February Stash Busting: A dress made with love

As I am about to embark on a month off, I haven't had much of a chance to put too much thought into making new garments. I've been finishing off some work for other people, and doing a few quotes. I did however want to try to do something for the February stashbusting challenge: To make something for someone else from stash fabric.

I had just the thing in mind - a dress for my daughter that has been in the works for almost a year. My sketch for this dress was dated 30 March 2012, and I made the pattern for it late last year. When I went to cut it out this week, I almost decided to start again, wondering if I should make a larger pattern so the dress will get another summer out of it.

Fabric Stash: Stretch Fabrics, Blends, Synthetics, and Miscellaneous

If you've been keeping up with my blog, you'll know that one of my goals for the year was to document my fabric stash. Then I found a stash busting sewalong that I joined. One of the tasks that was suggested was to share your fabric stash on your blog. I have been doing this in parts as I get around to sorting out my fabric, working out what everything is, and measuring it so I know what I have. I am going to all this trouble so that I can actually see what I have, get some inspiration to make something out of them, and actually use up some of it.

This is the third and final installment of my fabric stash walk through. Hopefully you'll see some of these fabrics coming up in future posts!

I have been surprised at some of the fabric that I have been hanging on to. It isn't uncommon to find fabric that I've had for more than 10 years!

Some of it is a lot newer than that to my stash, such as this assortment of stretch fabrics:

Stretch Fabrics
The Fabric Store had a sale last year on stretch fabrics. They had a large assortment of fabrics going for $8 per metre, with some for $4 per metre. At the time I really needed some new tops for summer, and so I bought 6 different knits, walking away with more than 6m of fabric for $44. Despite having used some of each of these fabrics and made 6 tops, most only used between 60 and 70cm of fabric, so with that bit extra that you often get when buying fabrics, and a couple that were the end of the roll, there's enough left of all of them to make another one. If not for me, I'm sure I could get shirts for one of my kids!

I also have some stretch fabrics that I specifically bought for my daughter to make the tops of dresses, and some fabric leftover from the dress that I made her, and the jumper that I made myself.

Fabric Stash: Cottons, Wool, Linens and Silks

In an effort to work out what fabric I have, and thus be able to work out what to do with said fabric, I am going through my fabric stash and sorting and documenting everything I have. I started this process with a post on some fabrics that my husband bought for me in Vietnam. You can catch up with the first installment of my fabric stash here if you missed reading it.

Next up are all my natural fibres: cottons, wool, linens and silks.

Cottons
I have been patiently (well, ok, impatiently and at times giving up and joining my daughter in watching TV) going through all my fabric, measuring, documenting, and doing the occasional burn test on them. The 100% cottons are these:

Stash Busting: A Dress, For Me?

I can't remember the last time that I actually made a dress for myself. Others, yes, but me, no. Well, actually I can remember, but it was quite a while ago, and I don't wear it because I don't like how it fits.

I was browsing the blogosphere recently and came across Meggipeg, and her review of a new dress pattern by Savage Coco: Elegant Escape Dress. I instantly thought that it would look great made out of some printed linen that I picked up last year (there's one for the stash busting!

Fabric Stash: Fabric, Vietnamese Style

As part of the Stash busting sewalong, I'm going to document my fabric stash for you. I'll do this in parts, starting with a section of my stash that came from Vietnam.

My husband was working in Vietnam for a few months last year, and, the wonderful man that he is, went in search of fabric shops. On one of his trips to a particular shop that he had found (with a bit of help from some locals that he had befriended), he took a few photos for me and I was able to pick out some fabrics that he went back to buy for me.

Stash Busting: Rib knit jumper

Normally when I make something new for myself I can't wait to wear it as soon as possible.

Not this time. It's still the middle of summer, and here I am making (of all things) a jumper! Why, you might ask, am I making a jumper? Well, I'm off on a family holiday soon, and it's going to be cold. I have a shortage of decent jumpers, and, well, I happened to have this piece of fabric hanging around in my stash. I bought 2 metres of this knit fabric (not sure what the composition is, I think it's some kind of acrylic), at the Fabric Store last year (or was it the year before?) Up until a week or so ago, I had been thinking of making some kind of cardigan with a drapy front with it.

An Australia Day Dress

Australia Day: Think backyard cricket, lamb on the BBQ, having fun with friends.

And then your son tells you he feels really ill. I hope your Australia Day had at least some of the elements I listed at the start. Me? I cancelled my plans to go to visit friends and indulge in lamb and good company, and instead stayed at home (with the aforementioned child telling me an hour later that he felt fine!)

So, to pass the time in the afternoon, checking all the time for a relapse of the tummy pains, I took the kids into my studio, and put on a couple of DVDs that we could all watch together. I had thought that I would just make up a  pattern for a dress that I had in mind while watching the movie, but it came together so quickly that I then cut out the fabric (never mind that I was planning on pre-washing it), and sewed it all up. All in time for dinner (still no lamb in sight though)!