Wendy's Week - Swing & Swatching

Hello, lovely people! I hope your week has been wonderful so far!

This is what I got up to last week...

~ Swing & Swatching ~

- 4th - 11th April -

My Hurricane is progressing // Watching Home Fires with Beau // Getting ready to go out in my new 70s dress
 // Swatching sweaters // Swing! // Fabric tester extraordinaire

- I cut out a new sewing project! When I bought the gorgeous Cloth Spot floral satin a few weeks back, I bought it to finally make a version of Butterick B5152, a luxurious 40s dressing gown, which I have been dreaming of for years! Well I finished cutting out the last pieces this week, the fabric is very lightweight and a bit fidgety so it was a little more time consuming to cut out than I had anticipated, so I have been taking my time to do it slowly and cut it as neatly as possible. Of course, Beau was there to help me, never let it be said that any fabric has entered our home that he hasn't given the furry butt of approval to!

I'll be honest am anxious about sewing this up as I haven't sewed with such delicate fabric before, I'm thinking I might try something a little smaller first and thanks to the thoughtful ladies at Cloth Spot I do have a few meters left over (they spotted a flaw in the fabric and gave me a few extra meters to help me work around it, what service!) so I'm hoping to squeeze in a Sew Over It Anderson Blouse which as it's loose fitting it will be a good place to practice my slippery fabric stitching skills! Oh and any advice will be heartily welcomed!

- I swung along to the Syd Lawrence Orchestra. On Friday it was finally time for me, Alan and some of his lovely friends to go to see the Syd Lawrence Orchestra. I'd been looking forward to this for weeks and it didn't disappoint! The band was marvellous and as it was such a small venue we had a wonderful view of the stage and the band. The music was fantastic, including lots of Glen Miller, Benny Goodman, and Count Basie. Their singer, Angie Mills was fabulous and she belted out amongst others two of my favourite 'shower singing' songs (sung badly by me mind you!) Love me or Leave Me and Secret Love both Doris Day classics. The band also did a rendition of Benny Goodman's arrangement of Sing, sing, sing, with the most outstanding drum solo I have ever heard!

All in all, it was a wonderful way to spend an evening and something which I would recommend, having never experienced a big band like this before as I am more used to seeing guitar bands in sweaty clubs this certainly seemed much more sophisticated! The only small negative for me was due to the event being in a theatre all the enthusiastic foot tapping from the audience was making the sprung floor bounce rather allot which did make me feel a little queasy, to begin with, eventually, I got used to it but early on it was touch and go!

- And I wore another (new) 70s, Maxi Dress! I blame writing about my last maxi dress, as when I went to get the eBay link I spotted this gold sparkly number being auctioned off with only a few minutes left, and seeing that it was in my size I thought I would give it a go and blow me down I won!! The dress in the listing (see it here) looks so different in reality and by that I mean it's so much nicer. I was actually surprised how lovely this dress is. It's also a lot larger than the listing suggested, so I have had to add a few stitches in the front wrap to stop my underwear constantly being flashed. I'd intended to wear my Sew For Victory 2.0 Dress to see the SLO as I wanted to finally give it a proper outing, but I fell in love with this dress so much that I decided to wear this instead, as, despite its intense nylon content, everything about it screams 1930s evening dress. Plus it being floor length, yes even on 5'10" lanky me, it meant that my poor bruised shins (combine a clumsy nature and a push bike and well, lets just say my legs are more blue than anything else currently) could be hidden a bit more stylishly than by wearing my thickest of thick black tights!

- On Sunday I caught up with Home Fires, which inspired some knitting. I'm so glad Home Fires is back! I really loved the first series, it is great to finally have a show that focuses on the women on the home front during the war, which obviously also means lots of fabulous forties fashions! The new series is no different and as I was trying to follow the plot the fab knitwear just kept popping up, one jumper in particular caught my eye and that was the gorgeous Fair Isle, sported by Frances Campbell the Drs Wife (see it better here). I was so smitten that I immediately grabbed some graph paper and my (overflowing) bag of odds and ends and spent the rest of the evening trying to chart out and swatch the pattern. I have made a few changes to my initial chart but I am so smitten that I have already cast on for the jumper, using as the base this free pattern by Subversive Femme, which I am hoping will work well, especially as it's in a larger size, fingers crossed!

Wendy x