My friend and I are having a mini sewalong, if that is what you can call two people sewing the same pattern together.

Week one we decided on which pattern we wanted to do and traced and cut out the pattern pieces, we arranged to meet up the following week with our dresses cut out and ready to sew.

I am using this fabric

I think it is a light cotton, I bought on my trip to London in the summer.

and my friend is using this fabric

A cotton purchased from Kayes Textiles on London Road, Southend-on-Sea, my friend did have a slight issue as in the fact that although the pattern was advertised for 45 inch fabric, her skirt was too wide by about an inch, especially as she wanted it longer than the pattern.

Week two we managed to get the front pieces together, which for some reason took far longer than I thought it would, not helped by the pleats and the misleading diagrams in the book. The book seems to have the pleats going the opposite way to the photo of the dress, also after basting the pleats into the skirt there was half an inch extra fabric in my skirt but Denise’s was fine (can only assume a tracing issue on my part).

Here is what it looks like so far

because of the fabric you can’t really see the pesky pleats but they are there.

next week we tackle shirring, collars and sleeves