Mary Beth Afternoon Tea Dress

This is an afternoon tea dress I made.  I named it the

'MARY BETH AFTERNOON TEA DRESS'

It was inspired by the styles of the 1930s.

 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.

The Mary Beth Afternoon dress is now SOLD

but I have lots of pretty feminine dress patterns in my two Etsy shops:

VERITY HOPE'S WARDROBE

 and

VERITY HOPE

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Susannah x

Zither Days...!

I made this apron from a old linen table cloth and place mat.  I didn't have a plan in my head as to how I wanted it to turn out, it just sort of evolved in the making like most of my projects.! 

First I folded the cloth into four to make a triangle and cut the pointed end off.  

This gave me a nice curved edge to fit neatly around the waist, as well as providing a large piece to make the waistbands with...

 

I then cut along the sides of the triangle to end up with four pieces. The pocket was made from the place mat which I cut in half and embellished with small red floral appliques.

Finally I finished the hem off with some broderie anglaise frill trimming I had lying around in my scraps basket...

The second apron is very similar to this one except for the finishing touches.  It's waiting patiently in my cupboard for inspiration to strike!

Thank you for visiting, and I have lots of pretty feminine patterns here for you to try:

VERITY HOPE'S WARDROBE

Susannah x

Woods Of Colour....

The woods are so beautiful near where I live, even at this time of year, so out I plodded in my rubber boots, aprons in arms...

This is rose with olive green trimming.  I wasn't sure at first if a brighter green would have been better with the pale pink, but decided in the end for the olive.  Think it's a less common colour combination and looks slightly antiquey...

Next is my favourite colour!  Atlantic.  It's a sort of pale teal blue.  Again I was going to use a brighter red but then thought the wine was more unusual.   It looks darker in the photo...

Finally ruby red and peacock trimming...

Life should always 'look' like this!

 I have some apron patterns in my SHOP so do pop around and have a sneak peak!

VERITY HOPE'S WARDROBE

 Thank you for visiting,

Susannah x

Lavender Inspired Apron Dress

I love projects that involve lots of different stages, so if one day I'm more in the mood to hand sew rather than machine, I can just pick it up and work on the relevant area.  This apron was one of those.  Most of the detail is on the back...

 I've always loved the colour of lavender and originally wanted to use a green frill trim around the edges.  I think the two colours go beautifully together.  I had a lovely green trim which would have been perfect except I didn't have enough of it and couldn't find anything close to what I wanted anywhere.  Impatience got the better of me and I ended up sewing on some white Broderie Anglaise frill which I had plenty of.  But you know when you do something and afterwards it just doesn't feel right so you kind of go off the project...that's exactly what happened with this one.  The white trimming just looked too glaring and I just didn't like the result.  After a few weeks I brought the apron out again. The bright frill was still putting me off the whole project!  To solve the problem I decided to take the plunge and dip the whole apron in a beige dye.  It meant risking the beautiful lavender colour but I've used beige dyes so many times before to tone colours down and had always been pleased with the results.  It did the trick!  Toned it down subtly, just enough to give it the difference needed.  Enthusiasm was back!!

The shaped bodice reminded me of a Parisienne showgirl of the 1940's  so I used some mauve satin ribbon along the seams to give the apron a touch of pizzazz.  To bring in the much desired green colour which I had missed from the trimming I added little green, red and white embroidered motifs.

Then bright green buttons with red thread so they would really stand out.  I made the buttons holes by hand, then finished off with vintage lace around each hole to bring the whole look together.

Here's the back in full...

 

Thank you for visiting 'Verity Hope's Wardrobe'

and please do join and come again and be sure to check out all the pretty feminine patterns in:

VERITY HOPE'S WARDROBE

Susannah x

P.S. This is my other 'doll' blog:

You are all welcome to visit:

http://verityhope.blogspot.co.uk

Flower Picking Pinny

My Flower Pickin' Pinny is inspired by the long sleek aprons of the 1940's.  I love the way It can be thrown over whatever one is wearing. 

 

This is the first one I made.  It's made from embroidered linen in a cream colour.

I love the texture of the embroidery...

Makes me feel I'm in another world..!

 I made a few experimental ones to try out the sizes and general look and feel.  The middle Pinny is the one I decided to wear and is worn in the photo above.

It's a very easy pinafore to make and is finished off with satin bias-binding around the edges and embellished with little flowers.  Here's the back...

Like with all my dressmaking patterns, this one is ideal for beginners and comes in small, medium and large size on the pattern.

Thank you for visiting,

Susannah x