The brightest pink halter neck dress you ever did see! Vintage Advance 9393

Put your shades on, people - this dress is as bright as they come!

If you squint closely, you can also see that the envelope claims it is "Sew Easy!" Aw, how cute - they even added an exclamation mark to boost your confidence. Don't make a muslin - just dive right in! And in a way they were right - it was 'sew easy' to sew. It was just getting the fit right that was a nightmare!

As you can probably tell from the photos, I did not achieve one hundred per cent success on the fit. (Did I make a muslin? Of course not! Lesson duly learnt). I probably could have brought the bodice in tighter in order to get a better bust fit, but just between you and me, I kinda like being able to breath in my dresses. Going blue in the face for blog photos is not the look I am currently going for. So slightly floppy boob area but with added breathability it is. Sometimes ya gotta take the pay off!

Also, as much as I love this dress (and I really do, despite the fit issues - it's bright pink! And with a full skirt! And a funky bodice!), getting into the darn thing is a trial within itself! The straps cross over at the back, so you need to pull the dress on over your head, then do some Houdini-worthy wriggling and arm rearranging before finally drawing pretty tight straps cross-ways over your head. And of course I made this dress in the most wrinkly cotton twill known to man, so even once you do get into the dress you find that (a) your perfect bun is totally mussed up (b) your lipstick is now smeared halfway over your face and (c) the dress is wrinkled to pieces! If I ever make it again I will consider doing it in a less wrinkly cotton, after doing a muslin first (promise!), and maybe putting in a side zip instead of the back zipper.

Still, you live and learn. It's good to have a challenging project occasionally - it stops me from floating above the world thinking I am a superb sewist, and brings me down to earth with a heavily felt thud! But that's one of the grand things about this hobby - there is always something new to learn (the importance of muslins, Jorthy, cough cough!). And even though I am acutely aware of the fit issues, I think the brightness of the pink succeeds from blinding everybody else to them. I wore this dress out to dinner, and received quite a few compliments on it, so my evil blind-you-all-with-mega-fuchsia-so-you-see-no-faults plan totally worked! Woo hoo!

And I do love a full skirt you can dramatically throw around! Ok, bright pink dress - you get to stay!

Project Details
Pattern - Vintage Advance pattern number 9393, size 12 bust 32
Fabric - 2.4m of silky cotton twill from The Fabric Store
Notions - Interfacing for facings, invisible zipper

Banana choc chip muffins

Some people get really excited over a pair of shoes. Others, it's the perfect handbag that melts their ice cream. However, I save the pounce and the emitting of happy cries for when I spy some super ripe bananas, because once I have my hot little hands upon them I know that I can make THE BEST BANANA MUFFINS EVER!

1 cup self raising flour
1/2 cup wholemeal self raising flour
1/2 cup raw caster sugar
1 cup raw oats
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 tbsp cinnamon
3 really ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup olive oil
2 eggs, beaten well
1 tsp vanilla essence

1 - Preheat oven to 180 C.
2 - Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl and set aside.
3 - Mix together the bananas, oil, eggs and vanilla essence until combined. Add to the dry ingredients, and mix gently until just combined.
4 - Line the holes of a 12 hold muffin tin, then dollop spoonfuls evenly into the cases. Bake for 20 minutes (test with a skewer to ensure they are cooked through), then cool out of tin on a wire rack.