The Bella Dress…

Bon soir tout le monde!
I’ve been sewing again! I was very much in need of warm winter clothes as it’s getting frosty in ole London town (no snow though yet, boo!) and shopping for clothes wasn’t even an option as A)I could just make it and B)I literally don’t have a penny to my name at the moment (oops!) but mainly A because I just love sewing and why wouldn’t I make myself a winter dress?!!

I didn’t need to look around much for the right pattern as I have got into the idea of getting myself a monthly sewing mag – one with free pattern so each month I could have a whole pile of ideas to make so I decided to try ‘Love Sewing’ magazine and on the cover was the Bella dress with a proper pattern envelope for it attached – it called to me in the Sainsburys magazine section and I couldn’t resist. I do like this magazine – full of inspiration for a new sewer like me.

I luckily had a free Saturday with the flat to myself so it was sewing time! The Bella dress was first on my table and I had a great double knit fabric from a carboot sale – about 2.5m for £2!! Perfect. The first thing I wanted to do was amend the pattern so I could have long thin sleeeves instead of the 60s style bell, 3/4 sleeves it was meant to have – thankfully this was as easy as lopping off the flared sides of the pattern and adding a few more inches to the end to roughly be the size of my arm.

This pattern was so quick and easy and was my first garment using my new overlocker, which I got for Christmas and wow am I in love with this thing! I love the fact you can overlock the raw edges whilst cutting down the seam allowance – it makes it all much speedier and neater. I also did the sleeves far too wide so I just cut them down and overlocked them to the right size – easy peasy!

This is the first time I am letting you see the inside of one of my garments- I am quite proud of how professional it looks. NB, I DID press my seams open but this fabric doesn’t like to stay that way! Don’t judge me! 😉

I would fully recommend this overlock machine – Brother 1034D I have been using an industrial one at my sewing classes before this and thought it would feel like a massive step down but it doesn’t and it seems to love all fabrics I throw at it… so far! 🙂

So anyway- the dress is a success – it’s so warm, in fact I think it’s the cosiest thing I own. It’s not perfect – I could still take in the sleeves more and the sides do ruche up a bit at the bottom (think this might be my overlock tension – any ideas there sewists?!) but I love it and the cowl/tunnel neck is pretty awesome for snuggling up in and very easy to do!

I also did loads of amendments this week – I finally got to my pile of ‘now I can sew I can sort this lot out’ of clothes and am so happy to report that, at last, I can do buttonholes! I was being a bit slow on that one and missed out a big part of the instructions in my manual so I kept ending up with a mess but I have conquered it now!! Yay! I will do a post about all my alterations soon and some more things I made including a red jersey pencil skirt mainly on my overlocker that took 30mins! 🙂 Oh and I’ve been knitting again – and even making shapes for once, it only took 15 years – no more straight line scarfs for me!! I want to learn to Fair Isle knit next and put in patterns and different colours – there’s no stopping me! Please do send me any tips, blogs etc that you think I might like/ help me!

I want to try doing more tutorials – maybe even video ones – so please let me know if you have any ideas of what you want to learn / or what there isn’t already a million videos of already!

Hope everyone is well and happy!
Take care cupcakes and thankyou for reading.
Xox Gabella xoX

** PS. I forgot to mention that I left out the zip on the pattern as my fabric was stretchy enough to put on without.**