This is more like it!

The two projects I finished but hadn't photographed? Behold, photos! I'll start with the one I'm happiest so its photo goes on the blog homepage, this vest top/camisole inspired by Victorian/Edwardian corset covers. (Language note: in the UK a vest is an undershirt, not a waistcoat.)

I made a wrap dress in 2024 from this viscose crepe fabric. I bought it from Fabworks as deadstock – fabric left over from a manufacturer that's sold on rather than sent to waste. But as soon as I saw it I knew what it was: one of House Of Foxy's good-quality repro vintage fabrics. My wrap dress really is lovely and I feel good every time I wear it. However, it did leave a lot of scraps, and there was no way I was throwing those out. The problem was, the scraps were all too small to turn into conventional garment pieces. 

So, in the stash the scraps went, and months passed. Every so often I'd look at my Pinterest clothes inspiration board for the year. Victorian/Edwardian lingerie has been a constant for a few years now. Usually it's white-on-white, but a few more colourful examples popped up, which gave me the idea of joining my scraps using lace strips. I decided to go for it. What did I have to lose? Scraps! So I got some black lace off Etsy and had a go.

The pattern was my bog-standard vest top pattern as I've adjusted it for my bust and knew I could rely on it. I wasn't about to attempt a new pattern and a new technique. I traced the pattern, sliced it up, cut the bits out of my scraps and then joined them up using the lace. I could have made one big sheet of cloth and then cut pattern pieces from that, but that would have made more waste and necessitated a dart. This way, the lace runs along the lines where the darts would be, shaping the garment as it joins the fabric pieces.

If I have one nitpick, it's that the bias binding on the neckline is a little baggy, but that's just looking for problems, really. I like this top, and it's not bad for scraps that could otherwise have gone to waste.

The next finished make is this, knitted in grey cotton with a silver lurex thread to a 1960s pattern. (It is symmetrical; I'm standing wonkily.)

There is a lesson in this one, and the lesson is: if you spend too long faffing about finishing projects, you might not have anything to wear them with when they're done. When I started knitting it, literally years ago (SHAME) I'd planned for it to go with a silver-grey shift dress I owned, for a sort of spy-fi feel. The dress had a fatal accident with a too-hot iron, and my style's shifted rather so now I genuinely don't know what I own and would wear it with. The outfit above is the best I could do. 

I'm not getting rid of it, it's comfy and I'm pleased with how it came out, but it is something of a wardrobe misfit now. I do have some black and silver-grey brocade in my fabric stash, so I might lay the bolero on that and see how the greys match up. Pinning brooches on it might tie it better to other things too. One to muse on, I reckon.