Stitching and swinging

I went to the lindy hop class I mentioned this weekend, and I had a fabulous time! I didn't do much dancing, as I've had pretty low energy levels the past couple of weeks and it was quite full on (if you never exercise like me!). Even so, I have learnt some basic steps, turns etc. and more importantly, Tom has learnt how to lead me in dancing! We are definitely going to get along to some more lessons and social dances in the near future! I'd highly recommend the tutors if you're in the Bristol area and their weekend courses will give you enough confidence to do some basic dancing on your own, without having to commit to 8 weekday evenings!
I wore my aeroplane dress and got a lots of compliments - it looked great when I was spinning!

There was a girl there wearing a fabulous red skirt. She said she got it from 20th Century Foxy so I looked it up when I got home. Sadly it's £55 and I really don't have that to spare. However, it's a pretty simple, bias cut, 4 gore skirt with flared gores so I'm going to have a go at making one myself!

After the dancing, I went over to The Nylon Shop, a poorly named fabric shop in Kingswood which sells lots of dressmaking fabrics and foam, cut to size. It's a pretty horrifying mess, with stuff piled everywhere and no real organisation that I can tell. Lots of fabrics are marked down because they're dirty and the pricing is a bit haphazard. Despite this, the fabrics are, on the whole, excellent quality and very cheap. They have a very good range of basic dressmaking and costuming (fur, leather look, tulle etc.) fabrics and I was able to find everything I wanted, except for a choice of wools and heavier suiting for skirts and trousers. I am most definitely going back!

I did pick up this medium weight cotton mix in charcoal grey with black stripes which I'm going to use to make my trousers with.

I also saw this dress on ModCloth and fell in love. It's out of stock, though, and very expensive, so I started to think about making one. Then I realised that the pattern is very close to the Swing Dress, which I've already bought. I reckon once I've adjusted the pattern for the dress, I can alter it enough to make something similar!

 Then I found the fabric below in the Nylon Shop. The colour looks all wrong in this picture - it's actually close to the dress' colour - a deep blue tinted pink. It's 100% cotton and a nice weight. I'll probably have to line the bodice as the white is a bit transparent but otherwise it's perfect!

Finally, I spent most of Saturday night cutting out pieces for my next few projects - it's my least favourite part of sewing, so getting more than one project cut out at a time makes me more likely to actually sew them in future!

I have a nice light herringbone wool for this Vintage Vogue skirt.

 And this pretty floral linen for the EvaDress 1930s blouse.

I'm also still working on my Glamour girl dress but it's causing me no end of problems, so I'm diverting myself with what I'll do next!

I think I have a busy few weeks coming up!