shorts – THE COMPULSIVE SEAMSTRESS

Woohoo, first Work in Progress of the year! This time there’s no tutorial or how to, just me trying to hold myself accountable to the ongoing list in my head! Sooo… In progress are a couple of projects for the girls and some projects taking care of the growing mountain of scraps in the corner of the sewing room.

Starting with the girls’ projects. Waistcoats – or vests for my American friends. I have been informed that those delightful fashions of the 90s are back in vogue, and top on the list of those fashions are waistcoats. Daughter No1 is particularly keen on a waistcoat as top, so I trawled through 5 years of Burda magazines from 1996 to 2000 and found two patterns she liked, also found a pattern envelope in the pattern drawers and another that was the same as one of the magazine ones, but available in more sizes.

collage 6943

collage 2889

I’ve toiled Burda 2889 and New Look 6943, and I think she’s gong to prefer the fit of the Burda. I need to post these now and I hope there won’t be too many fitting adjustments to be made. She’s wanting one in black and another in white, so as soon as I know one of them is the winning pattern, I’ll get buying fabric!

74613B72-4510-4301-9810-A985FBD9CA6A — Waistcoat patterns

Daughter No 2 is also on a 90s vibe, and fancies some of the long, flowing viscose dresses we used to wear. Again, the Burda magazines have come up trumps and I have a pattern to toile this week. It’s number 129 from the April 1994 (South African edition) magazine. We had a video call over two boxes of magazines and there are a few other things she’s after, but I won’t list them all now! I’ll start with the dress and trace the others after it’s toiled.

Dress 129 from the April 1994 Burda magazine – South African issue

However, I have made another toile for her, a pair of shorts from what I’m sure is a very late 80s pattern, although it might be early 90s. New Look 6009 has three shorts offerings, we’ve gone with the longer length with turn-ups. Again. toile is done, just need a fitting done. Fingers crossed, because I really like this pattern!!

F18CA62E-E61E-4BDE-8544-2EB123D8D8C8 — New Look shorts 6009

So that’s what’s on my sewing table for the girls, looks like summer is on the way!! Do you have summer sewing plans? I can’t say I have a pressing desire to sew anything massively summery for myself just yet – I’m sitting here with thick socks and a chunky jumper on to keep warm!

12717145_543715625803880_196405906_n — Koh Sok National Park – Thailand

Daughter No 1 has been sending home the most amazing pictures of her travels, currently touring Thailand. These photos are making me want to go there myself! The sea is the most beautiful colour and everything seems to be so much more vibrant than here in the UK. I thought I’d show you another of the items I made for her travelling wardrobe. Daughter No 1 had chosen this Vogue pattern V9008 last year at the NEC. We (I) never got round to making the pattern up for the summer, it just wasn’t that sort of summer here in the UK. So when it came time to decide what she was going to pack in her rucksack, she remembered this shorts pattern. She liked the pale blue colour of the envelope, but not the pleated style.

v9008 — Image from Vogue Patterns. V9008

We bought some pale blue cotton poplin from Croft Mill Fabrics to make view C. There was only one problem she had with the style, no pockets! It was easy to quickly draw a pattern for some in-seam pockets. I toiled the 8, in according to the measurements. I knew there would be adjustments, I almost always have to fiddle around with the waist and sometimes need to make a swayback adjustment for her.

I found some African printed fabric in the stash that I’d been given and knew I’d never use for anything else and made the toile. Wouldn’t you believe it, she loved the fabric so much she wanted me to fix the toile up and finish it off properly so she could pack it too! Someone else did that to me a couple of years ago…

Collage vogue shorts toile — The toile that wasn’t

As suspected, the sides needed to come in, dramatically, and I needed to take the back in more. I enlarged the dart in the back to make it 1cm and narrowed the back yoke to make it fit better. The side seams needed to come in enough to effectively make it a size 4! The pattern’s smallest size was a 6. The length was perfect. Daughter No 1 wanted clothes that would be comfortable as well as suitable for wandering around towns and cities. As you can see, the toile is now a complete, wearable pair of shorts with a zip and button from the stash.

P1130687-1 — Vogue shorts in blue cotton poplin

Adding the pockets was easy and definitely made a difference. I don’t know why no pockets were included in this design. Where’s a girl suposed to put her phone, nevermind her hands??

P1130689-1

Collage vogue shorts blue — I love how these fit now.

I had also bought some floral cotton from Clothspot to make the short version for purely beach wear but she decided she had enough shorts by then so although I’d already started them, I stopped to work on other things, like that silk dress! The unfinished foral shorts have languished on my cutting table for the last few weeks, waiting for me to just finish them off and move on. February over at the Monthly Stitch is UFO month. Perfect motivation!

IMG_20160203_135607 — This is how far the shorts got before being abandoned. Only the hem and waistband to go!

Collage vogue shorts floral — Finished floral shorts! Something awaiting the return of the wanderer.

Back to sewing! That stash isn’t going to “bust” itself….

Tag: shorts

Work in Progress 1/2022

Life in Colour