What I'm working on and this week's pattern giveaway

Things are about to get really busy around here!  We move flats next week! NEXT WEEK? Can you believe it?  Time has really flown by!  I set myself a fairly ambitious sewing project this week based on the Sew Weekly theme of American Designer inspiration.  I wanted to make something inspired by a great American designer from the 40's.

I don't know if you've been following the Colette Patterns blog series on fashion history but I have been loving it!  I came across their blog post on American Designer Elizabeth Hawes and immediately fell in love.  I spent some time looking at several of her dress designs and really fell in love with the 'little moose' dresses:

David helped me pick out the fabric for a 'chocolate and wine' version of the the dress on the left.  I used Simplicity pattern 3948 from 1941.  Which is also this week's giveaway pattern.  It's an unprinted pattern in a B38 size with a neat design.

Using Elizabeth Hawes as inspiration, I decided to make View 1 but with the bodice piece in a different colour to mimic a bolero.  That's where the chocolate and wine comes in! David picked chocolate brown and a lovely burgundy colour for the dress.  I used crepe back satin with the crepe side out and the satin side in.

It's obviously not finished yet.  This is just a sneaky peaky.  I ran into a major hurdle with the button loops (version 2).  Though I've gotten loads of good advice on my sew weekly post on how to solve this!!!  This is my best looking hair for a UFO..hahahhahha.  I totally thought I was going to finish this dress on time.  However, sometimes things just conspire and there is not any extra time!  But after the move, this dress will be among the first of the UFOs to be completed.

I really like how it looks so far and I am very proud of topstitching the flat felled seam of the burgandy bodice front onto the chocolate material.  I did it properly and hand basted the piece on before topstitching!

So for the pattern giveaway....As with other giveaways, this pattern giveaways will be open to readers everywhere. To enter:

• Leave a comment on this post by noon GMT Sunday (this is a bit different from most weeks), please also leave a way for me to contact you,
• If you are technologically savvy and connected then post about the giveaway on 1. your blog, 2. twitter or 3. facebook for an additional entry for each method (so you can have a total of up to four entries...be sure to leave a comment and let me know if you've done any of these extra things).

I'll announce the winner on Sunday evening and I'll ship anywhere in the world. Just note that it sometimes takes awhile for packages to arrive for those outside the EU but I'll aim to mail out the patterns by the following Friday. If you win a pattern, you can't win again for another six months. And again, the only caveat is that you don't sell the pattern.  Keep the pattern for yourself as long as you want and when you are done, pass it on to someone else!


Happy July!