Sew Darn Tired

Yes, that's not me wearing a new Kwik Sew K3952 jacket out of black wool crepe stuff I bought in Melbourne last year as a remnant. That's my niece who popped in for a visit yesterday. I was telling her about the little jacket I made and it was just not right on me.  Too swingy, too black? I couldn't put my finger on it. She is about twice as broad in the shoulders as me (hello weights) but about the same height. (Proportion is everything when you are short). I got her to try it on and .. well it fits her beautifully, sits where it should and she also loves the 3/4 sleeves. She was wearing a dress yesterday that this really didn't go with but we agreed with jeans or pants it would be great. And it is. Yeah, it's black and hard to photograph, so here's the pattern. That's not all.... The McCall's vintage wrap dress I was making is waaayyyy too big in the front bodice. I was debating putting the bodice down but hadn't done it yet. I showed...

These are the fab four... a charcoal one, a purple (one of her colours) with coral/orangey back (not her colour), the rust red one and the taupe one. I thought I'd show the four singlet tops I made for my niece in more detail. They were made from scraps of merino knit that was from the fabric sale I went to a few weeks ago. It is a lovely slubby merino and behaved very well. I traced the pattern - pretty easy for a singlet - front and back. The original has bindings on the armholes and neckline but I didn't have enough fabric for binding for the armholes. In the photo above I cut two fronts or backs at a time. You can also see the leftovers were not much - I had to cut the neck bindings out of those tiny scraps. The fabric was also about 5 cm shorter than the original top (and serendipitously just wide enough). The original tip was very long on Zoe's body (she's a stage manager and does a lot of bending and stretching so for work wear it needs the length)...

My niece loves very basic but quality "adventure" type clothing. She has a basic merino singlet in black fine merino that she loves but it has been discontinued by the adventure clothing company. My mind went 'ding' and I remembered the scraps of merino I bought at the fabric sale for $2 for the lot. I  got the singlet from her yesterday and cut out a pattern this afternoon and sewed one up in three hours. The colours above are not very representative, but they are her colours. There is enough for three more singlets. I made the pattern a bit shorter in between the armhole as she is short bodied like me. I think for $2 I can take a chance. She said she wouldn't like the red one but it's more a rust than the red it appears here and I think she'll like it. If not it will be a good trial of the pattern and if she still doesn't want it, I can use it. The black one is the bought one. I literally had enough to cut the front and back out and piece ...

My niece came back from Japan yesterday and leaves tomorrow for New Zealand. She came past this afternoon to say goodbye in between seeing friends in town and going out for dinner with her parents and brother. After we had some afternoon tea and she showed me a couple of things she bought for the weather in New Zealand (which will be a lot colder than Japan and here where currently it is about 26-28 deg in the day time). She showed me some togs (bathers; swimsuit) she bought and mentioned that she wanted some swim shorts to go with them to wear under the wetsuit she'll have to wear when she goes caving (yikes!). So like the  yoga bag  I made a few short weeks ago, I made her a pair of swim shorts at the last minute...again! She chose the colours from my small stash of lycra. The hot pink was a remnant from Spotlight a couple of years ago and the navy was an Op shop find - I've made a few pairs of togs for Alex with this (another one nearly finished) and it's old but g...