No! No! No no no. I can't be six months late. I said five minutes.

Hello old friends! I just looked at the date of my previous post and let out a little sigh. Where does the time go? I've been doing lots of different things but it's mostly knitting so... unfinished and SLOW! I'm also currently without a photographer since my boyfriend went on a trip to Japan, which is obviously awesome. So that's why there are indoor pictures now, instead of our usual forays into the city and the great beyond... The past few weeks have been a bit hectic, with sales going on in the store I work at and lots of social gatherings. I had a few amazing Christmas parties with my family and one really great one with friends. We decided to go for a 'Sexy Christmas' theme and I just went for total blasphemy and dressed up as Sexy Jesus:

It turned out I looked more like the lovely Conchita Wurst.

Between that, I've slowly been working on a tailored coat (omg!) and the aforementioned knitting. But this week I got a sudden epiphany about a beloved stash fabric and decided to make a new dress. I'd had this Alexander Henry cotton around for a long time but was a bit lost about what to do with it: the print is amazing but really big so I didn't want to have too many pieces cutting through it, but it did feel like it needed more than just a basic fit-and flare bodice. What's this print of, you say? Oh just MOTHERFUCKING FRIDA KAHLO:

Seriously. This is called 'Frida's Garden' and I love how it combines all these little elements from her paintings in one. That, and some of the colours match the blue ombre I had done to my hair. Woop! As you might be able to tell, I used the bodice of the Flora dress from By Hand London. The humongeous skirt pattern would never work with this narrow quilting cotton, so I just gathered two widths of the fabric. It works better with this directional print ayway, imho!

I Didn't really bother with pattern matching on the front or side seams (just tried to avoid Frida-nipples) But I did make an effort to match the back across the zipper. It doesn't match as perfectly as I'd like, but close enough!

Here's a bit of a close up of the fabric. I really like how it's essentially a drawn impression of her work, but still instantly recognisable. This fabric is a lighter weight than the one I used on my previous Flora dress,  and it's very comfortable. I do wear it with a camisole since the neckline gapes a bit and gets very deep very fast... I had the same problem before and handstitching it closed didn't really work, so I resorted to an extra top, which is something I'll often wear underneath my dresses anyway!

I have a few more projects lined up, including an Icelandic sweater I knit for myself, but I'd like to wait with the picturetaking of that one until I finished the one I'm knitting for my boyfriend. Photographing them together would be so much more fun!