Flappers, Necklines, and Winners

I was hoping to have a muslin to show you today of the Flapper Dress from The Unofficial Downton Abbey Sews Magazine, but I got bogged down this week trying to sew the neckline on the By Hand London Polly Tops I’m making for my next MSN project. The pattern called for a strip of bias to bind the raw edge, like what The Little Tailoress shows in this video, but I really wanted to use the bias as a facing, like what Jen of Grainline Studio shows in this tutorial. I measured (with my EZ Wheel Measuring Wheel), trimmed, clipped, under stitched, etc., but four attempts and no flat necklines later, and I gave in to using the bias as a binding. The bias facing technique has worked for me in the past with Sewaholic patterns (here and here), but maybe I’m still at the point where I need the binding to have all the many notches that come with Sewaholic patterns so I can properly distribute the binding around the neckline? In the end what I expected to take no time at all actually took up all of my sewing time this week! So, even though this muslin would have been such a quick sew (two seams!), I didn’t even get around to cutting the fabric.

Anyway, what you actually care about is who won last week’s giveaway. Congratulations go out to these five winners: Emily of Emily Ventures, happystitches2, Cassandra, Jana of plok.plokta.org, and Gina Milano! I hope you all enjoy your magazines! Get in touch with me so I can make sure they’ll be on their way to you shortly!