Today I am joining in on the Ume dress tour!  Ume is the latest wonderful pattern by An from StraightGrain.  An has released so many great patterns now, and I have sewn them all but one! Ume is another winner offering many options for sewing shirt dresses.  The instructions are wonderful and a written with great detail. I sewed up the straight dress option with popover placket. You can purchased the pattern in English and Dutch, and it will soon also be released in a paper version too - which I highly recommend.

After I saw this dress An made on Instagram, I had to sew a long sleeved Laure dress too.  I love long sleeved dresses, especially ones made from Japanese lawn!  I found this pretty navy floral lawn at Spotlight in the remnant bin for around $8 for a metre.  I bought it not knowing what I would do with it.  Then after I saw An's dress and how pretty Laure looked sewn up in liberty, I knew the lawn would be perfect.

Today I am happy to be taking part in the Nova blog tour! Nova is the latest pattern released by the uber talented An from StraightGrain.  You probably already know I am a big fan of An's. Her patterns are all AMAZING and Nova doesn't disappoint!  For Emily I made the simplest version as  I was time poor and also because I love the simplicity of the single box pleat paired with the peter pan collar.

The weather here in Warrnambool is certainly getting chilly.  Each morning Juliette wakes up and asks me, "is it going to be warm or cold today Mummy?" I have told her that for the next three months at least, my answer will be, 'cold'. She needs to know this so she can decide whether to wear a cardigan and tights with her school uniform.  Our winters are reasonably mild in comparison to much of Europe, North America and Canada, for example.  It hasn't snowed in my town since 1981 - and that was apparently a big novelty! 

Today I am very happy to be part of the Laure dress StraightGrain blog tour! Laure is the latest pattern released by the brilliantly talented An from StraightGrain. This pattern was created in collaboration with An + AnneMie.  It features many options (as all StraightGrain patterns do). Three different collar options, four different sleeves, shift dress or drop waist.... I went for the classic qipao style dress - mandarin collar, shift style.  See all the options in the StraightGrain shop. The dress closes with an invisible zip.