Malphi: Frills, Frocks & Fancies!

Mary Beth Apron Dress...

This is an apron dress I've just made.  It was inspired by the styles of the forties.

Here's what I did....I had some linen fabric lying around but had never really liked the colour of it, I love pink but there was something about this particular tone that just didn't inspire me so I took the plunge and dyed the whole remnant green!

I absolutely love colour dying it's so rewarding, trouble is once I start I can't stop and end up adding half my wardrobe into the dye bucket each time.  But it is fun and I love to throw lots of different colours into the same bucket of dye and see how each shade transforms.  Some work, some don't, but hey ho that's all part of the fun of the unknown!

For the pockets I used tea.  I love the effect tea staining has, it brings such character to trimmings and embellishments and is so easy to do.  My sister had just returned from a trip to Sri Lanka and had brought mountains of loose tea back.  Perfect!  I couldn't resist, and of course it meant we had lots of cups of tea that week too.  I left the fabric to soak in the jug for only a couple of minutes, it's such an easy and rewarding small pleasure.  Easily pleased me!

The apron dress wraps around the back and does up with a button at the neck.  You can see the button hole on the left and the button on the right is just for decoration to balance it out.

I decided to use satin bias binding for the edges to add a bit of glamour.  The ties thread through slits at the sides and front and are made from a silky lining material. 

For the pockets, I cut up an old embroidered linen napkin purchased from the charity sale I always go to.  The colours of the flowers were the inspiration for the whole colour scheme and I still have the other half of napkin to make something else with. 

The sleeves simply tie up which means the whole apron dress can open out almost flat for hanging.

I wanted to soften the neckline up a bit so decided to do a simple embroidery design embellished with flowers.  It had the effect of widening the neckline.

I really enjoyed making this outfit.  I used a lot of hand sewing as well as machine sewing (using my beloved hand-operated machine of course!) and it was worth the effort.

Floppy pockets...

I really like the whole floppy feel of this apron.  This was a really simple one to make.  I used yet another old linen table cloth so all the edges were already either hemmed or sealed.

All I had to do was cut a bit off the top for the waist band and ties.  Cut to length and then gather the rest of the cloth in to fit inside the waistband.

I spent a little more time on the pockets.  I used an old embroidered linen napkin cut in half.  Then I ran a line of gathering stitch, by hand, along the bottom.  Pinned the pockets into place and then drew up the bottoms to make a curve and then sewed them in place by hand.
I added some ribbon along the top and finished in a floppy bow.

Blackberry picking...

Now September has arrived, my younger sister had a sudden urge to bake an apple and blackberry pie.  So we wasted no time in going down to the local woods and gathering them.  Apart from the stinging nettles, we had a very enjoyable afternoon.

I decided to wear my newest wrap dress that I made about a month ago.  As soon as I saw the fabric in the shop, I knew I had to make the Verity Hope Dress from it.  I love the shade of blue mixed in with the red flowers.

This time I decided to change the finish by applying bias-binding to all the edges.  Usually I bind only the neckline and fronts from the inside.  The only thing I would change is the weight of the fabric.  I would have preferred it to be a little heavier.

As I write this, there's still no sign of the pie!

A little gem..!

This is a little gem of a machine!
It was tucked away in one of the rooms of the charity sale I go to, along with four or five other vintage sewing machines.  Think they must have once belonged to a collector as they were all beautifully preserved and in pristine condition.

It's quite a bit smaller than my other machines and is a transverse shuttle machine.  With transverse shuttles, the bobbin moves back and forth in a straight line as opposed to the vibrating shuttles that it was superseded by, which move in an arc.  Apparently it had been discovered rusting in someone's old garage but has now found a new home and lease of life!

Once home, I first tried to wind one of the bobbins but noticed that the bobbin winder had been stored with the rubber wheel pressed up against the fly-wheel like it has to be when one is winding.  Over the years, leaving it up in this position had caused the rubber to distort and go hard, that's hardly surprising given it's age!  Fortunately my genius father had an old toy tractor lying around (like you do) and the rubber tyre fitted perfectly over the old one.  I turned the wheel and hey presto...worked a treat!  You can see it in the photo.

It still had the attachments too...

This little Vesta cried out to me and I knew we had to be together!  AND only £5.00...what a bargain!