Category Archives: Giveaway

Party time! By Hand Georgia & giveaway

By Hand Georgia dress

It’s a By Hand dress fest over here right now: my Anna is waiting in the wings for her finishing touches, but first here’s my spangly party Georgia. And to celebrate the upcoming festivities and reaching 300 blog followers (yay!), I have a kit to make your very own to give away. More on that a bit later, here’s mine first.

By Hand Georgia dress

Do you like my festive’d up fireplace backdrop? Unfortunately I don’t have anyone to whisk me to the Savoy like Sally and her beautiful version of this pattern (made from a curtain!) so this will have to do. Like Sally I went for view 3 of the pattern, the mini length skirt with wide shoulder straps. It was these straps that most attracted me to this pattern: they make the dress a bit edgy and nautical instead of overtly bombshell. I love how they make the bust area feel more covered but frame the shoulders and collarbones beautifully.

By Hand Georgia dress

I did not make a toile: I didn’t have any appropriately similar fabric to hand (does anyone else balk at buying yet more fabric just to toile with?) and because I was using a stretch and my body has fairly standard proportions I felt that I could sew it as patterned and do minor adjustments to make it fit perfectly. Luckily it was so: I just had to shave a bit out of the princess seams and side seams to get it bang on. Actually looking at the photos I think it could do with a bit more taking in, but I was erring on the side of caution.

By Hand Georgia dress

I used a sparkly stretch lurex, bought on Goldhawk Road, which matches Georgia like a dream. I used the reverse side to do a bit of colour blocking on the side panels. This is basically my favourite kind of fabric to work with: stretchy, stable, no fraying or puckering, can whiz it happily up on an overlocker in no time. Seriously, this frock took like three hours start to finish. I could even omit the side zip since it easily slides on and off over my head.

By Hand Georgia dress

I picked out the black again by finishing the top of the bodice in stretchy bias tape instead of lining it. Just a couple of other minor modifications: I slip-stitched down the straps at the bodice tops (through the back layer of the strap only) to keep them in place, and did a blind hem instead of turned.

By Hand Georgia dress

So is Georgia the dream Christmas party dress? I think so. The By Hand girls have an amazing knack for designing clothes that women feel amazing in, and their latest is no exception. I loved sewing this pattern and adore my finished frock. It’s more daring than anything I would usually choose but I feel pretty great in it. I hope I get invited to some glamorous festive parties so I can give it a spin!

giveaway

Now! Do you fancy making one yourself? I’m giving away a kit to make your own Georgia: this includes the pattern and 2 metres (enough to make any variation you fancy) of lovely gunmetal grey/silver stretch lycra satin that I picked out for you to make a bangin’ party Georgia. By Hand kindly supplied me with the pattern and I’m throwing in the fabric to celebrate reaching 300 followers on Bloglovin’ and to say thank you everyone who reads my sewing blog: your comments make my day and inspire me to keep on making.

The competition closes in a week on Friday December 13th so you should have time to make your dress before New Year if not Christmas. I’ll ship anywhere internationally, too. To enter just leave me a comment telling me what sewing-related goodies you’d love to find in your Christmas stocking. You’ll get an extra entry by tweeting about the giveaway too using the button below.

Best of luck!

The competition is now closed, congrats to the winner Kat.