Saturday 8 June 2013

Picnic time!

Update 16/07/2015 - You can now make your own version with the free pattern here! Enjoy ;)

Summer is here, people!!! After the longest winter in the history of the earth, and the shortest ever spring, I am so very pleased that summer has finally arrived! Hooray! 

What better time to enjoy a picnic in the sun by the Thames? For a change of scenery, we visited the lovely town of Marlow, and sat by the Marlow lock, watching the world go by. 


As soon as I bought this beautifully bright cotton fabric (all 5 yards for £5! can you believe it?!), I knew that I wanted to make a copycat of Betty's floral dress which was worn in two different episodes in Season 2 of Mad Men:
Having looked through my pattern stash, disappointingly I could not see anything that fitted the bill. So with sleeves rolled up, I drafted the pattern with a simple gathered rectangle skirt, with a princess lined bodice. I then added self-fabric spaghetti straps, with a couple of little bows as decorative details. All in all it took me a day to complete this project, and I had to wear it to my own picnic today!



I also made the picnic blanket last week, in one of the evenings. I used a 1.5m x 1.5m piece of cotton fabric which was leftover from my peplum dress, matched by some hardwearing outdoor fabric of the same size to make it more stain/water-proof. I stitched all four edges but about 10cm with right sides together, clipped corners, turned around and top stitched the edges again. Basically I made a baby blanket again, but with non-baby friendly fabric this time! 

20 comments:

  1. I love both the dress and the picnic blanket! I never thought of making a picnic blanket before, but now it makes perfect sense.

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    1. Thank you! Yes the blanket was super easy to make - by the way I would've happily used an oil cloth/pvc for the backing, but I managed to find this hardy outdoor fabric from the remnant bin at John Lewis for £1 (on the roll it was £24 per metre!) so I was a happy bunny!

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  2. Perfect summer dress, so cute!

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  3. Lovely dress :) And a coincidence as I watched that exact Mad Men picnic episode a couple of nights ago (I hope you didn't leave as much mess after your picnic as they did, lol!)

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    1. Haha! Yes, I remember thinking the same after that picnic scene. There was actually a lack of bins where we had the picnic, but we were very good citizens, and carried our rubbish around for ages before chucking them out ;)

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  4. I remember seeing a tutorial once where they sewed little triangles to the corners of their picnic blanket to put weights in so it doesn't blow away, I think the idea was to find rocks where you were picnicing =]

    Your dress is gorgeous as usual =] very happy fabric

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    1. What a neat idea! I would never have thought of that :)

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  5. Hi Alice, Such a pretty dress and a very practical picnic blanket.

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  6. What a cute dress!

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    1. Thank you! I love the fabric - just looking at it makes me feel happy!

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  7. Forgot to ask, did you get my address? hope I dodn't email to incorrect email address lol

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    1. Received today thank you.

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    2. Sorry it took me quite a while to put it in the post (I have had a super busy month or so...) and you comment was a timely reminder :)I'm excited to see what you make from the pattern!

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  8. This dress is so cute and really suits you. Makes me want to buy ditzy floral fabric and get sewing.
    Linda.
    http://daisycreatesinsussex.blogspot.co.uk/

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    1. Thank you Linda! This has become one of my favourites, and I've got loads of wear out of it already :)

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  9. Oh, this is ever so pretty! It just sings summer, and picnics, and warm weather! Well done!

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    1. Thank you for stopping by, and welcome to Moonbeam! I'm so pleased that you like it :)

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