This week’s Sunday Sevens comes to you from Andalucia, Spain, where we are staying with my Auntie in her villa for two weeks. Was it really a year ago since I posted about this place?

1. At the foot of the mountains about forty minutes inland, the pool is a welcome feature and one they installed as soon as they moved in ten years ago. As Brits, it’s also the main source of enjoyment and the kids love it, spending all the time we’re at ‘home’ splashing around merrily.

2. A day trip to the coast at Mojacar where The Boys played on the beach for the morning.

3. We wandered the streets and ate lunch in a little restaurant in neighbouring Mojacar Pueblo.

4. A typical square in this pretty hilltop village. The Boys posed for all of ten seconds before running off to explore.

5. The views were amazing – this panorama shows how dry and desert-like Southern Spain is.

6. A meal with cocktails was part of a Flamenco evening at a local bar. Long term readers of the blog may recognise the dancer from last year.

7. The Boys went riding at Rancho Luz Del Sol in Partaloa again. This is where I broke my ribs last year when galloping through the mountains and falling off.

8. We played it safe and had tapas in the local bar while they were riding.

          

9. A family meal out at La Casita where No.3 Son’s dinner is bigger than his head!

10. Bombing in the pool never seems to get boring when you’re only eight and who needs trunks?

           

11. Another lunch, this time in El Rincon.

12. You’ll have to trust me when I say the paella was gorgeous, only I forgot to take a photo before it was all eaten.

13. The front garden is typically Spanish.

14. An old cortijo at the end of the road on our usual route to the bar needing a little t&c – the kind of property I’d love to have if we lived in Spain.

15. Back to the villa and No.1 Son’s girlfriend is asleep in the pool.

16. It’s a hammock in the shade for me, while I muster up the energy for a second week of more of the same. It’s a hard life!

Thanks to Nat at Threads & Bobbins for hosting Sunday Sevens.



This is a double helping of Sunday Sevens as I didn’t get chance to post last week. Thanks to Nat at Threads & Bobbins for dreaming it up.

1. Started watching the Great British Sewing Bee – why is it on so late? I record it for The Boys to watch the next day.

2. We had coffee and croissants at our favourite local bakery come café.

3. This sign was outside a pub in a neighbouring village and made me smile.

4. I bought Tilda’s latest book thinking it might provide inspiration for sewing projects for my students.

5. I made this from the book but decided it would be too fiddly for small fingers.

6. Another local café – this is the lovely rustic back room through which you pass to get to the garden at the rear.


7. A pretty corner of the garden in which we sat to drink our coffee.

8. These arrived – I am now an official stockist of Tilly & The Buttons patterns! I’m working on workshop dates at the moment.

9. We went to John Lewis in Kingston while we were in London but I wasn’t tempted by anything.

10. One day it was hot enough to sunbathe…..

11. …..the next, it was peeing down and cold enough to light the fire again!

12. Mint cuttings were re-potted for the school fair – the limit of my gardening talents.

13. I picked the first of the elderflowers to make some cordial, also for the school fair as it went down so well last year.

14. Family selfie at the local pub as our last meal before we headed off to Spain!



So, I’ve long time held this vision of a bottle green, crushed velvet coat with a dark red lining – as you do.

When you want something that specific you just have to make it yourself because there’s no way you’re going to find it RTW, unless you make a lucky discovery in a charity shop. Then, by the time you’ve paid ‘vintage’ prices, had it dry cleaned to remove all traces of mothballs and replaced buttons/repaired worn lining, it’s probably cheaper to make your own anyway!

This is the absolutely gorgeous crushed velvet that I chose from Minerva Crafts….

……and this is the dark red Paisley lining.

Design wise, the closest I could get to what I had in mind was Burda 6845, although I planned version A with a length somewhere between the two at just below knee length.

Three large and six small bronzed horse head buttons would match perfectly.

Order placed, a few days later this little lot arrived from Vicki (thanks Vicki!).

As I had been quite uncompromising in my choice of fabric, there were a couple of design issues I had to overcome to make this coat work, not least the fact that the pattern called for non-stretch wool fabrics.

Mine was crushed velour with a one-way stretch. And a definite nap.

Luckily, the stretch was widthways against the grain, which meant that the stretch would go around the body and not down the length – perfect. The pattern pieces could therefore be laid out as instructed. I was careful to double check that the nap went downward on all pieces, too.

I also had to use interfacing for stretch fabrics instead of the standard kind.

After checking all the sizing information, I started by altering the pattern pieces to fit, namely, the length – a 2″ shortening in the torso and a 4″ reduction in overall length.

Let the sewing commence!

*Warning: the nature of the crushed velour ensured that no two photos show the true colour. Trust me when I tell you it’s fabulous.

The first interesting bit came in the form of welt-and-flap pockets. Great fun! If you haven’t tried them before – do it!

Just look at that lining!

Admittedly, the inside isn’t so pretty, but that will all be hidden under the lining and forgotten forever.

There are no side seams on this coat, but a panel that connects the fronts to the back and sort of wraps around the entire side. Nice.

Main body done, now for the sleeves.

Invisible hand stitching holds the collar in place once you’ve found the roll line and pinned it accurately.

By the way, if invisible stitching isn’t your forté, any clumsy stitches are hidden in the pile of this lovely velour.

Sleeves went in slightly differently due to the seams being constructed in the wrong order – a printing error on the instructions.

For those of you (and I suspect there are many) that have suffered from a lifelong fear of shoulder pads since the power dressing of the Eighties, snap out of it now!

Look at the difference well placed shoulder pads make to the shape of the garment.

No shoulder pads….

….with shoulder pads.

There, consider yourself cured. (You’re welcome).

I was slightly disappointed to find that, having gone to the trouble of making faultless vented sleeve cuffs, they were fakes and no buttonholes were required. The buttons were just stitched on through all layers (once the lining was completed).

I know, I could have made buttonholes regardless of the instructions, but I didn’t.

Do you like the buttons? They’re a nod to country living and the fact that The Boys are so into horses.

Hmmm, it needs to be about a foot shorter, but I’ll deal with that later.

Lovely husband kept me fed and watered (or should that be ‘wine-d’?)at regular intervals over the weekend.

As the lining takes shape it starts to look a bit like a fancy nightie or evening dress.

A dressing gown, even.

View of the back showing the pleats in three places down the length. Always a nice touch in linings, it provides a bit of breathing space and ensures you don’t rip the lining when moving.

The back vent, front facings and hems are handstitched, again, invisibly.

I tend to favour a herringbone stitch here.

Time to insert the lining which is machined around the front opening edges and sewn by hand the rest of the way.

Just look at that brilliant colour contrast!

The lining hems (sleeves, too) all had the usual little overhanging fold for ease of movement which was good to see in the pattern instructions.

My machine can do fully automatic buttonholes which makes life easier.

I always do some test buttonholes in contrasting thread on offcuts before I go onto the real thing.

There – perfect!

And finally……TADAH!

I ended up cutting off another eight inches to get the length I wanted.

Oops – these were taken before I pressed the hemline:)

My husband likens it to a smoking jacket with that fabulous red Paisley lining!

I like it because one minute you present a sensible image in the very British Racing/Bottle Green but, with a flash of the lining, you’re a scarlet woman!

So, in summation: –

Fabrics = Faultless. Beautiful. Striking.

Pattern – to be honest, unless you are an ‘advanced’ seamstress as the envelope indicates, I wouldn’t recommend it.

Why?

• I found too many errors in the instructions which, being experienced, I was able to spot immediately (most of the time!), understand and rectify.
• The sizing information was on the pattern pieces instead of on the back of the envelope which, if you are in a shop trying to buy fabric, is inconvenient to say the least!
• The instructions are confusing in places and assume that you kind of know what you are doing.

Having said all that, it’s a great coat, the design is just what I was looking for and the finishing touches are good.

It’s nice and warm,too, but I still had to don a scarf and gloves for a few outside photos as it was bloomin’ freezing!

The hens insisted on getting in on the act, as usual.

And there’s the cheeky flash of red!

I love the Paisley so much that I’ve already got some more in the gold colourway to use in my next project – here’s a sneaky preview!

The moral of the story is to go for it. Just because a pattern suggests a certain type of fabric doesn’t mean that you can’t make something else work with a bit of careful thought.

And as for the mantra “red and green should never be seen without a colour in between” – pfft!

 

Happy New Year to you all!

Did you have a good Christmas? If it was anything like mine, it will have been crazy busy but fun both at the same time.

As usual I was more than a little optimistic about what I could do in the run up to the festivities and, on top of all the handmade gifts I had planned, I decided it would be a good idea to make a ball gown for Mr H-L’s annual ‘do’ on 18th December.

Time ran away from me (as it has the annoyingly reliable habit of doing every year) and, before I knew it, there were just TWO days left in which to conjure up this dress or – horror of horrors – wear one that I’d worn previously!

Sleeves rolled up, I got stuck in and laid everything out on the dining table rather than in my sewing room – this close to Christmas I didn’t fancy being locked away from the world for 48 hours.

Minerva Crafts supplied all the materials required, including the most gorgeous shot taffeta in a fabulous shade of turquoise which shimmered beautifully in the light and rustled noisily as I sashayed around in it!

Luckily, the Belville Sasoon for Vogue pattern (V2931) had provision for shortening the torso as well as the hemline. At only 5’2″ I am short in the body and was able to adjust the pattern pieces by 2″ accordingly.

As the skirt featured a fish tail, it had to be shortened at thigh length too, in order to keep the flare falling from the right height – I reduced this by 4″ which meant no further reduction at the hemline was necessary.

Once the adjustments were applied to all the relevant pattern pieces, I started the somewhat mammoth task of cutting out.

There were 78 separate pieces to cut out.

It took THREE HOURS!!!

At first glance, the dress may appear to have quite a simple silhouette to it but don’t be fooled – there is plenty of construction hidden within the innocent looking exterior and I was in my element!

Time seemed to stand still as I immersed myself totally in the heaven that is sewing a dress like this.

The bow is a separate entity and is different to any I have made previously (and there have been many!), stiffened with dress net and shaped with hand stitching.

Formed bra cups are essential in this type of dress as it is not possible to wear a bra and, together with the boning, felt secure enough on my (not insubstantial) bust to dance the night away without a second thought.

My recently purchased invisible zipper foot proved a good buy, even if I have managed forty years without one – anything that makes life easier is always a good investment.

The invisible zip went in a treat.

By midnight on Day One, the shell was finished.

I don’t normally like to use flash, but at midnight there is no other option. The benefit was that it shows how the fabric shimmers in the light – it really is stunning!

The anti-static lining was constructed in pretty much the same way as the dress, minus the bow detail and neck strap.

 

 

The two are then pinned wrong sides together and basted in place.

Onto the foundation which consists of a boned layer and a lining. I used cotton covered polyester boning.

Checking the fit is critical as this stage as it is so closely contoured to the body.

Once satisfied that the fit was exact, I attached the hook and eye tape to the back opening edges of the foundation corset.

The foundation was sewn, right sides together, to the dress and understitched where possible around the top edge.

French tacks were made to loosely connect the foundation to the lining – such a useful technique that I use a lot in linings.

Just the lining to sew by hand to the zipper tape….

…..TADAH!

Four poppers secure the halterneck strap and a hook and eye finishes the dress above the zipper.

I was in rather a rush as we had to leave in an hour, so narrow-hemmed the bottom quickly on the machine. Ideally, I would like to have had the time to sew it properly by hand.

In reality, no one noticed:)

I wore the designer shoes that I bought for our wedding.

After a three hour drive to the hotel, I could finally relax and get ready for the party. Here’s the dress laid out on our bed whilst I took a dip in the jacuzzi with a G&T!

Unfortunately, if you trust your husband to take a decent photograph of you wearing it – this is the best you’re likely to end up with!!!!

As you can see, it fits like a second skin – thank goodness for all that scaffolding within!!