Tilly and the Buttons Jessa Trousers - Progress

 About a year ago my mum helped me cut of the pieces for a cord pair of TATB Jessa trousers. I then procrastinated trying to find the perfect material to use for the inside of the waistband and the zip facing, assuming my sewing machine would not enjoy multiple layers.

I've finally bitten the bullet and decided just to use the cord fabric for everything, a slightly unusual to me fabric with vertical stretch only.

Turns out my concerns about my machine not liking multiple layrs of cord were not necesssary. On the pocket above most of the stitching is through 3 layers, the top corners are 5, possibly 7, layers of fabric; not a single complaint from my machine (except for when I forgot to drop the presser foot once or twice).

On Friday evening I started with sewing the pockets on, after about 3 and a half hours of sewing I had what definitely looked like a pair of trousers with a zip fly.

 Back

Front.

They fit pretty well, with the only mod so far being using a 10mm seam allowance rather than 15mm for the side seams. Luckily the stitching thread matches the fabric colour really well so its very hard to critique the top stitching.

Next I need to add the waistband and hem the legs, and then I will hopefully get a good photo of me wearing them!

April FNSI - Project hopping

 I seem to be on a roll both with FNSIs and with writing blog posts this month!

FNSI came around at a perfect time for me this month, plenty of crafty things planned and underway.

First task of the evening was to cut out out the fabric for my dress, which was achieved.

After a fairly late dinner, I had a a choice to make whether to start sewing the dress together or to practice my free motion quilting before my class on Saturday afternoon.

The free motion quilting won and I watched the instructional videos and started working on my feathers.

Not too bad and nothing a bit more practice won't improve. I've enjoyed this course (although could definitely have practiced more) it's all been online over 4 weeks and we've covered petals, leaves, spirals, flowers (which you can see to the left of the feathers) and feathers. If it had been a face to face course it would have all been squeezed into one 6 hour day and I probably wouldn't have been able to attend as it would have taken place somewhere more than two hours away from my home. For anyone who is interested the course was run by The Crafty Nomad

As it was now getting quite late and I find myself not able to concentrate on sewing if I'm tired I swapped onto knitting. I've decided that it would be a good idea to knit at least 4 Xmas presents this year, luckily if also decided to start on them early in the year.

I can't show too much in case the recipients are reading  but the yarn is Coop Knits Socks Yeah DK and the pattern is by Andrea Mowry. I'm finding this an enjoyable (and fairly quick) knit thanks to all being in knit stitch and no more than 2 colours per row. It's looking likely that I'll achieve at least one knitted Xmas present this year!

If you want to see what everyone else got up to this Friday pop over to the sign up page over at Wendy's blog  Sugarlane Designs.

First finish of 2021-Lovenote

 As the Lovenote sweater was started in late 2020 there was a very good chance that it would be my first finish of 2021.

I am so pleased how it turned out. The pattern is Lovenote by TinCanKnits knitted in Meadow Yarn's Pightle 4 ply, in the shade Some Enchanter's Wand, held with a strand of Drops Kidsilk Mohair in navy.

So many shades and colours in the Pightle.

I haven't got round to blocking the sweater yet but I couldn't resist wearing it as is. M am definitely making myself another of these in a brighter colourway (love the dark blue and it goes with some much of my wardrobe but a colourful sweater would be great too) and I'm even hoping to knit the odd one as a gift I enjoyed knitting it so much, also helps that it's a pretty quick knit! 

And as an added bonus it's one item off my 2021 list!

August FNSI - Multi Crafting

 Not having a definite plan as to what to work on this FNSI I was pleasantly surprised how productive I ended up being.

In the continuing plan of working through WIPs I decided to continue with the toile for a pair of Tilly and the Buttons Jessa shorts (these have been a WIP for a year so far and if I was a betting person I'd say the finished article won't be ready for this summer!) I thought I'd just get the zip fly in. 

But I was wrong... 

... and actually got the toile to a stage where I could try it on for size. It fit. I have decided to stop making the toile at this point, without as waistband and cuffs, as the fabric is horrible to work with (cheap, thin, with a tendency to shrink if ironed), some of my pieces seem poorly cut (or could've been affected by the iron), and I need to re-use the zip from the toile for the actual shorts. Also if I stop here there's a better chance of the actual shorts being finished in 2020!

I then went on to a bit of baking prep. 

 Pasties are the plan for lunch this weekend and the recipe suggested that the pastry was best if left to rest overnight. 

And after all that excitement I even had timeto squeeze in a bit of sock knitting before bed. 

Hope everyone else had a successful and enjoyable FNSI. 

A first foray into dressmaking

So conveniently my first attempt at making a dress has coincided with me made May and a lockdown where it seems that the ideal is to learn a new skill (or bake a lot of sourdough) but neither of those are the reason I'm now making this dress. 

The idea for it came about in January when I was admiring some cotton dresses in Spitalfields Market and my boyfriend asked whether I could make something like it.

So the research into a pattern began, Simple Sew's Grace dress seemed a good id match from memory. I decided I would make a toile first, as mh sister hadn't shared the tip about using bedsheets, a wearable toile became my option. Then my boyfriend kindly offered to buy the fabric for the actual dress for my birthday, a wonderful excuse to spend a lot of time researching options on the Internet and the at the end of March j finally bought the pattern and waited for enough free time to start. Unexpected good weather and lockdown meaning a new found enthusiasm for making our garden a nice place to be meant thaf the first free time I've had was last week during some time off from work.

So I've, finally but enthusiastically started making a dress. 

First step pattern tracing (and a growing loathing for the non-stick backing paper I was using). 

Fabric for the hopefully wearable toile (for which I already had the perfect pair of matching earrings so this better fit!) was prepared.

A bodice was put together without too much stress and with the hummingbirds on the waistband. 

It has pockets (which will need moving up slightly in the second dress). 

And I have managed to gather and attach the skirt with reasonably good seam matching.

At this point a major flaw in my prep work/understanding/sewing machine accessories became evident. The pattern calls for a concealed zip, I want to fit a concealed zip, I don't have a concealed zip foot! It's easy to find one online, so now the dress is on hold until the foot arrives and until I've practiced zigzag stitching the raw seams. 

But so far so good, I'm really pleased with how it's going and already planning future makes! Hopefully I'll be able to report a finished dress before the end of the month. 

Beginnings of a Floozy

Don't panic I haven't changed the purpose of this blog - Floozy is a cute cardigan designed by Truly Myrtle Designs. 

I got fascinated by it towards the end of last year but have waited a while to start it as I have been losing weight and didn't want to knit it and then find it was too baggy. 

The cardigan is knitted in 4 ply, the recommended yarn was something beautiful from Nez Zealand but as I haven't knitted an item of clothing (excluding socks) in forever I thought I'd go for something a bit cheaper. I could always try again in a more luxurious yarn if it all went well, you can't have too many cardis! Almost forgot, the yarn I'm using is Cascade Heritage.

After being very good and making a swatch, and after tracking down the right sized needles (Knit Pro Zings, if you're wondering) I cast on.  The cardigan is knit top down so the photo above is of the yoke. 

After two weeks this is what I have. In reality this is probably about 5 evenings of knitting as its my weekday project and I've been away during the last fortnight. The true colour is probably closer to this photo. I did have a wobble about my colour choices as the dark purple is supposed to be a pop of colour, but I think they work. The next one can be in more poppy colours! 

Crafty Saturday

After a highly enjoyable Friday evening watching Joseph and his Technicolor Dreamcoat starring Sheridan Smith and Jason Donovan at the London Palladium, me and my sisters of what to do with a Saturday spent together.

It didn't take much figuring out and we all settled down to our various craft projects. 

In what turned out to be a bit of a mistake later on I started off by getting a bit more of my Alice in Wonderland EPP done. 

I had been using the flat back stitch on the Christmas Stars EPP but for this one I've gon with the whip stitch which I am definitely finding faster and less fiddly. Though that's probably because it was the only stitch I knew when I last did EPP. 

My sisters decided to work on some time critical ish projects. 

R wants to get two of these cowls finished by November, I think she's got a good chance seeing how this one's growing. I really like this pattern and the baa ram ewe yarn is so soft. 

B decided to get another item of clothing made for a dress up doll destined for her friend's children. Hopefully she'll get it done before they out grow the doll, it's been a WIP for 3 years so far. 

After a bit of EPP I gathered my nerve and made a start on my Jessa shorts. If I'd had any idea how long tracing a pattern and cutting out fabric takes me I'd have skipped the morning EPP session!

But the pieces for my practice pair are all cut out now and ready for me to underestimate how long the sewing will take!

All in all a highly productive Saturday. 

And in case you were wondering, Joseph was excellent. I've seen it once before but forgotten how much fun it is.