Coat Making

 Hello everyone, I hope it has been a good week for you and at least we are still getting a bit of sunshine in the mix here in the UK. That said I am moving towards my warmer makes and this week I have made a coat although it is not for me I thought I would show it here in case anyone is planning a coat for the coming season.

Now this coat is a sample, and it is Butterick 6720 and made up in boiled wool, now that is something I wouldn't buy for myself and I have to say if you making this you need a strong machine as the layers are thick.  Sewing seams of double thickness is fine but once you get onto the areas where it has pockets and lots of layers around the collar it is super thick.  Of course this makes for a very warm coat but do be aware that you will be walking it through in many places. 

 Unless of course you have an industrial machine and then it will be a breeze.  I have a very old one in the garage that I can't have in the house as it is so noisy and is not working properly anymore, time to time I think of getting it repaired for times such as this however as I can't have it in the house there doesn't seem much point.  I don't wish to sit and sew in the garage amongst my husbands mess and that would not be a nice video either when I am filming.

I made version B of the pattern that is medium length, belted and with four larg buttons up each cuff, although you do have options for length and adding a fur cuff or contrast if you wish.  It is fully lined and has shoulder pads, again had this been for me I would have left omitted the shoulder pads.  The boiled wool comes in lots of colours if you are interested and this shade is red but there are a few different shades of red.

When I made a coat for myself I used the vegan wool coating and I thought this to be much easier to handle and super soft if I was wanting a fabric that was easier to handle for this particular coat and if you are vegan you mat prefer to make this in the Vegan wool coating.  Both fabrics and the pattern are from Minerva.

Winter makes aside, yesterday was so glorious that we went for a walk around Dam flask, lots of people were out walking and running and generally making the most of the late sun. We stopped at The Plough for lunch half way round and also noticed that a cute little ice cream parlor has opened up across the road from the pub.  It had four flavours of vegan ice cream for me, this was unexpected and most welcomed.  I had the mango flavour which I think I enjoyed all the more because I thought I was only going inside to buy one for  my husband.

In other sewing I have cut out the pieces for the Croissant bag that I have planned to make from the Burda magazine and also purchased some fabric for a bag that my friend wants me to make for her.  I am still planning what other bits of contrast I want to add to that one though.

Here is the Croissant bag, pictured above.  I have to say I do think Burda sometimes give limited instructions and make things look harder than they are.  This bag would be finished already I had I just made it my way and not opted to show how it it is put together for the magazine version.  In fact I may still do that and explain my way.  

Well have a good weekend, and take care. 

Sewing Plans for Autumn

 Hello everyone, this week I have been thinking about what I would like to make for the coning season, I usually just make whatever takes my fancy and this does not always fit with the weather ahead.  I often think my wardrobe is more suited to the Mediterninean, and a lot of wishful thinking on my part.  This involes wearing summer dresses with three hundred denier tights in february and wondering why my clothes don't match.  So I thought I would at least do a tiny bit of panning this year and to aid in this I bought myself the September issue of Burda.

Now if you read this blog you may know that I have subscribed to Burda for a year in the past, so I have a number of copies.  I know a lot of styles repeat but it is good to have a brouse as a treat and also to see how things are put together, which may or may not be to your taste. (I do think some of the Burda styling is odd at times)

I have chosen a few things I want to make over the coming months and I know I do have similar patterns in my stash the odd thing is I rather enjoy the whole tracing them out of the magazine and hunting for the lines it is part of it somehow like doing a puzzle and very relaxing.  There is also the fact that I often find the Burda magazine patterns to be the best fit and far better than the bought print copies of the patterns.  This makes no sense but they always turn out well.

One of the patterns that I have chosen is along the same theme as an outfit I maded for work this week by Know Me Patterns by mimi G.  So the trousers I made from that set had a two tone effect here they are...

So here the two tone effect is in a wave across the trousers and the top, now this outfit is not for me.

The pattern I saw in Burda has french pockets and the effect at the bottom of the leg is in a straight diagonal across the calf like this...

I did have the idea to make these all in one colour and just use the diagonal detail as topstitching detail on the piece, my husband said if you are going to the trouble of cutting the pieces you may as well use two colours.  So this will mean buying an extra bit of fabric, as I already had the navy I intend to use for this.  My thoughts are this, much as I like these will I wear them much in two colours? As does that limit what they will go with? 

The  next choices are a zip neck top and dress plus a sweater for my husband and a croissant bag, just because it looked fun.  Those are the choices for now, I do tend to come back to these magazines later on too as the ones I own I tend to get out occasionally and have a look through with fresh eyes.

If you are interested in a look through the magazine I did a little flick through here on my youtube...

My youtube channel

Have a lovely week wheverer you are. Take care.

Mornings

 Hello everyone I hope the week is going well for you all, it has been an early start for me as I feel my insomnia is back. So after fighting it I have decided to try a different strategy which is probably what I should have doneall along.

So after trying to get back to sleep for two hours this morning I got up at five, I know that may be a regular getting up time for many of you but we are not early to bed so that is not sufficient sleep but as I am not sleeping anyway laying there pondering is not helpful.  You know that pondering you do about anything and everything in the dark hours of the night?   For many years now I have tried to be still and just put up with it, in part because I didn't want to disturb, my husband, my sons, the dogs! However I know it is the worst thing you can do as the longer you lay awake the worse it gets, also all the things I have not got around to doing I may as well get up and do, then if I get tired later maybe I will sleep better the next night, who knows.  I have also noticed that when my husband can't sleep he will get up, what is it with us women that we feel we shouldn't disturb anyone, I have to say I was still creeping about this morning trying to not make much noise.

Anyway the point is I am going to look at it in a new way, as in hey I have some extra time I will go and do ... whatever that thing is that I want to do (probably quietly!)  I did used to have a very definite morning routine that fell out of favour, maybe I will start that again.  Do any of you have a routine that you stick to in a morning and by this I mean something for you and not just getting everyones lunches and everybody else ready for the day.  If so let me know, how it helps, what is the best thing about it.

I chose to stand outside and what the sky change for a little while, this was quite peaceful.  I often listen to the Huberman Lab and this is something we should all be doing every day he states.  In the morning as close to sunrise and also close to dusk to regulate our body clock.  I know this and yet very rarely do it.

I snapped a couple of images of the sky, as apparently I can't just stand there and be...

Well have a lovely day all of you I don't know if anyone will see this close to when it goes out but I would like to hear your thoughts on this.  Are you a stay in bed and try to get through it type, or do you just get up whatever the time and go downstairs?  I am sure there will be a mixture of us out there, but I don't feel this is going away anytime soon me being of the menopausal age so I need to get a better routine.

Thank you for stopping by.

Sew a Dog Collar, Recycled Project

 Hello everyone, I hope you have all had a good week.  Just when  I thought summer was over we are having a glorious day here, very hot and suuny all day and just when the children are set to return to school.  I think that seems to happen every year.

This week I have made three new dog collars and a dog bandana, I was just thinking the old ones were looking a little tired and I needed to buy new ones.  When you look at a dog collar though there is literally nothing to it, and as a dress maker the amount of small pieces of fabric that I tend to end up with it seems a shame not to make small things like this.  I also wonder why I have not made them before, they are not that expensive you may say, but I have three dogs so every time a piece of dog equipment needs replacing it is times by three, so that quickly adds up.

I used the existing clips and sliders from the old collars and doubled up cotton fabrics a number of times to make it thick enough for a collar.  I gave the clips a good wash first and pressed the fabric once folded.  In all these were very quick makes although I did have to sew very slowly down the length of the collars as it was thick enough to break the needle, I walked it over the fabric in a number of places .

The bandana was simply one pieces hemmed all around then folded in half with a channel sewn for the collar to thread through.  The hardest part was trying to get the dogs to be still and model for me.

This was the first, and if any of you shop with minerva you may recognise Inky Grove pattern!

This one actually has a floral design on it but this little guy doesn't mind at all.

He is not wearing the bandana now I just made it for fun and my husband is not big on dogs being dressed up either.  We may keep it for special occasions.

In other news we have started rewatching Game of Thrones from the beginning, this may seem odd but my husband put it on last week and I sat down to watch and now I am hooked all over again.

In books I have just finished The Dance Tree, and picked up a couple more from the library.  I had been very carefully recording my book a week on instagram all year but this last few weeks that has all gone a bit off.  Why is it you forget to do something once then it all goes out of the window, maybe that is just me. 

My Pilates which I have always done daily is also seriously out of favour too, this is something I will remedy this week.  I always think the start of a new week is like a blank page so I will get on top of things again. 

The last few evenings I have really noticed how much darker it is now early on, I do think this seems to happen all of a sudden every year though I am determined to make the most of the seasons.

Have a lovely week everyone.