Hello sewing chums, I hope you are having a good weekend? I am LOVING being part of The Monthly Stitch during Indie Pattern Month for a number of reasons: so many talented sewistas are joining the community and sharing their makes; every time I check my blog feed I see more gorgeous things which I want to make; it’s FAB that everyone is getting so involved with the challenges and last but not least ….. I was a winner in the first week Dresses category! More of that later …. It all kicked off for me by reading about the inaugural secret santa style pattern swap. It’s the first time I had participated in something like this and it was really good fun. I know that the person I bought a pattern for liked it because she has made it up and written a blog post about it – I thought she looked gorgeous so have been congratulating myself on my excellent choice (it’s actually really hard not to comment on the post and say “It was me” but then I’d be just as bad as my Y9 form who do Secret Santa each year and everyone knows who has got who!). I was chuffed when my pattern arrived – my partner had organised for it to be sent directly me to and the company addressed it to her so I do actually know who my partner was! Anyway, you know who you are and you made an excellent choice for me so many thanks. I decide to make the dress up in some lovely floral cotton I had bought at Badger and Earl when I was doing a workshop there. I measured myself and went for 12 on the bust grading out to 14 at the waist. The paper is really study, i.e. not tissue and the instructions are OK.  The pattern is described as beginner  but to be honest, if I hadn’t already got a couple of frocks under my belt I might have struggled a bit with some of the instructions e.g. pleats.  Anyway I made the dress up and … was hugely disappointed. The dress was too big – I didn’t need to have graded out at the waist after all. Unlike Wanda the yoke did not come immediately beneath my boobiloobies (although in fairness the line drawing does show it as being more on the waist but that version doesn’t include the bust pleats/gathers) and my floral fabric looked positively frumpy.  All in all I thought it looked like a 1950s utilitarian type frock you might have worn to do the housework! I really was hugely disappointed.  However, I decided to try and put  a positive spin on it and congratulated myself on having made my first wearable muslin.  I felt I owed it to my swopsie partner to have another go – I did not want to just blog about a failure so I immediately set about making another. I bought some cornflower blue linen at Sew Over It whilst doing my first Vintage Shirtdress workshop and decided to use this for the dress part and use the last of the scraps from my Liberty Queue for the Zoo left over from my Belcarra.  I spent a stressful Friday night trying to eek it out … and failed. In the end I had to give up.  It was only the interfacing I couldn’t squeeze out so I had an idea!  I decided to use the linen as a full lining.  Having made a couple of  BHL KIMs recently I was familiar with this method. The is a real departure for me  – I normally stick to the pattern because I haven’t got the knowledge/confidence to deviate but this time I really went off piste! I did a full lining in the linen and it worked!  To be honest I am not sure if the delicate tana lawn would have held up the linen base anyway. I even made alterations so that the dress would fit me and was more like the Wanda of the pattern illustration.  I chopped off an inch and a half from the bodice and took the sizing down too.  It looks so much better with the yoke ending just under the bust rather than at the waist – don’t you think? Sorry the photos are not great.  The sun wasn’t out and Mr CK was not in the mood for taking photos – how I need a blog manager! There is still some pooling at the back which I will attend to next time. I wore the dress to work this week and lots of people commented on it; it really is a work dress I feel. Anyway, I decided what I needed to finish it off was a little cropped jacket – made in the blue cornflower linen. Which brings me neatly onto my exciting news.  I was one of the winners for IPM2015 dresses contest. My prize was a Tia Dress Craftsy Class and a Named pattern of my choice so I have chosen the Lourdes Cropped Jacket to join Wanda.  I am not sure when I will get round to making this up as my sewing TO Do List has just gone off the scale this month. So, here it is then …. my entry to the New to Me contest.  Thanks to my swopsie partner for choosing the pattern for me in the first place and I also want to say a special thanks to Elle from Laura Loves Pugs whose clever ideas for using precious fabrics inspired me for the second Wanda. Toodle pip, Clarinda x