Dipping my toes back into dressmaking

I have had a break from dressmaking for about 8 years.  During that time, I've learnt how to do patchwork and quilting, taught myself to knit and had 2 more children.  When my eldest took an interest in slow fashion and dressmaking, I started looking at patterns and fabrics again and remembered how much I like it.

I've spent a lot of my 8 years off staring at Pinterest and lamenting all the beautiful things I could make if I had the time.  But the reality is that I had plenty of time to poke Pinterest, so I have made a decision to do less 'looking' at Pinterest and more 'doing' in real life.

So here are my supplies for a summer top for myself. I love everything about that print so very much!  I had an idea for a tank style top with a curved hem and I was originally going to hack at an older pattern I had but it turns out that the Deer and Doe Datura Blouse was exactly what I was thinking of - so to save faffing around I splurged on the PDF.

This is my first experience with Deer and Doe and indeed with PDF's at all and I have to say that the instructions were really clear, I was really impressed.  I found it to be a very easy pattern with good results.

I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to zigzag the seams without my machine making a meal of it so I bound the seams with extra bias tape (I made it all from quilting cotton with a bias tape maker). 

I hand embroidered a label to sew in the back with the year of completion on, I think that's a hangover from quiltmaking haha.

Love those 3 red buttons on the back.

It took me about 5 hours to complete from start to finish and I really like the end result.  If I saw this in a shop, I would buy it in a heartbeat.  It's totally wearable - I made this at the weekend and already took it out into the real world.  I love it so much that I just ordered fabric for another one.  Wouldn't it be great if my whole wardrobe ended up handmade? I would be really impressed with myself - perhaps that's a goal to aim for?