Happy Easter everyone

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. I was supposed to be away scuba diving this weekend but the weather conditions conspired against that so I have been having a busmans holiday and catching up on my sewing.

You may remember that I cut out another pair of the Burda trousers I was eventually so pleased with. This pair are a black needlecord with a little elastane in it. It has been impossible to get a good photograph wearing them, but they are now finished and I can confirm I am happy with this pair too. Strangely I had to take this pair in about 1.5cm on the seams over the hips – presumably the firmer fabric just made them more ‘sticky outy’ and needed to be more finely tuned. They are still a very comfortable, easy wear but it wont be a disaster if they shrink a little if dried outside in the sunshine. (Note the optimism!) I used some flame print cotton from stash for the inside of the waistband to jolly them up, and also cut bulk.  I didn’t put the hip pockets on this pair, but did put patch pockets on the rear which I am more likely to use. I love this pattern, and it will be hard to move on and do my Patrones comparison now – but move on I must.  I may end up back with the Burda which seems to fit well, but I do need to try the alternatives.

Burda trousers

I have been working on a few projects recently but the one I decided needed to be given priority was my promise to the Management to make him some PJs. Why did I want to do this as a priority? The last two pairs of chain store PJs he bought in the same size turned out to be wildly different sizes, and both have given way on seams within a very short time of purchase. These were not ‘cheap’ garments – I am sure that we could have bought them elsewhere for less money but I can’t subscribe to the ‘wear it and chuck it’ mentality that is seen in the clothing industry at present.

PJ experiment. Not quite the fabric I thought!

Fabric detail. Love those vehicles.

The fabric was bought from Birmingham rag market for very little money and pre-washed ages ago. I even made the pattern from a cannibalized pair of his old PJs. I have to admit that I didn’t look too closely at the print on the fabric initially but when I did I had to buy it! Clearly this pair is just to test the pattern, but I have to say that he is remarkably pleased with them – and very happy to have his first pair of pj’s with helicopters on them.

As a trial this went very well but I will have to make some sensible pairs pretty quickly – I wouldn’t like to think of the treatment he would get if he had to go into hospital with these!

The fabric didn’t need – but bought anyway.

Mid week I had another trip into Birmingham with a list of things I needed to buy for customers. It was one of those days when nothing you wanted seemed to be available (one explanation given was that it was the end of the tax year so no new stock had been bought yet – it made strange sense to run down stock pre having to value it all for tax purposes). I was getting a bit frustrated and ended up in the Rag market (again) and bought three pieces of fabric for myself. Because I really need more fabric. Anyhoo, the details. The apple green is a fairly heavy cotton drill which I thought would make a great jeans style jacket. Or skirt. But not to be worn together. Ever. The orange is another cotton denim type, but a much lighter weight than the green. It looks like it will make great summer trousers. A bit Boden, don’t you think? The beige/grey/gold metallic knit could be made of anything and I really don’t care! I liked this and already know I want to make one of the twist type jumpers from the first Pattern Magic book from this.   And all three pieces cost me less than £8. In total. Oh yes, there is 2.5m of green, 4m of orange, and 2m of knit. Bargainous!

I am planning to sew again tomorrow so I will start to clear the decks of things I need to do before I can start on this little haul. I can’t wait to make a start.