MeMadeMay week 3

Where did the weekend go?! As I prepare this post on Tuesday morning I cannot fathom where the last three days have gone! I managed to get some sewing in last sunday and finished up this first run of my Deer and Doe Ondee sweater - it's a little too big however still totally wearable. After finishing this all motivation to do anything left me so instead of fixing up the pattern pieces I sat doing a jigsaw for about 3 hours.

Day 11:

My ear is absolutely killing me today so whereas I took a picture I felt no inclination to smile... the skirt is a RTW from Oasis it's a favourite RTW piece that i'm not parting with any time soon :-D.


Day 12:
When we got in yesterday our upstairs neighbours were in full on party mode. From the sounds of it there were at least 20 of them jabbering on up there. When I got ready for work this morning and left at around 9 they were still going strong. Hopefully we can find our house soon and be rid of them! I  other news today was another day for my second NL6020 and Deer and Doe Ondee.

My ear was still sore on Tuesday however had calmed down significantly from Monday. I managed some sewing in the evening however I honestly don't know where time went as all of a sudden it was like 23:30 - I'm working on a present right now and will be able to share this by the end of June :-)

Day 13:
Nothing much to report today. I was trying to make a rose plot all day at work and was voluneered to do some invigilation on Monday. Sould give me scope to write up some thesis.

Today I wore my Thurlows and Bronte top. The office is just too cold for tights just now. The whole of instagram seemed to be enjoying sunshine yet we have a cold dark office :-(

Day 14:
I wore my new look 1467. We didn't do anything much on Thursday but our shower rail fell down :-(. Oh well we bought a new one, it only cost £13!

Day 15:
We ended up going out for dinner at the fort - nothing fancy, just a Frankie and Bennies - or Ben and Jerrie's as I always get confused!! haha. I was well prepared as I had on my New Look 6144 which I think looks quite smart for both work and dinner out.

Day 16:
Today I went to the Scotland Street School Museum in Glasgow. A great hidden treasure! It was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh - the same person who designed glasgow school of art. After I went to one of my friends for cocktails! It was a great day (mostly - you cannot account for arsehole neighbours!) but as we went for drinks I thought my Oktoberfest dress appropriate.

The Oktoberfest dress is there - under the school uniform!!

Day 17:
It was around 8:30 pm before I got a picture today - I was so damn busy!

Another outing for my grey coco dress

We had friends over for dinner - and we had wine - a magnum of wine. It felt so middle class we brought out the crystal glasses - just to finish off proceedings!

So all in all another succesfull week I think! I'm certainly seeing some patterns emerging and know what I need to make more of to enable my wardrobe to work better for me!

Hope you are all still enjoying Me Made May :-)

Jenn xx

OWOP and a shiny new garment

Today has been a traditional scottish day - warm, cold, sunny, freezing, raining, sunny and cold - and it's only 1pm...

 So a few weeks back I read over on handmade jane's blog  that there was going to be a One Week One Pattern challenge (OWOP) coming in September! Initially I didn't think that I had the resources to participate, however after a minute or few's thought realised 'don't be silly Jen of course you do!!'

 So what is my pattern? Well the Chataigne shorts of course! Currently I have two black pairs (easily styled for the formal office event which will no doubt take place at zero notice) and this literally *shiny* new pair... so that leaves me with plenty to work with over the week. One of the great things about the wool pair is that they stay very fresh and can easily be worn on consecutive days. The pinstripe pair are good especially for office wear or if a large curry *has* to be eaten. ahem, and finally this new pair are perfect for dancing on wednesday evening.

So this new pair of shorts are made from this lightweight cotton twill. When i bought it I didn't realise that the material was shiny but to be honest when I saw that it was it made the shorts even more appropriate for my dancing class. (my teacher is in love with shiny things :-))

There isn't really anything new with this construction apart from the fact that the waistband went in a lot easier this time.

I have also determined a slightly different order to construction from the instructions too - it suggests puting the pockets in first then joining the front and back pieces, however I always want to put the pockets in the wrong curve *doh!!*so join the back and front first. I also cut the same size as my first pair as I felt the pinstripe pair were getting a little roomy (although on review these are maybe a little tight). the only other change i made was to add topstitching to not only the pocket edge but the waistband and cuff edges too. This was done in co-ordinating thread (partially because the colour was such a good match)

Is anyone else taking part in this challenge?

Take care and have a good weekend
 JCS xx

Completed: Chataigne Shorts number 2.

So I promised that I had some completed items to share with you - and here's the first!

 A second pair of Chataigne shorts from Deer and Doe.

The fabric I used was a black pinstripe woven concoction I bought at Christmas in Remnant Kings  - im not entirely sure what type fabic it was but it loved to frey! - I used it for a waistcoat and had about 1.5 m left. There were a few fit alterations I made to these ones from my last pair and I think they turned out well. the first change from the last time was that i graded out a size for the waist, this fabric is less partial to stretching with heat and so unlike the wool version I need the extra room that the larger size provided. I also graded in the legs - i may have a larger waist but my legs don't seem to need the same room. In fact the legs can probibly be brought in a little bit further.

I left off the back pocket flaps (even though I sewed them both up)- I felt in this particular fabric that they didn't look quite right I think the weight of the material was all wrong and they just didn't add anything in this particular variation.

The invisible zipper decided it was going to play on this garment so I was happy with that (although I did sew one side back to font DOH!) haha.

Woo! Waistband lines up :-D

And because i was only finishing edges inside the shorts I never changed the overlocker thread

I also slipstitched the waistband into place - not quite my neatest work but not bad either!

Squinty interfaced waistband

  The waistband is interfaced to within an inch of its life - I know it's probably not PC (I'm not caring!!) but i used all my scraps of black interfacing left from my Burda Waistcoat and made a patchwork effort on the inside. I do have a minor gripe that after a few tries to line up the point of the front waistband, it still doesn't *quite* match up - the fabric was a bit of a pain to work with so I can live with that! I'm definitely going to make these up for a third time - maybe in linen for casual summer wearing. this is probably/definitely my favourite pattern that I have made up :-).

I have a presentation of my work on Wednesday and I think these will make the perfect office attire! (with tights definately no bare legs!!)

Oh and have a look at how light it was outside at 4 am on the solstice the other night it was so pretty :-)

Looking east towards the park

Looking north west towards the park and town

Have a good week folks

JCS

Finit! Mes Shorts Chataigne from Deer and Doe!

Well hello again blogging world! This has been a busy old week for me! I had a first draft finished of my next conference paper and am well onto my second. But enough of my day job...

So this week saw me hack my way (literally) through this lovely pattern for some tailoredish shorts Chataigne - brought to us by Deer and Doe. I cannot tell you how long I have been looking for this pair shorts for but when I found this pattern the other week I knew lifes problems were solved :p. I made view A although instead of invisible stitches for the cuffs I opted for some top stitching.

 

So after finding the patern I took a wee jaunt up town andcame across some wool fabric reduced to only £5/m, I bought 3m of it so expect this stuff to be making another appearance soon! I rather like this fabric and as you can see there is a bit of a pattern in it too.

Well I had 3 best friends whilst making these shorts:

My overlocking foot (the wool was rather prone to the odd frey! (and I dont yet have an overlocker)), my stitch ripper (more on that in a sec) and my invisible zipper foot! So I made a rather slight mistake and stitched one of the pockets onto the wrong side of the front panel... :-\ what a dumbass! haha however a glass bottle (ahem) of wine down I threw a hissy fit and left them languishing for an evening. I also managed to stitch the back on back to front. URGH! so yeah after picking out the stitches they kind of stretched an itty bitty. This kind of caused problems later attaching the waistband to the legs :-(. Im hoping this won't be too noticeable! What does anyone else do when working with wool? I thought of throwing them in the dryer however I didnt want them to frey or anything?!

so yeah that 3rd best friend - the invisible zipper foot. I tried an invisible zipper before but with only a regular zipper foot but if i ever give any advice - SPEND THAT £5er and BUY THE FOOT! ha. how much easier did this make the job.Well chuffed with the result!

I know the edge isn't quite straight but I'll take that!

Also mighty impressed with the end result with the lining in place. Totally going to try more invisible zips. just need a project! so now for the photo shoot...(My living room is a TIP!)

Its kind of hard to see coz its an AWFUL camera! My phone broke and a certain 'Best British Brand' 2014 airline broke my camera charger! Rage. But the fit was great - I cut a 40 and made no alterations.

I will definately be buying more Deer and Doe patterns!

JCS