Winning with my festive Mortmain!

I woke up this morning to some super news. Last week I entered my festive Mortmain into the Gather Virtual Christmas Party competition (#gatherxmasparty). I had planned to make the dress anyway, but was alerted to the competition by the Gather team through Twitter. 

After the closing date on Friday, I had a few passing thoughts about the competition, but I never considered actually winning it. So to my surprise this morning, I received a personal message from @GatherKits saying that I've won the party dress category! I am so excited about this! There's a great page on their website (here) announcing the winner and there's a great prize haul too! Lovely vouchers, a sewing kit and some Gather patterns!  

To say that Santa has come early is an understatement!!!

My festive Mortmain!

It's finally finished! After a great battle with the sleeves, I am pleased to show you my Christmas dress. My festive Mortmain by Gather is actually a massive triumph. The fit of the bodice is better than my previous attempts at this pattern (see here and here). Also, the fabric was a delight to work with and I'm really pleased with the combination of plain black cotton and the Riley Blake Santa fabric. I can't wait to wear it on Christmas Day!

What can I say about the sleeves... They were actually fine to put in, but seemingly I have abnormally large upper arms, which meant that they were far too tight! I had to remove them and decreased the seam allowance on the sleeve, before inserting it again. They're still a little tight, but it should be fine for the occasion. Thankfully I don't do much dancing on Christmas Day!

I'd love to see your festive outfits! 

My Christmas make - a sneak peak...

After a busy couple of weeks at work, I've finally found time to blog! I have been sewing during this time and have been making progress on my WIP's. I may have been slightly over ambitious with the amount of garments I want to make before Christmas, I needed to make some decisions. So, I decided to prioritise my Christmas garment. 

I bought 2 metres of the Riley Bkake fabric above from modes4u.com a couple of months back and had originally planned to make a skirt with it - probably a Picnic Blanket Skirt. However, I had a bit of a change of heart. Although I like the picnic blanket skirts I have previously made, I'm not sure how they're going to cope with my expanding belly on Christmas Day! 

I didn't want to try a new pattern at this stage, so I started to consider a Mortmain by Gather. On a recent fabric shopping trip I bought some plain black cotton, which would compliment the festive fabric perfectly! This was the starting point I needed. The next decision I made was to add the sleeves to the pattern - my previous versions of this have been sleeveless. My final decision was patterned skirt, or patterned top... This is a tough one! 

Answer to follow once I'm finished! 

Chevron patterned Coco!

So I said in my previous post that I purchased some chevron patterned cotton jersey from Spotlight in Singapore. This is the make I used it for! After the success of my first Coco, I knew that I wanted to make more garments from this wardrobe building pattern. 

Chevron patterned fabric is something I have coveted for a while and have yet to find any for clothing in Hong Kong. I had considered purchasing some Riley Blake chevron fabric from modes4u.com, but it was quite pricey so I decided to wait. I'm very glad because I totally love this red, fine stripe version. It's a challenge to look at, especially with the funnel neck and cuffs! However I do enjoy the pattern it creates at the joining point. It is certainly a statement piece! 

The manufacture went smoothly and substituting a sewn neckline with the funnel neck made it even easier to sew than my first Coco (see here). I used the hemming tape that I also bought from Spotlight to help with the finishing of the hem. This made the process extremely easy and i'm sure that a novice with knitted fabric would find this very straightforward.

I'm now almost looking forward to the weather getting cooler here in Hong Kong so that I can wear all my lovely new wintery clothes! I'm off to Beijing on a course on Wednesday, so this little number might make it into my suitcase. 

Has anyone else made a statement Coco?