Mega Minerva Meet-up

If you look at any sewing blogs, you would have noticed a number of us talking about the big Minerva Crafts meet-up, which happened last weekend (14th of June).

And what a weekend it was! I'm still smiling and laughing to myself whenever I think back to all the great times I had in Darwen with all these beautiful, talented bloggers and the generous team at Minerva.

I set out at an uncivilized hour - 5.30 am!! - from chez Needles in order to get the train to Darwen, where Minerva is based, just an hour or so outside Manchester. Luckily, I had some company on the way - Clare Sew Dixie Lou, Crafty Ali Bobs, Emmy Oh Sew Vintage, and Sally Charity Shop Chic:

Emmy and Clare - are we there yet?

After a few hours travelling we arrived in beautiful Darwen. Since Minerva is spitting distance from the station, we jumped straight in. I knew that Minerva was one of the web's largest retailers, but the reality of it took me by surprise - it's a huge, crafty barn!

They really do have everything you'd need for sewing, knitting, embroidery, and most every other craft you can think of. I even saw some latch hook rug kits, which brought back memories of an unfinished one I started in the 80's. Throughout the day there were workshops; talks from By Hand London and Karen of Did You Make That? among others; prizes and demonstrations. (I managed to win a Terry's chocolate orange, which I'm saving for a special occasion). And there was time for just hanging-out with our fellow Minerva bloggers, as well as meeting those who had been following us and our projects on the bloggers network.

Emmy discovering the joy of covered buttons

The humongous warehouse next door

 Vicki and the rest of the Minerva team put on such a great event for us, but that wasn't all they had in store for us. All of this was a build up to the evening event, where we would be revealing our dresses which we'd been working on for the previous weeks. Enough of my rambling, I'll let the photos do the talking:

Just a small selection of the ladies who attended

Our venue for the evening - Ewood Park, home of Blackburn Rovers!

Pre-dinner drinks and mingling - still pretty civilised at this stage...

Sequin sisters - Vicki and Emmy

After dinner dancing! Non-stop great tunes courtesy of DJ Paul

As is the way when you have a number of Spoolettes in attendance, we managed to squeeze in pre-pre dinner drinks, where we had an opportunity to get a good look at each others creations:

Rehannon and Clare

Sally (just seen), Marie, and Ali

Emmy and Sally

Emmy and her gorgeous sequinned dress - the patience she must have had...

Kathryn in her 'Rachel' pose

Emmy, me, and Clare, also attempting some 'Rachel' poses

Me, Katie and Kathryn

(photos above courtesy of Emmie Oh Sew Vintage, What Katie Sews, and me)

What I love about these ladies and their outfits is that they all look absolutely brilliant and completely different. Everyone interpreted the idea of 'evening' in their own way, from jumpsuits to pencil skirts, florals to abstract, and a sprinkling of sequins. We even had a dress inspired by one worn by Cher in 'Mermaids'! (I'm looking at you Rehanon!)There was no real theme or one type of shape, unless you count looking fabulous as a theme.

Mine was inspired by the mambo scene in 'West Side Story', so that meant ruffles would be included. I also wanted some bare shoulders, but not strapless, so I used the Sewaholic Lonsdale as the top. I adapted my pencil skirt block into a wraparound, with a curved front edge at the front. This was all topped off with a curved skirt frill at the back, and an extra curved piece for the front. If this doesn't make sense, here are some photos to make it clearer:

I used the top from the pattern on the left, but with a pencil skirt. Then I added the frill from the skirt on the right. I also changed the bodice to a side zip. so the back wasn't disrupted with a seam. 

The skirt is a wraparound attached at the waistband - so 1 back piece and 2 overlapping front pieces. The front was edged with this spiral piece, which I drafted free-hand. This tight spiral meant that when it was added to the skirt it was super-frilly.

And because I'm super fussy about the insides of my projects, everything was lined, the skirts and frills were self-lined, ie a double layer sewn right sides together and turned inside out, and there was an extra piece of lining gathered under the skirt to give it some extra 'oomph'

And one final detail - I decided at the last minute to add some spiral boning to the side seams of the bodice, to make sure the top half of the dress stayed in place all night. I sewed little channels into the side seams and slid the bones in, then tacked them closed so they can be removed before washing the dress.

The dress was a joy to wear, mainly because the fabric was so comfortable - it was a cotton with a little stretch added, so it could fit closely to the body, but moved with you. Which was totally necessary, especially when dancing to 'Proud Mary' by Ike and Tina Turner - that was like an aerobic workout!

I had a great time hanging out with my fellow bloggers, and finally meeting Vicki and co. was a pleasure. It was such an inspiring experience that as soon as I arrived home I wanted to get sewing straight away. If you can visit Minerva, I urge you to go!

See you soon!

The Lonsdale/Simplicity Tiki Mash-Up

About a year ago I bought this lovely cotton from Abakhans in Manchester. As usual I bought it on impulse without any idea as to what I would do with it, so it sat in the stash for about a year while I did other stuff..

I knew it was destined to be something vaguely Tiki, but my mind was made up when I saw the Hawaiian Sewaholic Lonsdale made by Fiona from Diary of a Chanstitcher. 

I ordered the pattern straight away! But I wanted to make the skirt a bit more sexy. Then I saw Cassie's Butterick 5880 with the side flounce and got some further inspiration. 

(By the way, go and check out both of these ladies' blogs - they're fab!)

I went off and traced and slashed and taped and measured, until I had what I thought was a pretty reasonable version of the flounce in Cassie's beautiful dress. But what I didn't realise was that this flouncey business takes up a helluva lot of fabric! Everything was laid out meticulously, but there was no way it was all going to fit. Back to the drawing board...

But then the lovely people at Simplicity came to the rescue. They sent me a few patterns to try out, one of which was this:

And view C has a flouncey Tiki-esque look, which takes up much less fabric - Jackpot! 

Enough of this waffling - let's get a look at the finished product! Here it is:

It's hard to see the flouncey bit unless the wind blows:

Here's a close up of the bodice knot detail:

I rarely make a muslin of anything, but I was worried about coverage in the bust area - I'm a bit top heavy - so I muslined it to death, finally settling on cutting a size 12(UK) in the waist, and then expanding to a 16(UK) at the neckline, and it worked out just fine.

I also took Fiona's advice regarding the straps - I just pinned them in place each side of the zip and topstitched through the bodice. Mr Needles helped pin them in place, and ever since he's been referring to himslef as 'Tom Ford':

I also did a lapped split at the back of the skirt. I didn't bother matching any patterns, because quite frankly I didn't really care!

And that's that. It's warm enough here in London at the moment that I can hopefully wear this a lot more; at the very least I can use it as an excuse to drink some tropical cocktails!

See you soon!