Tilly-ed tip to toe!

Hello!  How are things going in your world at the moment? Hope all’s good.

Today’s post is one I’ve been wanting to write for a while, but one of the items is this month’s Minerva Crafts Blogger Network make, so I’ve been waiting for that post to be published.  However, as I’ve been wearing it almost exclusively with the another make, I thought I’d show you both together.

The first piece is a proper shirt for me, the Tilly and the Buttons Rosa shirt.  I made it up in a fabulous, floral cotton lawn, exactly as per the pattern; full details are over here, do go have a read because I really am ridiculously chuffed with this shirt!

The garment I’ve been mostly wearing it with (slightly to my own surprise) is the Tilly and the Buttons Cleo dress, my second version to date and one I’m much happier with.

This time around, instead of the needlecord I chose for my first effort, I went with a bronze denim from Guthrie Ghani, which I picked up in their sale at Christmas.  This stuff is absolutely glorious, so lovely to sew with and to wear.  It wasn’t cheap but, as they say, you get what you pay for.

I made a few changes to this version from my first version.  The first change was that I sourced the buckles from Tilly’s online shop and so they were actually the right size for the pattern, which helped things along enormously.  It meant I didn’t have to widen the strap pieces towards one end, allowing me to keep things nice and even all along the length.

I decided to give myself a little extra room in the skirt, which I achieved by the simple expedient of taking a 3/8″ seam instead of a 5/8″ on the side seams when assembling the dress (remembering to do the same thing on the facing pieces too for once!)

I also tackled the length problem.  Although I’ve had several totally unsolicited compliments on my purple Cleo, I’ve not really got used to the very short length.  However, I still don’t like the centre front slit included on the longer skirt length in the pattern. So I decided to take the middle ground and cut the skirt at a length between the two lines on the pattern.  Combined with the slightly looser side seams, this gave me ample striding room without the need for any slits in the skirt.

I guess it probably helps that denim is rather less notorious than needlecord for sticking to your tights, but the overall effect is a dress that I am a lot more comfortable in and which I feel suits me better than the first one.  I don’t actually have very much brown in my wardrobe, but I’ve found that this dress works well either over my red Astoria sweater or paired with the Rosa shirt.

There is a slight hint of overgrown toddler in my head because the only fabric I had for the dress facings was the offcuts from the shirt, but I guess no one notices that but me!

So it seems I am a comfirmed Tilly fangirl, content to wander about in a complete outfit of her patterns. But I think I’m probably not alone in that?

(Photos taken of the combined outfit courtesy of The Yorkshire Sewist – thanks Sally!)

Bonus is that both these makes were on my #2017makenine to do list, so I’m now 1/3 of the way through that challenge!

How about you, have you had any instances of second time being a charm?

Becca x