work appropriate and still quite casual.

I thought it was the perfect little dress to have several versions of so I had a rummage through my fabric and found the brushed cotton tartan that I bought last summer and was waiting for the right project and as luck would have it, I had the perfect amount for this dress! So I set about making another one and I loved this one just a little bit more because I love tartan and it reminds me of home 💗

This is genuinely how much joy tartan brings me

I had another look through my stash to see if there were any other fabrics that would suit this pattern, but alas there was nothing else that I thought was the right look, buuuuuuut during a weekend visiting family in Glasgow, I came across this mental sixties-esque print which is the perfect weight to make a third one!!

Unfortunately, I had a bit of an argument with the neck of this one and tried to iron it out, which made it worse 😂 If anyone has any suggestions to fix it, please let me know, otherwise I'll just have to make it part of the style!😂

In short, I would definitely recommend this pattern to anyone looking for that perfect, throw it on, no effort involved dress and Patterns for Pirates in general (and they also have some free patterns!)And if I keep going at this rate then I can just have 5 variations for every day of the work week! 😂