Skull dress

I bought some fabric in the Spotlight post-Christmas sales, including this skull fabric. Mr C did not quite understand my choice of 'boy' fabric, but I figured I would make it look 'girly' as a skirt or a dress.

I wanted to have a go at using bias binding for my neck and arm holes (instead of bothering with facings), so I decided to try it on the Miss Marlo dress from Pip's Sew La Tea Do book. (I've previously used the same pattern for the dress and top in this post.) Most tutorials tell you to hand sew the binding on the inside so that the stitching doesn't show on the outside, but I can't be bothered with such time-consuming methods. The black stitching is barely visible on the binding (unless you're looking very closely), so I'm happy with it.

Aside from the binding, I also took the dress in slightly and make it a bit longer than the pattern. It's certainly not something I'd wear every day (perhaps it's not work appropriate!), but I'm pretty happy with it nevertheless. Even if I do look like a teenage boy trapped in a 30-year-old woman's body...

Mustard pear top with collar

Included in my fabric haul from Spotlight last week was some mustard-coloured cotton with a white pear print. I originally planned to make a skirt with it, but yesterday wondered how it would look as a top with a Peter Pan collar. I didn't have a pattern for such a thing, so I decided to adapt this top and add the collar myself. After scouring my pattern books, I found the perfect collar design in a book of 1980s kids' party dresses.

There's not much to say here, other than it turned out amazing. I'm quite comfortable boasting about this one. Everything is perfect. The zip is perfect, the fit is perfect and, of course, the collar is perfect. I sewed the collar pieces together and attached them to the shirt front right before I added the neck facing. I don't think I couldn't have planned it better.

I think after this success, I'm going to add collars to tops more often...