I had a day off today

It's been sweeping through my circle of friends like an easily transmitted disease. Roisin was heavily afflicted when I first met her and symptoms were apparent and obvious. Zoë was a carrier, but recently the symptoms have started to become more pronounced. Then it took Amy. She seemed to be weathering it well, until last Christmas, when she gave up fighting it altogether (I feel a bit bad about that, a gift I gave her seemed to make it worse). It was fine by me. I seemed to be immune. Then, in the space of just two or three weeks, it took both Fiona and Charlotte. Things were getting serious. Both of them seemed to present pronounced symptoms very quickly. I was starting to feel peer pressure. Should I give in and let them infect me too? Or continue to fight it? Charmaine, Sarah, Laura, Hannah, Claire, even Paul - all showing symptoms.

I gave in. I bought a couple of patterns and a few metres of fabric, tidied my craft room and dusted off my sewing machine. I was ready to let them infect me too.

So today, I completely abandoned the shop to Amy, and attended Roisin's Intro to Dressmaking workshop. I wanted to make a simple shift dress, but wanted to tweak the front to add some detail I had seen in one of our Japanese sewing books. It worked a treat, I'm really pleased with the results - especially when Roisin started hacking in to it for me to help me get the shape I wanted! Roisin is an amazing teacher. I sort of already knew that, having listened in on plenty of her workshops from the counter, but it's not the same. Her enthusiasm and 'what's the worst that can happen?' attitude are infectious (!). So much fun. So very satisfying! 

Want to see it? Tough, you'll just have to come down to the shop and hope I'm modelling it that day! I'm never going to be in to lobster/pineapple/circle skirt dresses like Roisin (although, I LOVE seeing them on her), or vampires at the cinema/cats playing with fans fabrics like Zoë; I'm never going to make Regency-esque Iron Man, Winter Soldier and Captain America party dresses like Charlotte, or make a dress out of nearly luminous rainbow stripes like Amy. Wherever this takes me, I rather imagine it will be in muted tones, linen, grey or black!

Will it stick? Or will my immune system fight it? Only time will tell.

Here's a picture, because a blog post isn't complete without one.