Tag: party

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The Daphne dress

In between the quilting and the vintage dresses and the obsessive pattern buying I’m quite often being art-directed by Little Miss Ooobop! for her next dressing up party outfit. Today was her friend’s birthday party, Scooby Doo was the theme and she wanted to be Daphne.

Daphne from Scooby Doo

Burda Style 10/2010 came in handy, and not for the first time, with a great kids pattern for a long T shirt. The original had a button placket and long sleeves which wasn’t an option for Daphne’s dress. Believe me, LMO does her homework good and proper. The only requested variation was that the dress had short sleeves in case it was sunny. She wasn’ t wrong, that daughter of mine… what a glorious sunny day we had today.

The fabric is a mauve stretch cotton jersey which we found in the first shop we went into! And at £3.99 a metre, a bit of a bargain too! The satin bias trim was from my favourite haberdasher stall in Shepherds Bush market for 40p a metre! No other notions. A v-neckline makes sure of that.

Daphne pose

To alter the pattern I simply cut the the body back and front on the fold, ignoring the placket shape. I lengthened by 4 inches and changed the neckline to a V-shape. And shortened the sleeves of course.

I used the trusty side-cutter to do a faux serge on the seams. Honestly it works like a treat! And I used a stretch stitch to finish the hems on the skirt and the sleeves. I have finished a v-neckline with stretch jersey once before, on my spotty top, and it was great to practice it once again. In fact I think I did a much better job this time!

LMO with missL

The hairband is quite literally a tube of the stretch jersey. A head measurement minus an inch. No elastic involved. I just relied on the stretch of the fabric and it was fine. I wasn’t going to get too bogged down with it as it was going to get ruined by orange hair spray in any case!

The neckscarf is half a metre of finest lime green polyester, seamed all round with a gap for turning! Actually I was lucky to be served half a metre. Apparently only regular customers get that deal!

The only tricky thing about this project was getting said daughter to pose. It’s getting harder and harder to get her to willingly and graciously pose. It normally involves hard cash but today we got off light with a double scoop ice-cream!

Daphne with ice cream

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Jubilations and hangovers!

I know it’s not sewing related but it would be a shame not to post a few pics about the lovely weekend we just had, celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. This is the second of our neighbourhood’s street parties, since I have lived here and despite the typical weather, we all partied hard. Supporters of the Crown or not, you would really have to find a better excuse not to be sucked into and revel in the true spirit of our community. I feel so proud and honoured to live among such lovely people.

True to form, the ‘Villagers’ came out in force to present our now traditional parade in order of ‘The Little Lad of Brackenbury’. A lovely ‘legend’ (written and) performed by a local resident with supporting roles from friends and neighbours.

Incidentally, our ‘village’ is in West London and not in the countryside. Technically a village must have a post office to be called as such and Estate agents would lay claim to the fact that they invented the term (to sell houses at a greater price) but the truth is, the residents themselves have created it. Its all about the people and not about the buildings or the greenery (though we do have a lovely park too!).

So much thanks goes out to everyone who helped to make this such a wonderful event. The party might be over but the bunting is still up and the memories will last a lifetime!