A bright blue day...

You wouldn't believe that we're in October from the photos above. It looks like the height of summer! Well today it definitely felt like July in West Yorkshire. And although we spent a short while enjoying the 'out of season' heat there was still lots of sewing to do. I'm currently working on the Autumn collection which I hope will be ready by mid to late October, but I'll post about it more soon.

In the meantime one of my last orders was an Eluned skirt for my husband's niece Lois. I had to redesign the Eluned skirt to incorporate an elastic waistband so Lois had lots of growing room. This was quite tricky as I was unsure whether the gather at the waistline would spoil the pleat design of the Eluned skirt but in the end it worked out well (I found great instructions for putting in a half elastic waistband here) and Lois is very happy with her pink floral skirt.

Burda tunic into skirt and apron

Here are pics of an apron remake I underwent when I made a major mistake when making up a maternity dress. I happen to find a great free tunic pattern (E971) on the Burda World of Fashion website which had a simple rounded yoke and a easy fitting bodice area- perfect for my ever growing bump. I made quite a few of these dresses, mainly using jersey fabric but I wanted to try a version using a lovely navy and white dotted fabric I had bought from a nearby fabric shop. However I made a major mistake when cutting out the fabric and alas when I went back to see if they had any more- they were sold out!

Anyway (like many unfinished projects I have), I placed all the remaining pattern pieces I had cut into my fabric cupboard until very recently. I still really loved this fabric so I decided to make an apron and a nice little skirt for Niah, and here are the results.





Niah's skirt was a really simple rectangle shape which has been gathered at the top with elastic.
I included little square pockets with a mini gather at the middle and bias bound the top with plain navy linen. I love how you don't need very much fabric in order to make a nice simple piece of clothing for your little one. I'm hoping to use up some of the smaller pieces of nice fabric I have on clothes for Niah. My apron was also a very simple rectangle shape, with triangular box pleat pockets.