I've been wanting to move my blog away from Blogspot for a while but could never be bothered to actually do it. This week was the tipping point though, and I've now fully migrated over to https://patsypoomakes.wordpress.com/ . The blogspot address will remain here but all new posts will only appear at https://patsypoomakes.wordpress.com/ . There are lots of reasons for the move but my biggest one is how hard Blogger has made it for people to subscribe to receive new posts via email. It's such a basic requirement but apparently, they think it's too much to offer. I'm basing this purely on how I myself prefer to consume this stuff. I can't be arsed with feed readers anymore and emails are easy and convenient. When I receive one, if I fancy reading it, I will click through to it and, if not, I'll just delete it. Another reason is the spat between Google (owners of Blogger) and Instagram/Facebook/Meta. I don't even know if this is still the case anymore
This one was a bit of a journey... So let me start at the beginning. When I had to cancel my trip to visit Mel a couple of weeks ago because of this bloody virus, we decided we'd have a buddy sewing session to make up for it. The most socially distant of activities, over 200 miles away from each other, sadly. Anyway, after a little bit of deliberation as to what we should sew we landed on the Fleetwood Dress by French Navy. We both fell in love with it as soon as it came out a few weeks ago so it was a pretty easy decision to make.
The dress is gorgeous, with lots of details I love, like a princess-seamed bodice and front yokes. The fit is really good as well. Very much in keeping with my Lockdown Style, consisting of anything that isn't fitted but looks cute. It is missing pockets actually 😁 but that will be remedied when I make it again.
The fabric I chose is a chambray that was a joy to sew and press. It came from Hometown in Rochester, which is where Mel works. She used a darker version of it as the backing for a recent quilt she made and I really liked it but I wanted a medium blue. When she told me they had this one at the shop I had to buy it. You can find it here, listed as the Mid Blue lightweight denim. It's lightweight and wonderfully soft.
I made a size B, view A, without any adjustments - which came back to bite me on the arse. I did find some errors in the pattern and I will contact the designer about them. None of them was major or caused me any problems though, and I thought the instructions were rather good and clear. I did, however, have to remove the sleeves, and I'm gutted about that, but that was my mistake, not the pattern's. I measured the sleeve circumference and compared it to my bicep. I will admit it was a bit close but I thought I'd get away without a full bicep adjustment. Well, you can probably guess how that went. 😬
Yep, I had to remove my sleeves. 🤦♀️ Tight sleeves are a constant issue for me and I should've listened to my gut. I should've done a bicep adjustment but I couldn't be bothered. I'm still really happy with the result though. It just means I can get more wear out of it year-round, wearing it as it is during warmer months or layering up when it's cold, just like I did today.
I literally hacked off the sleeves with my rotary cutter, which I would strongly advise against. But by that point in the game, I was tired and wanted to finish it so it was all I could do. I took a little bit extra off at the shoulder seams as well because I prefer that sort of cut for a sleeveless dress. It's not perfect but I'm really pleased with the result.
Make sure you check out Mel's version of it here. It's really gorgeous and I need to sort out the sleeves for my next version because I love them. Yes, she also made it in a chambray because we're just super cool like that. 🤣 This time it was not intentional though, unlike our identical Sagebrush tops. But, hey, twinning is winning so no regrets.