Emergency holiday sewing

Well what's a sewist/dressmaking/sewer (*delete as applicable) supposed to do when they book a holiday except sew some new clothes!?

I originally had a list of 4 or 5 things to make but when I found out we were expecting I was put off by the idea of making something I wouldn't fit into very soon.

Plus with exam marking and sewing a baby dress for a present I didn't have much free time.

Two days before we went away I was frantically cutting and sewing and managed to make the True Bias Southport dress and the Merchant and Mills saltmarsh skirt from their new workbook.

I've been wanting to sew the Southport dress since it was released but the first version got canned after buying rayon fabric and not stabilising it when cutting which led to some very wonky cutting. A shame because the fabric was gorgeous! 

The second version was made from this rayon from eBay. I didn't have any trouble sewing it up, I anticipated the bias binding armholes to be a pain but with a bit of pressing they went in fine. I omitted the button band and cut a size 4 grading to a 6 to accommodate bump, I think the bodice is a little big though and could've stayed at my usual 2. 

One problem I did have was trying to match the bodice and the skirt together and ended up with an 8 inch gap between the waistband casing and the skirt! I had to try and gather the spare fabric in the skirt so that I could sew the two together but I have no idea where I went wrong. I used ribbon from my stash as the waistband drawstring.

Next up was the Saltmarsh skirt from the new Merchant and Mills workbook, the fabric is from John Lewis bought when we went away to Edinburgh in Easter.

I originally tried to make the skirt with no pattern, just a straight dirndl with an elastic casing waistband but it looked so homemade I knew I wouldn't wear it. It was the first thing I'd tried to sew since being pregnant and the first trimester tiredness is no joke.. I couldn't visualise how to sew the bloody thing together! Following someone else's instructions and a pattern turned out to be much better.

All in all the the skirt was very easy to sew, I used the ribbon M&M had tied some fabric together for me from a delivery as the drawstring and used my over locker for the sides. I loved how the waistband came together.

We went to Kos, in Greece, and had a fantastic time! I thoroughly needed a rest, we've had a stressful few weeks and a break was sorely needed. A bonus was just how beautiful it is over there as you can see in some of these pictures.