Lynne McCrossan: Ineed to get a shift on with this new dress

I’ve been up to my eyeballs this week in metres of black material masquerading as leather.

And it’s all in the name of my first ever shift dress made by hand.

It was a pretty smooth start, selecting a vintage shift dress out of the wardrobe that I had bought in Herman Brown at West Port about eight years ago.

I’d been told that to make life easier you simply draw round an existing frock you own. That way, there is no need for measuring and cutting out patterns.

So there I was, manoeuvring around my minuscule hall while the baby menacingly pressed his face against the mesh of the baby gate squealing blue murder at me for being fenced in. This, while the Belfast boy was happily enjoying the Euros.

I was raring to go as I snipped round the pleather. Delighted at the ease of safety- pinning it together in prep for the sewing machine and ecstatic when it fitted as I slipped it over my head.

Off to the machine I went, totally on a roll.

Unpacking Coral, I went to thread her up. Note to self, buy thread. End of dress, week two. Fail!

FASHION INSIDER

Edinburgh Book Festival has launched its programme and I am excited to see the most stylish girls in Scottish publishing taking part. Leila and Lesley co-directors at the Capital’s Kohl Publishing will be launching their first author, Elizabeth Reeder there.