Talia Tank from Rebecca Page

So I am running a little late on this one, as the pattern was released a few days ago, however, between car troubles, several trips to the emergency department, an overnight stay at the hospital as well as a university exam, I just didn't have the time to be doing any blogging

Long time readers will know I have been lucky enough to test a few Rebecca Page patterns in the past (as well as Mummykins and me, before the name change) but here is a brand new one!

Introducing the Talia Tank from Rebecca Page!

I had been searching for a quick sew for a comfy singlet top for a while.Although I sport a dress most days, some times a gal just wants to throw on jeans and a top and go casual. This pattern is absolutely perfect for that. It has flattering bust gathers and is loose fitting so doesn't cling to the tummy rolls. Best of all, if you piece together the strap piece, you can squeeze a top out of only 1m of fabric. So far I have struggled finding decently priced knit fabrics, so when I do buy them, I only get 1 or 2 meters. In fact, mere days before this test, I had been to spotlight and purchased a few knit fabrics from the sale table, so I was well prepared to make this top.

I cut the pieces out one night after my son went to bed, and then sewed it together the next night, and finished it, while also watching Netflix and eating dinner, in less than 2 hours total.

For this version I used 1m of a blue bow printed organic cotton purchased from Spotlight, for about $4 p/m. You can buy the same fabric from Etsy. I have made a 3xl, graded to 5xl at the hips (for my post natal 49 inch bust figure)

I have already worn the Talia to University, the day I managed to blow 2 tyres on the car, and was thankful not to be wearing a dress (like I usually am) while trying to change them.

I have also sewn a second version in a colourful dotted knit, as well as started on a dress length version in a floral mustard coloured woven rayon, which I am hoping turns out OK. Pretty sure this pattern is going to become a staple in my sewing room

Dixie

Me-Made-May Conclusion

May 29

I wore polka dot jeans and a white store bought singlet, as I was working on a uni assignment that involved woodworking, I didn't want to get any of my me-made shirts dirty or damaged. Not sure I would ever be bothered to sew my own basic things like singlets, when they are so readily available, but even if I did, I wouldn't be willing to ruin them with paint anyway.

Photo from when I first made this dress

May 30

After workshop I changed into my red check Butterick 6094. For a while I had put on too much weight to wear it comfortably, but I seem to have lost enough recently to wear it again, yay!

May 31
Wore my polka dot jeans and white singlet again, as I was doing more work on my Uni assignment (in fact I spent the next 3 days painting and sanding more layers on it)


While I certainly found this year's Me-Made-Made to be less difficult than previous years, I still would like to make more winter outerwear as well as winter pyjamas to complete my me-made wardrobe. Although I have almost finished making a new jacket, I have been far too busy with end of semester assessments and exam study to finish it, but hopefully will find some time to do more sewing in the upcoming school holidays. I found at the end of the month, I still had plenty of me-made outfits that didn't get worn, but could have, so I certainly have enough outfits to get by (although that won't stop me making more) Now that I have submitted my last 2 assessments for the semester, I have already begun  sewing some new projects, which you will all the seeing here soon.

Dixie

Me-Made-May Week 4

May 22

For classes on Monday, I again wore my yellow, orange and pink Butterick 6167

May 23

After Workshop on Tuesday I changed into my red and green Simplicity 3107 for the remainder of the day. At the medieval club meeting that night, I made myself some viking rus trousers, and a pair of calico braies (basically boxer shorts) for a friend.

May 24

I wore my yellow and red gerbera dress again for another lazy day around the house.

May 25

For a day of lounging about the house and running a couple of errands, I wore my pink wrap dress, pattern available from here.

May 26

On Friday I wore my Leopard skirt and off white shirt, neither of which have made it onto the blog. The Skirt is a half circle skirt with in seam pockets, make from a soft and stretchy leopard print fabric. Due to the stretch in the fabric, when I made it I didn't bother putting in a zip. I chose to wear an easy, comfy outfit, as we had archery practice, and then an evening of learning to sing medieval (and medieval-ish) songs.

Made by Kelly at Make it or Cake it

May 27

Saturday, I managed to sleep in and run 2 hours late for a friend's birthday party. In my rush to get out the door, I threw on my Kitty B6167, as it was convenient. Despite that, I still got there in time for cake! (which was an awesome chocolate mud with raspberry ganache, decorated to look like a Hawaiian shirt)

May 28

Just spent the day at home, so I simply wore my Kitty B6167 again

So, we are almost to the end of another Me-Made-May, and while I certainly don't feel as challenged as I have in past years, there are still a few things I would like to get made to complete my wardrobe, but I am happy with how much of my wardrobe is already me-made. It's making me feel inspired to donate even more of my store-bought clothing that is sitting, unworn, in my closet.

Dixie

Me-Made-May Week 3

May 15

For Uni on Monday I wore my new coral floral dress that I finished last week, paired with yellow cardigan (not made by me, but still handmade) and managed to take a quick selfie in a bathroom mirror, so you can at least see what the dress looks like. It has a halter strap, and boning in the bodice, and while the fit isn't perfect, it is good enough, and has enough in built support that I can get away with not having to wear a bra with it (which is good as I hate wearing strapless bras) I had developed a bit of a cold over the weekend, so I was feeling pretty awful, and decided after attending my lecture, that I just wasn't well enough to attend class after, so I had lunch with a friend, then headed home early instead.

After having a 2 hour nap when I got home, I decided I was feeling well enough to go to the SCA dance practice evening that is on Monday nights (despite protests from my husband not wanting me to go out in the cold night air) However, I changed into my navy pants and blue kitty pussy bow blouse (layered with my blue slip underneath) so that I wouldn't have bare legs or upper chest.

May 16

After workshop, I changed into the skirt from my blue suit, and pink kitty pussy bow blouse for the remainder of the day, although I did also wear my store bought hoody later in the evening.

May 17

I was still feeling pretty crook on Wednesday, but my husband wanted to go out for lunch and a bit of shopping. I didn't feel like wearing a dress that day, so I wore my polka dot jeans, pink stripe top (which I made some time ago, but have not blogged about) and denim jacket for a more casual look. Yes, I was rocking double denim.

From last May when I wore this
dress to Lifou

May 18 

Spent the day at home, mostly working on an assessment that was due Friday night. Wore my comfy yellow check with red gerberas dress, that I haven't blogged about making, but which I have worn previously during Me-Made-May last year

Photo from when I first made this
outfit

  

May 19

Again, spent the day working on and finishing my uni assessment. I got it done, maybe not to the level I would have liked, but my cold was making it very hard for me to concentrate, so I was just happy to get it done. Wore my navy swing pants and blue kitty blouse again.

Cutting out the Cotehardie

May 20 

Saturday was mostly spent at a friend's place, where we were having a "making day" for our archery group. I ended up making something completely unrelated to archery, as my friend had bought Reconstructing History's men's cotehardie pattern, and had some fabric, so I worked on that for the day while I had him there to fit it to. I did make some slight alterations to get the fit right, but I will probably write a separate review post about that pattern. Other things that got done on the day were; making bow strings (twisting strands of elastic and splicing them), Arrow making, wool luceting and metal plates for armour being cleaned of rust and painted to prevent more rust. Because I was worried about getting my clothes dirty, I wore an old stained off-white shirt that I made years ago, paired with a red gingham circle skirt, also made years ago (before I had an overlocker!)

That's a well-fitting cotehardie,
if I do say so myself!

May 21
On Sunday, myself and 2 others decided to go for an impromptu trip to Sydney to go to the Blacktown Medieval Fayre. I managed to finish off the hand worked eyelets on my friend's cotehardie during the drive, so he was able to wear it while we were there. I was pretty happy with the fit once it was done, and I think he loved it. I wore my brown and gold houppelande that I made the week before Rowany festival, and finally managed to get a photo of me wearing it.

I still have a few Uni assessments to work on, but I am also finding a bit of time for some sewing for myself. I have just started on making another jacket from Butterick 5824 (used previously to make my wedding jacket) using a floral fleece blanket I purchased from Best and Less last winter. I haven't cut out the lining yet, but I'm considering using some plain pink polar fleece from my stash, to keep it nice and snuggly. That should help me fill part of what is missing from my me-made wardrobe, although this year I am less concerned with replacing my store-bought items, if they are still in usable condition and fit me well.

Dixie

Me-Made-May Week 2

May 8

As the weather has now turned cooler, I was able to wear my navy swing pants and striped pussy bow blouse to University. I have finally got back in the habit of setting my hair in curls, so wearing this outfit, pearls and curls, I was beginning to feel more like myself again after a very busy few weeks. I even passed one of my workshop teachers on the way to the library, and she said she almost didn't recognise me (keeping in mind she only ever sees me in my workshop clothes and hairnet)

May 9 

After Workshop in the morning, I changed into my Dracula Dress for the remainder of the day. I started drafting a pattern for a Gambeson as part of my armour for combat Archery. It is essentially a padded jacket that you wear either under or over the required armour, to provide more coverage and padding.

May 10

Wednesdays tend to be lazy days for me, I spent most of the day in my pajamas, just throwing on my Dracula Dress again to head to the supermarket in the afternoon.

  

May 11

On Thursday I caught up with my mum, and an old friend I hadn't seen in years, at the Maitland greyhound races. I wore my Mummykins and me Madison dress and matching Denim jacket. We only put $1 bets on some of the dogs, but we did win a little bit back.

May 12

Didn't get up to too much on Friday, although I did dye a few pastel streaks in my hair. When I wasn't dying my hair, I was wearing my kitty print B6167.

May 13

Instead of seeing my mum and grandma on Sunday for mother's day, we decided to schedule our brunch for Saturday instead. I wore my yellow self drafted shirt and Elsie George resort skirt (that I made) I then headed to combat Archery practice (a bit late and a bit tipsy, oh well)

May 14

I had a pretty bad day on Sunday, so I just hid in my sewing room in my pajamas watching movies and working on my gambeson. By this point I had most of the pieces assembled and quilted, with just the sleeves left to quilt.

I'm loving that I can start wearing certain things again now that the weather is cooling down, but at the same time, I really need to get a start on some winter sewing that I have had sitting in my sewing room for a while, but couldn't motivate myself to do during summer. Unfortunately now I have Uni assessments to work on, and what sewing time I do have, I have been using for SCA (medieval) stuff.

Dixie

Me-Made-May Week 1

So here we are at the start of another Me-Made-May!

While I left it until May 1st to comment my pledge on So Zoe's 2017, and haven't yet posted anything to my blog, I am once again participating, with the same pledge as last year:

"I Dixie O'Dare, of missdixieodare.blogspot.com.au, Sign up to participate in Me-Made-May '17. I pledge to only wear me-made clothes every day for the duration of May 2017"

First day of Me-Made-May

May 1

I started out the week going to University wearing a dress I have not yet blogged about. It is Butterick 6322 (another Gertie pattern) made in a delightful yellow cotton printed with toadstools, strawberries, acorns, snails and butterflies. I made this months ago, but haven't yet managed to take decent photos of it for the blog yet. I did however wear a store bought cardigan, so maybe it wasn't the best start to the month. Every year I find I need some me-made cardigans, and I still have not done anything to rectify that. I guess while I still have perfectly usable store bought ones, I can't justify spending money to make new ones.

May 2

Unfortunately, Tuesdays mornings for me are spent in the industrial technology workshop, which means I have no choice but to wear store bought Australian Standard work clothes. However, I nearly always change afterwards, so I brought my floral sun frock to wear. I am very glad I remembered to take a change of clothes on this particular Tuesday, as I had been using the lathe in the workshop, and had been covered in sawdust from using it. 

May 3

Did some yard work and moved the caravan to under the carport (so we can work on it more easily) so for practicality sake I wore my polka dot jeans and a store bought shirt.

May 4

As I was planning to work on some more plaster casting for a Uni assessment, I decided to wear a dress that I wouldn't mind getting plaster on. The vintage floral sheet I used to make my version of McCalls 6236 already had a few specks of white paint on it (I didn't realise when I was making it) and while they aren't noticeable to anyone but me, I figured it made this the perfect, cute, but not too precious, dress for the day

May 5 

Spent most of the day in my pajamas, threw on the sun frock from a few days before to duck to the shops to buy groceries. Found a dress that I had cut out and started sewing one day when I was at my grandparent's place babysitting my cousin's kids, so I decided to finish sewing it up. I had just quickly self-drafted it at the time, out some floral furnishing fabric that was in the spare room. The bodice isn't my best example of drafting, and it's a bit big in the waist and a bit snug at the bust, and just a bit too low cut for some situations, but regardless, the dress still turned out pretty cute.

Embroidery progress and the skirt of my new dress

May 6

And so I wore it the next day to Archery practice with some of my SCA friends. I curled my hair again for the first time in about a month, which always makes me feel better about myself, combined with the new dress, I felt positively adorable! I didn't get a photo of this new dress, but I did photograph some of the skirt here with the embroidery I was working on.

May 7 

Decided it was about time I made it to one of the region's SCA meetings (and not just the Uni ones on a Tuesday) so drove to Newcastle, wearing my cute Kitty Print B6167. Learnt how to set up my inkle loom, and how to do some basic tablet weaving, which I am pretty keen to get into more of. I only used part of my loom for my first attempt, but when it is fully set up, my loom can fit about 6m of weaving on it! Afterwards, a few of us went out for dinner, where I did wear my store bought hoodie, as it got pretty cold once the sun went down.

So I haven't managed much in the way of outfit photos so far, but I have been mostly sticking to only wearing me-mades. To be fair, this year doesn't seem like much of an effort, as I have mostly changed over to a me-made wardrobe anyway. How is everyone else's Me-Made-May going?

Dixie

Cruising on the Pacific Aria!

Seeing as it is now 2 weeks since I disembarked from this cruise, I figured it was high time I finish off this post and share it with all you lovely people. I did post a little bit about it when covering my me-made-May outfits, but here's the recap of the whole 10 day South Pacific Cruise aboard the beautiful Pacific Aria!

Warning! This is a very Photo Heavy post!

Firstly here are a couple of photos of the ship's main pool/hot tub area, as well as one side of the "Dome" which is essentially the nightclub. These photos were taken very early in the morning, which is why they are mostly empty.

 I loved the seating area in the "Dome" and spent a bit of time here reading books during the day.

OK, so back to the beginning of our cruise. This ship has quite a few elevators, all of which have their own themes. This one was a cathedral or grand building of some sort, but others were a field of tulips, a rainforest walk, a jetty with turtles underneath, as well as quite a few others.

Naturally, as soon as we had checked out our room, we went to find some cocktails. Mum and I started with a pina colada and a fruit tingle each.

The 2 sea days spent on our way to the South Pacific were mostly filled with drinking, watching movies (in the ship's onboard cinema) cocktail classes and shows in the Marquee (the ship's theatre)

We had a lot of fun with the cocktail classes, but I can't remember the ingredients or the names of these cocktails now.....

And there were many pretty sunsets to see (and I suppose sunrises, but I was not awake that early)

However, on our second night we were awakened at 4am by a ship announcement about smoke on a couple of decks, and not to be alarmed as they were looking for the cause....... It turned out to have been caused by a faulty air conditioning belt, but it made enough smoke to fill 2 or 3 floors. We headed up to the dome on deck 12 for a while to let the smoke dissipate, as my asthma was playing up and not letting me get back to sleep.

We did head back to bed after an hour, then woke up later at a more respectable time. Another sea day, we spent the day playing trivia, going to the Martini class, then lounging in the nightclub in our pyjamas.

I absolutely adored these mirrors, so took quite a few selfies in them.

Lychee wine thingy and a bit of a blue Margarita

Apple Martini selfie (with my hair up in curlers)

Pyjamas in a nightclub!

Our first Port Day was spent in Noumea, which is fortunately big enough to dock the ship at and not need tenders. Noumea is mostly just a dirty city, with a few rough beaches and a handful of market stalls. I've heard the aquarium there is quite good, but we didn't visit it. After doing a bit of market and beachside shopping, mum and Lesley went back to the ship, and Stacey and I explored the city a bit more. We did manage to find some pretty cheap clothing stores, where she stocked up on clothes for the kids. We did find 2 fabric shops, that unfortunately were not open, but a few of the souvenir shops had precut and packaged lengths of cotton, which I of course bought a few of.

Each port was quite hot and humid, so it was pretty much necessary to shower and change for dinner (and also necessary to take dinner selfies)

This picture hung in the Oasis (child free) area of the ship. I just loved the outfits, especially the second from the right!

Our Second port of call was Mystery Island. Although we had to take a tender boat to the island, Stacey and I made sure we got nice seats near the door so we had plenty of fresh air.

Mystery Island ended up being my favourite port of the trip. I mostly spent the whole time swimming, wearing goggles and my sun hat, trying to spot as many different types of fish as I could, without stepping on any of the sea cucumbers (and there were A LOT)

This little guy was the selfie King. He and Stacey took 100's of selfies together (but you can see me wearing my purple sarong in the background of this one)

The Evening as we sailed away from Mystery Island was the P& O White Party. it was this event on my first cruise back in October that I made my seven year itch dress for.

Staff were going around with white face paint, but I only let them give me a white beauty mark. The guy in the next selfie was a very friendly man named Bob. I think this was the only time during the cruise he was not wearing Tie Dye clothing.

They had a Bar tricks being performed by some of the staff, and this girl was by far the most talented. She was balancing a bottle of spirits upside down on one finger, then stacked 2 cocktails and a full bottle of Moet on top!

The next day was spent exploring Port Vila. We hired a driver for the day to take us around. We visited his family home, a local coffee company, the blue lagoon, and of course duty free shopping!

That evening we dined at the ship's Italian Restaurant, Angelo's. As you walk in the entrance there is a Vespa which has been converted into a front desk, with a beautiful photo of Sophia Loren.

Also, the best bit, they serve your bottle of wine in a high heel shoe holder.

I might have gotten a tad excited.

The next Port day was Lifou

We walked up to the church on top of the hill, which provided us with a pretty good view of the ship in the bay.

Mum had some Kava with this bloke:

Sunset as we were leaving Lifou.

Isle of Pines was next

P & O provided everyone with a sample of local cuisine. I can't remember what it was called, but it was a bunch of vegetables and chicken cooked in a leaf parcel

I didn't like it too much, so I went  and got some delicious ice cream instead.

I went for a bit of a swim, but there was too much seaweed for me to be comfortable to swim to where all the coral and fish were.

Sea day, which of course meant another cocktail class!

Mojito

Cosmo

Manhattan

On our second last day, we decided to risk Stacey's ginger allergy, and dine at Dragon Lady, the Asian inspired restaurant aboard the Pacific Aria. And we were glad we did. The Staff went above and beyond to ensure Stacey's food was free of ginger contamination.

It was Gatsby night, so we we're all tarted up for the evening. I wore a dress that I made a few years ago, last minute, for a Miss Pinup Australia event. It is constructed completely of rectangles, so I'm thinking of writing up a tutorial for it at a later date. I also, for the first time, attempted wearing 2 sets of false eyelashes. I'm not sure it's something I would do again, but it sure looked dramatic for that night.

Every night for the last half of the cruise, I was in the Mix Bar enjoying piano melodies from this lovely guy, Anthony Quimby. If anyone is sailing on the Aria soon, and you like show tunes and good ol' singalongs, I urge you to check him  out. I even made some great new friends from attending his shows (I wasn't the only groupie) We did often go to the Dome, the ship's nightclub, after the piano bar music finished, but I did not take any photos of those adventures.

I didn't bother getting up early enough to see the sunrise as we entered Sydney Harbour (as I had done that my last 2 cruises) So here is a photo taken by Stacey.

Here's my haul of souvenirs, most of which are fabrics. I am looking forward to sewing up some lovely tropical dresses from these.

So there you have it! Considering I sell these cruises at my day job, it was really good to finally go and see these destinations for myself! Anyone else been on a cruise recently, or going on one soon?

Dixie