Tilly again!

So how are things in your lockdown world?

I keep seeing people on Instagram who are crafting their hearts out, running out of box sets to watch, sorting their houses and generally managing to find the silver lining to the current situation. My only explanation for this is that these must be the people without children.

With children, lockdown life is pretty full on. I’m very fortunate in some ways: I work from home most of the time anyway and my company is actually probably busier than beforehand, dealing with the economic impact of all this mess. So my job for the moment is safe. But I’m having to squash it in around trying to keep my children from going insane and/or killing each other. Again, it could be worse, I am not a sole parent and my husband is very hands on. But he has a very time consuming job too, so life is full on from starting work at 7 to falling into bed at well after 10.

But genuinely, it could be worse. I’ve managed to find some sewing time, largely devoted to either making leggings and pj’s for the biggest girl to accommodate her latest growth spurt, or making headbands and scrubs for the NHS (not very many of either, but I figure every little helps).

This morning, I have managed to reclaim my laptop from the smallest girl for a little while, so thought I’d blog one of my recent makes.

It won’t be any surprise that this is a Tilly pattern. I do love her style! So much so that I didn’t even realise til I was at the Stitch Festival that I was in head to toe Tilly; my Mila dungarees are just such a staple part of my wardrobe!

Anyway, I decided to try out the Bobbi dungaree dress. This is effectively a variation on the Cleo theme, but since I have three Cleo dresses, I thought it worth a try.

I chose to make the longer length (I’ve learnt that when Tilly says short, she really means it!) and I’ve also learnt that I always, ALWAYS, need to make a full seat adjustment if I want trousers to fit and skirt hems to be level.

Ordinarily, this adjustment involves

• cutting a line from the centre back seam to the side seam, leaving a hinge at the side seam, about level with the hip line.
• spreading the CB seam apart to add about 1.5cm to the length of the CB seam
• Truing up the line from the waist to the hem so the CB seam is still straigh

However, this pattern has princess seams back and front, which mean it wasn’t quite that straightforward.

In the end, I dealt with this by tracing off the pattern (standard for me), pinning the CB and side back pieces together along the seam line, making the adjustment to the combined piece and then unpinning them from each other to end up with two adjusted pattern pieces.

Other than that, this was a very straighforward sew. I used some beautiful denim I won from B&M fabrics last year, and lined the bib in yet more of the african wax print I used for my first Margo jumpsuit last summer. Combined with buttons from my stash and thread sent to me by Gutermann, that made this a very frugal make (it’s about time, right?)

I have a love of sewing denim. There’s something so satifying in all the topstitching and finishing. In fact, the only thing I wish I’d done on this , which I did do on my Mila dungarees, is to add topstitching to the waistband. I’m honestly not sure why that’s not in the pattern, given every other seam appears to be topstitched? I think it would look a lot better with that in place, but the thought didn’t occur to me until after I’d attached the belt loops so I left it as is!

As with all Tilly patterns, I found this a really enjoyable sew. The finished garment is cute, but actually possibly too cute for me: it feels like I’m too old for it? Time will tell how much wear it gets.

Anyway, for now, that’s it. I have a load of unblogged makes, but only time will tell whether I ever manage to rescue my laptop again!

Stay safe

Becca x