As if Christmas isn't busy enough without trying to sew yourself a wardrobe...especially the week before you fly out to Canada for 2 weeks as well! - Oh yes, that's exactly what I did! The intention was to literally "pop" in to my regular fabric haunt Barry's, pick up some additional fabric for an Irish dance dress I was working on at the time here
Well you know how it goes, once inside one of these places, its like a kid inside Willy Wonka's factory; very little restraint.
I had been conjuring up the idea of a simple pinafore(y) type of dress and this fabulous denim seemed perfect for the occasion, a good amount of stretch with great stitch detailing. I picked out the wine colour stitching and went with this for the lining and top stitching.
Using Burda 3477 and view A
I managed to complete this project in two evenings working (one of the only positives)although one went well into the ungodly hour of what would be considered reasonable.
How does the saying go - " Act in haste.... although overall it is wearable; my repent at leisure is that its rather short, even with 2inches of lengthening (could have been a next week washing job!!) - just about get away with it when wearing 80+ denier tights! Took in the seams in under the bust for a more fitted - well "fitted look" and the same through the back - cut the lining the same, not thinking about the fact that the denim had stretch and the lining- not! Consequently the seams of the lining are now straining somewhat. No surprise there then uh!
Reflecting on this sew-I would love to make again in the same fabric as I love the design, for obvious reasons I would go for the longer view (and still lengthen) and definitely not make it sooo fitted.
Next up that week, was another rendition of the sew-serendipity skirt . This time I went for the bottom border version in some faux suede from the ever growing stash -"Oh yes", that would be the faux suede intended for the corduroy square skirt - as least some of the stash has been used. When I tried to describe this material to friends "brown, with yellow pears, blue strawberries and grapes" you can imagine the blank responses.
For some mysterious reason the skirt fit beautifully at, oooh 2 am, when completing the fitting; by 8 am the following morning- well same morning but had had a couple of hours sleep, so technically next morning...it was quite baggy - answers on a post card please. The pictures aren't great and show up all the wrinkles from sitting in the office (may have been a sneaky-snooze at some point shhhh)
I do giggle about this skirt; In my wisdom (errr not much of that this week) I thought of lining it with a cream brushed-cotton; "would be dead snuggley and warm for the Canadian winter" I said to myself. hmmmmm to a degree- the fact it sticks to your tights and makes you look as though you've been put through the wash with a box of tissues - not my finest hour!!
Last up was this jacket/cardi effort- at this point, still a novice with stretch fabrics (not that I'm anywhere near an expert now) think I just wanted to test my self ( what-ever) again with a knit. Using Burda pattern 7184 it was whizzed up in an evening! whooo get me. Not much can be said about this as it pretty basic (which is good don't get me wrong) but ...yeah just there.
Put this down to one of those trolley dash shopping moment-not too sure what I was thinking, not really my style and as a result hardly ever worn - sure we all have high Street purchases hanging in our wardrobes exactly the same.
Not that I made these the week before Christmas - apart from finishing off at least one pair! - As it was 20 + yrs since me and my sister had been together at Christmas- there was great excitement around the whole event - one tradition we have as a family is Christmas Eve pyjamas, you just have to do it, it so adds to the excitement, waiting to see what you will be wearing when the big man visits!!. So this year was to be no different, we wanted some kind of theme, so rather than bulk buying M&S up I was tasked with making eight pair of PJ's - It had to be brushed cotton flannel and sourcing Christmas fabric in the Summer not that easy- the UK I have to say was rubbish nothing remotely silly, fun or inspiring. The one place I kept going back to was the Fat Quarter Shop what amazing fabric-pricing the amount of fabric meant a little rethink was needed so stuck to doing PJ bottoms and teamed up with white cotton t-shirts, with a great excuse to put by embroidery beast to work. A slight word of advice/warning when ordering oversees, yes postage is pricey but £48 import tax was not something I bargained on !! When it arrived ( 4 days later!! whooo fast) it was worth every penny, never did I imagine such quality and package so beautifully.
How Cute are these.
Converting yards to meters was roughly done and to my horror I was 4 inches, yes 4 inches short!!!!!AAAARRRR; don't panic Mr. Mannering moment.... Put a cuff on the bottom - with satin piping ooooooo nice; that was close. It actually worked out as a blessing in disguise- we are all pretty tall so getting bottoms that aren't ankle swingers is rare -especially my niece who has just topped 6ft - so these were bliss, PJ bottoms that drag on the floor Yeah!
Everybody had an embroidered design on the front of their t-shirt to try a capture something about the individual-
A CHRISTMAS CLAN
This was me turning my hand to knitting- the thought of not crafting for 2 weeks over the Christmas hols was unthinkable- the other reason was I needed to keep my hands busy and not have a glass or btl of wine in them permanently ( we are renound for going through a couple of btls when we get together)
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