Thelma…. Pet

Posted: August 27, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Boilersuit, Independent Patterns, Merchant and Mills | Tags: , , | 24 Comments
No, they really can’t explain

If you are familiar with the old tv series The Likely Lads you will know that Thelma is always followed with ‘pet ‘ so I had to include it in the title.

This Thelma is a boilersuit. I really wanted a boilersuit after seeing the wonderful Zoe Laughlin in hers in her tv series. She always seemed to be so ridiculously happy and comfortable I knew I had to join her, and when I saw the Merchant and Mills pattern I was hooked.

I bought the PDF and I have to say that there were lots of pages to print and stick together. Lots. If that’s not your thing then shell out that little bit extra for the printed version. I imagine it will be fairly impressive as the attention to detail in the PDF was good. I have no complaints – all the bits joined up correctly, and the written instructions for construction were excellent – if I could consistently recognise right and left I would have had no trouble making this up at all.

I was determined to make this up from stash. No problem with fabric as I found a lovely chocolate brown baby cord that despite being very soft I thought would be good to use, but I needed 16 buttons! I had little hope of finding that many of anything matching despite having a ridiculous amount of buttons. But you have to check….

Check the backs!

I did find a set of 16 but they were too light and a bit pink so I was about to chuck them back in the tin and dropped them. That was when I saw that the back of the button was a perfect fit for the job! So, if you can’t find the buttons you want check the backs. This has happened in the past but I wasn’t thinking about that when I was searching.

I found the necessary interfacing in stash, and sufficient cotton odds and sods for the yoke facings and pocket bags so I was good to go.

As I said earlier the pattern was beautifully drawn, no problem matching notches or anything like that. I cut a size 14 top and graded down to a size 12 trouser section without huge difficulties. I did actually pay attention to the instructions so I could report truthfully. Had I not trimmed off the wrong side of the fly at one point I could honestly say I had no difficulties at all but the truth is that any difficulty was of my own making. The size was pretty much exactly as expected having checked the pattern information.

I was thrilled when I finished this, and decided to take it with me when I visited my sister last week so she could try it. She looked great and absolutely loved it (although her other half wasn’t so sure). It stayed there.

My favourite sister looking very happy
And the back

The plan is to make another very soon. And hopefully I will do so without trimming anything I shouldn’t.

I did pretty well from her – I came away with a poncho/action blanket(Google it – it’s hilarious) that she had crocheted. Good deal all round!

Everyone’s happy!

I’m struggling to get to grips with the new WordPress editor so I apologise for the bits after this. I’ve tried in vain to delete. Feel free to ignore 🙄