Love at first stitch Lilou dress

I have to be honest and say that I hesitated when Love At First Stitch by Tilly Walnes was first released - I mean, I'm not sure if the whole retro/vintage thing is really me. I actually flipped through it in a bookshop, put it back, went away, looked at it on Amazon, put it on my wish list, looked at it half an hour later to see if the price has gone down.....you get the picture. 

Anyway, after a few days the combined force of the Mimi blouse and a coupon for £5 off in WHSmith tipped me over the edge.

And what did I make first? Mimi blouse?

No, Lilou bodice with Clemence-style skirt.

I chose the Lilou mostly because I already had two metres of cotton. I bought it to make a blouse then realised that the material would be too stiff, even after washing. I had just enough fabric to cut the bodice then use what was left to cut a skirt. It's not quite as wide as the Clemence skirt in the book, which is why I'm calling it Clemence-style :)

I also had to make a full bust adjustment (first time ever!). It's a little loose in the shoulders and waist, if I make another one I'll probably take larger seams and I probably should have done that with this one (my Mum told me to!) but I didn't want to change the pattern totally on the first try.

Ironically I have ended up wearing it like this;

More vintage than ever :) Waist cinched in with a white pleather belt from eBay and short cardigan RTW from Wallis. 

I received a lot of compliments when I went out so I think the outfit is a winner although the dress isn't quite perfect. Here it is without the cardi, I feel more comfortable with the belt to give the waist some shape but it pushes the shoulders up and you can just see a flash of pink bra strap in the photo;

In conclusion, Tilly's book is lovely and the patterns make it a worthwhile purchase for beginners and experienced sewists alike. I do wonder if I'll have to make alterations in the bust pieces for all the dresses, just because they are drafted for a slimmer body type, but the FBA wasn't too much trouble, so I'm hopeful of wearable results on the other patterns.

Anyway, the Mimi blouse will be my next project from the book.

A change is as good as a rest

It's been six months since my last post here, so I've certainly had a rest, although I'm not sure anyone would notice seeing as I'm not a regular blogger anyway. The funny thing is that I haven't been resting from sewing - there have been fancy dress costumes (a Sith Lord and Neo and Morpheus from the Matrix!), Roman blinds, upholstered headboards, Plantains, Anna's, a Renfrew, bits and bobs from Tilly's book, plus assorted dolls clothes - but none of it has made it here.

I've been trying to work out why and I've realised that if a blog has an identity then mine is schizophrenic. There are two themes here; sewing for people and sewing for dolls, half the traffic my blog gets comes from Sewing Pattern Review and half from Flickr where my doll pictures get more favourites than the people ones. (That could just be cos the people ones are of me though! :P)

I don't want to start another blog and split the subjects up so I've decided to add a couple of tabs at the top so my visitors can choose what they'd like to see. You never know, I may get another hobby and add a third tab! ;)

Also, I've changed the name of the blog from 'BusyLizzyBee' to Sew*Jemmilly.

There are a lot of LizzyBees out there and a lot of them seem busy. Jemmilly is the name I used to sell my dolls clothes when I first started out, so I'm returning to my roots and hoping to create something that's a bit more 'me', whether I'm sewing for plastic people or real ones.