For some reason, the photos that wouldn’t download last week did it automatically when I was doing something else with the computer last night! Temperamental or what? Certainly frustrating, when it works when you haven’t done anything differently at all.

The photo above was where I’d got to last week, with the Dress-making and Brave, and lucky. The zip was tacked in, a shortish one, just to get the fit right, about two or three inches above the widest part across the hips. To make it easier to tack in and to unpick, I had done a large stitch up the centre back, and on the seams either side to make the back into one piece.

It was a simple, quick little job to do the shoulder and side seams. The lining was assembled ready for a fitting, so I thought I’d put it on my mannequin to see how it looks. Well, it seems she’s had too much Christmas pudding, chocolate and not enough exercise. She’s quite broad of shoulder, and although the measurements are the same as the friend the dress is for, no way would it go over her head. I tried taking her off the stand and putting it on from the bottom, still no joy.

I had already unpicked the stitches in front of the zip, so I unpicked down to where the zip is meant to go to, with the right size zip. I still had to wrestle her into the dress, and it looks somewhat tight, even with the front only stitched up to where the facing would go if it’s unlined.

The armhole doesn’t go to the bottom of the mannequin armhole either.

I know it’s meant to be fitted, but it looks like if she took a deep breath the seams would burst, and she certainly couldn’t move in it. Hopefully, I’ve miscalculated somewhere and the mannequin measurements allow for ease, and aren’t Alicia’s actual measurements.

At least it’s shown that I am likely to have to do some letting out of seams, so to post it and hope to be able to tell on-line is a non-starter. This is as far as I can get at the moment without a fitting, so it’s a good excuse to get together again soon.

I’ve finally finished the leather archway (Carol Money), stained glass (Jan Dowson ), and braided chain stitch (Alex Hall) piece that I blogged about in Tutors and time

It was almost done, but there was something I wasn’t quite happy with, so Jean (one of the Grasby Embroiderers) looked at it with me before Christmas. I’d wondered about a twisted cord on the left-hand side of the window to give the effect of a shadow, and Jean suggested just couching down some strands of perlé. We tried out several colours and settled on a dull darkish brown. I couldn’t finish it then as I didn’t have the right colour of Sylko with me.

Christmas then took over, and I finally got back to it yesterday. I couched four strands of perlé down the left-hand side, plunged them through, and trimmed off the excess “window”. It’s subtle, but just finishes it off.

I’ve backed it, attached a hanging cord and it’s now on the wall.