Sunday Stash and a Washi dress for me!

Earlier in the week I posted about my efforts in tidying up my sewing space.  If you missed it, here is my fabric stash.  There is a little more, but it has been packed away.  This is the stuff that gets used frequently (or that's the idea anyway)!

This week I received a very exciting package in the mail.  You might remember late last year I participated in the Sew Seasonal blog hop.  I submitted two entries to the linky party at the end.  My original item, this wall hanging:

and this tree skirt that which featured Kristy's paper pieced stars (you can buy the patterns here).

It turned out that I won a surprise prize and boy, what a surprise!  It arrived at night so you don't get photos of the wrapping, suffice to say I was rather excited to see Kate Spain's address label on it! :)  Look at all these lovely goodies that are now part of my stash.

Some Christmas prints.

Don't you just love the hues, seriously to die for!

And the cutest magnetic notepad.

A big thank you to Kristy and Alyce for organising the hop and such delicious prizes! These pretties will rest in the Christmas pile of my stash and be used for my annual Christmas project later this year.  I'm thinking long table runner.  We don't have any and living in the Southern Hemisphere we don't really need a Christmas quilt.  I have a while to come up with a project ;)

Whilst my stash is primarily made up of fabrics and notions I do also have a reasonable number of patterns.  Having seen the Washi Dress all over blogland last year I recently added it to my stash.  After a week of not much sewing I decided to focus on me yesterday and found some time to make myself a Washi :)

In my stash I keep some yardage for dressmaking.  I couldn't decide which to cut into so asked the children to choose between these prints.

Ages ago I won some Swedish Tracing Paper from Crafty Mamas, I have to tell you, this stuff is AMAZING!  Really, if you don't have some, go buy it!  It is so handy, you can use it for pattern pieces but it is sturdy enough to sew and try on; pattern and muslin all in one :)

I traced out the pattern onto Swedish Tracing Paper and sewed together the bodice to see how it fit.  The darts were well placed but I felt the neckline was too high.  I need a decent scoop to a neckline or I'm all boob and that is not the look I'm after :)  So I dropped the neckline by approximately an inch and a half.  I kept the little cut out but reduced the depth.  I'm really pleased with the adjustments I made.  The neckline is just right for me :)

Feeling like a dill LOL

I might reduce the length, but I was keen to wear it out last night, so I just hemmed it as is and didn't pay much attention.

I have to say, this dress is super comfortable.  After one wear I have found that because of the shirring at the back, the bodice does move around a little, but not terribly so.  I'm hoping that after being through the drier the shirring will tighten up a little, but is it lovely to wear and it does hide my tummy which is what I was after :)  Nothing like looking pregnant when you're not *sigh*

Even broke out the heels!

Possibly my favourite feature of this dress is the pockets.  They are nice and deep, just the right height for me, and now I have somewhere to put all of the various treasures that the kids find when we're out ;)

And makeup!

I left the facing loose and didn't use interfacing on it as the cotton I used is somewhat heavy.  I did sew it down on the shoulder seams.  I really kept everything as simple as possible and I do think that a beginner could have a good go at this dress.  I will definitely be making this dress again and now I know that I like it I might even cut into the Nottinghill voile that I bought :)

Have you made any recent additions to your stash?  Are you in love with Washi too?  I'm linking up to Sunday Stash over at Finding Fifth.

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