Year(s) in review. It's all a bit of a blur...

A few years ago I started a practice of declaring a name for the year ahead. I have never really liked making new year resolutions, but I have enjoyed having a bit of a guiding principle based on my aspirations for the year ahead. 

I guess it started with The Stockholm Challenge

The Year of the Trouser (2015)

The Year of the Outfit (2016)

The Year of Doing It Properly (2017)

The Year of Just Because (2018)

The Year of Breaking the Habit (2019)

I had been journalling every day and blogging fairly regularly for 15 years but took a hiatus in about 2019 when it wasn't working for me anymore. I'm not sure if I can return to writing everyday yet, it used to be a form of doodling with words and even now I am struggling with this kind of activity, even though its absence leaves me feeling like I'm floating in an ocean.

I know I 've missed a couple of recap years, but hopefully this post goes some way to redress that.

2019

The Year of Breaking the Habit

I was 30 and really ran full steam through this year. I finally felt like I was doing something tangible at work, I also screwed up something so badly it completely changed the way I work to this day. I got outed as a seamstress to my colleagues after ~18 months of keeping it a secret.

The guiding principle for the year was to manage the hobbies I was liable to get sucked into in order to free up energy to try something new. 

I took courses in millinery and Japanese. I took classes in bead embroidery and tutu making (I made a professional quality tutu! It might be the best damn thing I've ever made and I never showed you!). 

I stepped back from tap dancing because I had pushed it as far as I could. I was still dancing a lot in other ways and really pleased with how I performed when we were out. I got elected practice leader for the molly group and promised I would do my best to do the right thing for the team. I made progress on the steep learning curve to do so.

I finally passed my driving test. We unexpectedly bought a car. We unexpectedly bought a house. We hosted my family's Japanese delegation in London and then we went to Japan late in the year. B lost both grandparents.

We cancelled our Xmas plans in favour of a quiet one at home. And I made my first Christmas roast lamb. I'm sure I levelled up my baking and cookery game but I can't tell you at all anything about what what I made or ate.

Partway through the year I made a remark there were literally not enough hours in the day. My cup ranneth over and I felt like something needed to give.

2020

The Year of the House

I don't think I ever officially named 2020 but with hindsight it was clearly The Year of the House.

We started the year prepping for a renovation and finding builders who would take on the job. I got sick and it took weeks to recover because instead of resting I spent days in the loft shovelling out old insulation by hand. Doing that task was one of the most claustrophobic experiences of my life. I was masked up and goggled up directly underneath a roof in howling stormy weather. But I did it.

We got work from home orders and then there was lockdown. I panic bought butter, cream cheese and a shower. The builders panic bought all the plaster in the local area and stashed it in our gutted house. Somehow they finished the house and we kept going. We moved in. We filled the loft with new insulation in the autumn and it felt like a finishing milestone.

Besides finishing the house and moving us in, I couldn't handle complicated projects and my concentration was ruined, so repetitive simple steps were the defining features of my projects. Hence the felt baskets, face coverings and scrap bunting.

With no dance in the foreseeable future I started circuits class and personal training (PT).

I discovered succulents can get sunburn.

I did a lot of great cooking. I made my second Christmas Day lamb.

I think I finally came to understand the phenomenon of 'struggling to switch off'. 

2021

The Year That Wasn't Even Though They Promised It Would Be The Year That Was.

Most of the year featured baseless promises, cancelled plans and stalled restarts.

I find it easy to forget that this time last year we were still in the early days of the vaccine rollout. The pace at which that scheme progressed nationally was astounding. I got all 3 jabs between June and September.

Christmas plans got cancelled for a third year. I made my third Christmas lamb. It's practically a tradition now. 

B's sibling got married on a beautiful day in Edinburgh. I made some jumpsuits and a hat for the occasion.

After doomscrolling one particularly awful Twitter dogpile and losing a full night's sleep to someone else's problem, I decided to go cold turkey on Twitter.

I had high hopes for gardening and started out in Feb with great plans. But as the year progressed there was a steady flow of disappointments and failures. The rose was a singular pleasant surprise and bloomed beautifully.

I binge watched a lot of olympics.

It was a turbulent year for my family, as my grandparents' wellbeing deteriorated dramatically. I found myself stepping up to the plate on care responsibilities to allow my father and stepmother some peace of mind to go to America to visit her family. I altered my grandfather's clothes so they would fit his shrinking body. My uncle finally emigrated to Australia after many years of trying. We continued to miss our Japanese delegation.

I finally got to see some friends in the flesh again. Some dear friends had a baby and I was so excited to add the new little'un to the Christmas Gift list. I still haven't managed to sew anything for her.

I upped my cooking game again and finally got the yeast bug. No, not that kind of yeast bug. Some good bread came out of our kitchen I can tell you. I am a damn good cook and I take so much emotion from the food I produce.

I worked so many extra hours. I worked so much. In 2020 my hobbies were robbed of me, and with little sign of them resuming meaningfully in 2021 what else was there left to do in the evenings except carry on for a bit more work. I have developed a reputation as someone to drop into the middle of a crisis if you want the ship steadied and the mess sorted out. I never planned it that way - it has wrecked my work life balance over the last year.

I was pressured into holding a return to practice and in-person AGM for the molly dance group. A group of people were keen to start practicing again but with everything else going on I wasn't - the only advantage of holding the AGM in my eyes was to formally step down as practice lead. The rest of the organising committee went MIA and I was left trying to do the job of 3 people. Almost everything imaginable went wrong in the run up to this weekend - it was so cursed. The people who showed up were as supportive as they could be (and I think they had a nice time). 

Every individual, who was absent had reasonable and legitimate individual reasons for doing so. But some of them were behind the pressure to hold the AGM and collectively their absence was deafening. I feel like I had been hung out to dry. So I stepped down having spent 2 years as Practice Lead having not done a bloody thing. The cruellest part of my brain tells me that not keeping the whole thing running during the pandemic is a personal failure. A different part of my brain reminds me that for a large portion of that time it was illegal to do so. 

I don't know if I will ever go back.

I don't feel like I achieved anything in 2021, and yet I am still burnt out. This was prime time for personal growth but I haven't banked or reflected or developed or studied or researched any of the challenging situations or tests of my skills and character. The whole year felt like it was on someone else's rhythm, someone else's agenda. I just floated along trying to keep my head above water.

I did have one major goal and subsequent love affair during 2021. I decided I needed to learn how to cycle commute and spent several months taking lessons, practicing and researching in order to have the confidence needed to get out on the roads responsibly. Crucially I knew I needed to do everything in my power to avoid it being miserable - and an interest in ebikes developed. I spent a few moths testing options via the Peddle My Wheels scheme and fell in love with a gorgeous red german ebike in September. It is my pride and joy. I have done nearly 400 miles to date. Before this I hadn't touched a bike in 15+ years and never had a particularly good experience on two wheels as a child. So this whole endeavour feels like a massive achievement. 

2022

I've had an idea about what to name 2022, but it has been difficult to find the right descriptors. Initially I had thought of the word "compromise" and then "pragmatism". Then "making it work". 

When I was initially drafting this in Dec 21/Jan22, I had been reading articles that say the winter months were a good time for reflection and optimism. Then I realised there was no optimism in any of these words, and maybe that was telling me something important.

2022 is about (metaphorical) navigation and keeping my own (metaphorical) ship afloat and trying to guide it as best as possible until it gets back to its (metaphorical) harbour. Until I feel more like me again. 

You could say this is me already. This is me all over. You could say this is my best version of me because I consistently show up and I consistently put one foot in front of the other. But I don't feel like me.

The (metaphorical) harbour is there somewhere but I don't know how many more days at (metaphorical) sea are ahead before I get there. 

So 2022 is The Year of Finding a Way Through.

What does this mean practically?

• I've started a different type of journalling to see if I can capture what I'm excited about and what's going on.
• I've recalibrated personal finances am going to track progress until I understand what my money is actually for
• I'm going to try again with my plants
• I'm going to try to regain control over my time and energy. I'm going to try to restore helpful balances and take opportunities to recharge
• When I can, I will try to make experiences or do stuff that is additive (e.g. learning and study). I feel a need to do this, but I don't have capacity to just jump in and do something whenever.

I know we're already mid-March and 2022 is already a bit of a dumpster fire. But that's a different blog for a different day.

K x

Elsewhen Millinery - Zoe 1940s Beret (full wedding guest outfit)

Having completed millinery class with a damaged boater and even less inspiration than when I started it, I was a bit flummoxed about how I would actually finally find a hat to complete my wedding guest outfit. Honestly, I was expecting to be dis-invited due to the limit on numbers at weddings, but somehow I found out at short notice I was still on the list. "I hope you've got your hat ready" said the bride... #cringeforKatrina

I stumbled upon Elswhen Millinery on Etsy and they immediately seemed like a good bet. I'm not massively interested in historical sewing but this store was packed with interesting sewn hat designs that looked completely wearable. 

I was really drawn to a few designs but ended up purchasing the Zoe 1940s Beret because I wanted my face and my hair visible in any potential photos. I also really liked the piecing on the crown and thought it was a nice design element. 

Since this was a special hat I shelled out on some lovely green birdseye wool from Fabworks and some liberty print for the lining. I used a basic fusible interfacing for the pieces and face mask/garden wire for the wired parts. 

I think the design was great and the hat came together very quickly and easily. I found the instructions to be comprehensive but maybe also a little jarring for people used to sewing garments. I slightly resented needing to draft a lining piece, but the shape was very easy to trace and it fit nicely on an A3 piece of paper. 

I am impressed with how well this hat fits too. I was expecting to add small crochet loops for hair grips but they weren't needed at all.

I was pleased to use my wiring skills in this project but I should've done the wiring in the embellishment by hand as the wire doesn't sit completely right. I also put the embellishment on a pin to make it a bit more versatile in use. I can move the bow around on the hat, or maybe move it to my lapel or a bag for coherence. 

For the full wedding guest outfit I teamed this with Burda 6875 and Vogue 1645 (green) to complete the look. I feel accidentally incredibly stylish!

Interestingly, this outfit is really tricky to photograph. The jumpsuit and hat appear black in a lot of photos and the coat reads as completely grey. None of the coloured stripes were picked up by B's fancy new Fuji XT2. How odd!

K x

More jumpsuits? V1645

I wasn't expecting to fall in love with a second jumpsuit, but when V1645 was announced it caught my attention immediately. I do love a bit of asymmetry and this looked like a really cool asymmetric style. It is another striking jumpsuit from Vogue with very interesting detailing, unlined and with a Hong Kong/bias finish throughout. 

I've made 2 muslins and 2 versions now so I feel like I know the pattern pretty well. This post is going to be relatively long and I am expecting it to cover the story of making the jumpsuits, but also cover some of the issues I encountered while doing so. I'll try to break it up under a few different headings.

V1645 elsewhere on the web

I waited before making the jumpsuit to see some reviews pop up. Most of them have been really positive about the design and the look, although there seems to also be some general disappointment the first time the jumpsuit is tried on. I did go through this too but it didn't actually lead to any changes or adjustments in the garment. I think this is an odd look to get used to wearing, but it does look stunning and comes out almost exactly like the original photos. 

A few reviews also complained about the instructions being confusing. I have to agree with this, but it does get you a good final result. The pattern has about 60 individual steps (excluding all the binding!) and there are so many notches and tacks to keep track of. Don't skip ANY of these. I didn't find any to be in the wrong place, but it was easy to confuse notches for different sizes and mark the wrong one. 

The pocket insertion is confusing, but no moreso than the pockets for the Burda Matt Williamson dress (or dresses of that style, like TATB Zadie dress). You definitely need to be intermediate/advanced skill for this pattern - if there are omissions with the instructions, as highlighted by a couple of other people on PatternReview, I think you can skim over them if you've got enough experience to have your own opinions about how clothes seams should be made/finished. If the front overlay is supposed to be topstitched (as it appears in the envelope photo) then the instruction is definitely missing.

The pattern is cut partially on a single layer, and partially on a double layer. The asymmetrical pieces mean there's a really high risk of cutting a large piece the wrong side out or stitching one of the first seams the wrong way around. This could be a costly mistake if you've got a nice fabric. 

I didn't find much elsewhere on the internet about my issues with the supplies list...

As a non-American I found the supplies list incredibly unhelpful when it called for 7x packs of bias tape. In the UK you most often see bias binding available by the cut metre so the requirement for 7x packs was unhelpful. We can't be the only location where bias tape is mainly sold by the metre instead of pre-cut packs. I googled the length of a pack of bias tape at Joanns, which said it was 4 yards so 7x4 yards = 28 yards => 25.6m. I guess. Apparently you can buy packs of bias binding at Hobby Craft, but this is 2.5m so you'd need 10 packs of that stuff at least. I'm fairly sure other brands would have pre-cut packs of different length. I bought a 33m spool of green binding from William Gee and and then a 25m cream spool (from Backstitch) for my second version. Both had significant leftovers at the end of the project. Depending how you choose to finish the seams, you probably need somewhere between 20 and 25m of bias binding. 

Also, perhaps buckle covering kits are a easy to find in the USA, but finding nice buckles or buckle covering kits was impossible here so I opted for an adjustable slider at the waistband on both versions.

Muslins and Fitting

My measurements have increased a bit recently so I cut a straight Medium for my first muslin, mainly to account for my hip size. I was unsure how all the pattern pieces were supposed to go together and so I wanted to avoid introducing potential problems of grading between sizes incorrectly. I numbered all of the pattern pieces with a sharpie so I could reference how they go together. Naturally the first muslin ended up too big. I resolved to go down too a Small all over with a small amount of extra space at the hips instead. 

I will flag some of the classic errors in my first muslin you need to look out for. Honestly, if you can lay the first few pieces flat or drape them on a dressform, this will really help to establish how the first pieces go together and what shapes they make.  On my first muslin, the Centre Front seam ended up the wrong way out. In the subsequent muslins and garment makes, I tried to vary the order of construction to start with the back pieces (which are symmetrical) and then add the front ones to it to get the left front and right front pieces correctly oriented, but it messed up the sensible order of seam finishing as a result.

On the first muslin my right leg outseam [under the overlay] was also incorrect. You should hide outseams inside the legs like normal trousers, but it's relatively easy to get this wrong because there is an invisible zip insertion at the same time. 

On the first muslin, I also noticed that the body was too long. The hem, crotch, belt and armholes were all too low on my body. Perhaps this pattern expected a lot more boob to fill out the long upper body (Mimi G and Erika Bunker don't seem to have the low armhole problems that other makers had). For reference, I took some photos to demonstrate how much extra space there was in the bodice that could be filled out. 

I did a bit of a slapdash Small Bust Adjustment to match my figure a little better by pinning length out of the bodice above the bust and across the upper back. I didn't specifically adjust the circumference of the pattern pieces but I was hoping that downsizing to an S would just fix it enough to carry on. Muslin 2:

Muslin 2 looked good enough so I made no further changes. There is a small amount of gapping under the arms but I was unwilling to spend time to fix it. 

The Creepy Crepe Version

Version 1 is made in a green polyester crepe from Stoff & Still. I have a love/hate relationship with crepe and am always wary of sewing/wearing it but it seemed like a very strong match for this pattern. Crepe has some visual texture that looks rich in photos, polyester crepe is easycare/non-wrinkling and I feel like this is a recognisable use of the fabric (RTW crepe jumpsuits are smart and relatively forgiving of minor fit issues!). So I decided to look past my mistrust and give this a try.

FYI I used the red colourway of this fabric for my V1672 Festive Dress.

To stabilise the fabric I used cotton tape on the shoulder seams, fusible interfacing on all the advised edges and in a few extra places around the pockets. With hindsight I should've also stabilised the zip area.

I accidentally ordered the wrong seam binding (green from William Gee) and it was super narrow. Some of my binding is a bit messy in places where it was tricky to attach, or where I realised too late I had finished seams in the wrong order. I am hoping no one will notice. 

I found the crepe a little challenging to work with. It has a tendency to creep, stretch and drape which needs to be kept under control. It's a bit springy when trimming the seam allowances and it doesn't press at all. Machine topstitching is an absolute no-no so I stitched down the facing and hems by hand with a tiny herringbone stitch. The crepe was very forgiving of this kind of stitching. 

I messed up the pocket construction on the zip side and some stuff is caught, causing a lumpy seam. I can see it, but it seems to not show up in photos so I am trying not to fuss over it too much. 

Once completed the jumpsuit is quite heavy and there's a lot of fabric hanging off the shoulders without much of an anchor elsewhere. Like I said earlier, the crepe stretches and drapes gradually, so the front and overlay were slowly pulling down and apart from one another. You wouldn't get this in a more stable fabric (it didn't happen in the muslin!) so I fixed it by attaching a small hook and eye at the top of the Centre Front seam. It's much better now. 

Stick around to hear about the occasion this was made for in a future blog post!

Slinky Smooth Tencel Twill

This was supposed to be a wearable muslin, but I found this fabric AFTER I had completed the green version. You're probably wondering why I was still hunting for wearable muslin fabric when I had completed the main non-test garment. I'm wondering too. 

This is a maroon smooth drape twill with tencel fibres by MeetMilk from Sew Me Sunshine. Hopefully this will be a more casual everyday version (complete with wrinkles) and I'm planning to make some long sleeve tees to go under it. The fabric is fun to sew and presses nicely. I wish the colour were a bit more red but it's fine. I noticed while pressing this fabric that it tends to ignore a bit of water (i.e. a fine spray or mist) but it really drinks once wet. Once wet it sort of smells and behaves like a ratty cotton that is beginning to perish slightly in the laundry. I wonder how it'll fare out in the wild!

My binding went a lot better on this version but it's still not perfect. The cream binding was a much better width and the fabric was easier to sandwich in one pass. I also learned some lessons from the previous attempt at binding and machine topstitching was allowed again!

I shortened the belt a little and tried to put it a little higher than on the green version (where I bluffed the placement because I forgot to mark it with a tailor tack).

I got a bit lazy near the end and just wanted to be done with the pattern so the topstitching around the armholes isn't exactly the same on both sides. The hem on my right leg is also 1-2mm deeper than on the left leg. Hopefully no one notices. 

Trying it on, I was pleased with the fit through the torso. I was a little disappointed with multiple issues below the hipline. Firstly, the pockets are lumpy and I'm not sure why they don't lie smoothly (the muslins were alright!). Secondly, the leg seam with the overlay ripples and pulls down. Maybe I should've cut the whole thing as a double layer and interfaced it like cardboard. It's disappointing. This version also fits quite snug over my hips - I sized down a little after the green version but it may have been too much!

Conclusion

So what are my concluding thoughts on this pattern? I think this would be a relatively good office outfit, but not really in a work from home setting. The inconvenience of using the loo seems pretty egregious when you're stuck in your own home. 

The crisper and sturdier your fabric, the better. I think the muslins showed a lot of potential to support the design elements, but the garment fabrics are maybe a bit too drapey. The bust is much bigger than expected, but the enveloped model doesn't seem too well-endowed so I I'm not sure how or why it fits her. She might be very long-bodied. The pockets are okay but a bit tricky to execute if you're grading between sizes in the waist/hip area, especially given the zip and overlay interference. The binding finish is fine but you could equally overlock all the edges before stitching. If you really like a challenge, I bet this whole thing could be made with French Seams. The pattern is a slog to complete because the first 28 steps seem to come together very quickly compared to the second half of the instructions. It is a fun puzzle if you're familiar with garment construction already and you don't mind being thrown by pattern pieces that don't look familiar.

K x

Vogue v1672 - A Festive Dress

I could tell you the backstory behind each element of this dress, but honestly it's a bit easier at this point to say it's a stashbusting project. The red crepe outer fabric is from Stoff & Stil, the lining is from Fabworks and the pattern came straight from the Vogue website. All the elements were bought with this specific project in mind.

Lining Fabric

Sometime in December 2020 I decided that even if no one was going anywhere anytime soon, I should make a defiant party dress. I pulled out the material and patterns to get started on this. 

V1672 describes itself as a Very Easy pattern but I think that's a little generous. The pattern does have big impact for a relatively simple set of pieces, but it does have a couple of elements that would cause issues for someone looking for a very easy pattern. For example, the bias cut bodice is prone to distort or stretch out if you mistreat it. The tradeoff here is that the neckline is on the straight grain, which means it probably won't gape as much compared to a bias edge. I also found that the bias cut bodice was tricky to fit. This might've been due to my spongy stretchy crepe, but I found I didn't need to make my normal adjustments (extra space at crossback for my shoulders, taking out some back length between shoulder and waist for my swayback) and was confused about which adjustments I should make. Instead of a small bust adjustment I just pinned out the excess along the princess lines on the front bodice. The back waistband does dip slightly but I decided I was too lazy to fix it. 

I do like the bodice and am wondering how the wrap front will fare over time. It shows my bra, so I'll either need to remember to wear a pretty lacy number or whip up a camisole. Depends on the occasion. As I mentioned earlier, the neckline does stay put and I don't think there's much risk of a wardrobe malfunction - when standing up. I have found that it gaps a lot more when sitting down. I think this makes a great party dress because the bias bodice allows for a bit of expansion if you've had a big meal! I should've tested this on Christmas Day but the dress wasn't finished in time. I had spent all of my sewing time making garlands and pyjamas.

The skirt is long. Vogue have done that trick again of using heels and shooting from below the model to create the illusion of showing more leg than the pattern allows. I left the length fairly long because I like the drama of the skirt and I think it contrasts nicely with the very deep v-neck.

This dress is fully lined. I used the burrito method on the neckline and I think it came out very clean! The lining hem is pretty horrible but I'm hoping no one is going to notice.

The zip is a centred zip. It does look a little puffy but hopefully it'll be mostly hidden under my arm. The pattern originally calls for the zip to be placed in the centre back but I moved it to the side seam, as usual.

The pattern envelope promises inseam pockets but I'll tell you right now that this is a lie. There are no pockets and no mention of them in the instructions.

I tried to avoid topstitching unless absolutely necessary. The crepe didn't take it nicely and the thread I had available wasn't a brilliant colour match anyway.

That's it - I ended up wearing this dress for a very special occasion: getting my first vaccine shot!

K x

 

The Doppler Dress

I think we can all agree that for those of us who sew, there is a perpetual quest to make clothes that look presentable, high quality and stylish but which feel like we're swanning around in our pyjamas. In the world of dresses, nothing exemplifies this more than the t-shirt dress (except maybe the slip dress, but bear with me). Quick to cut, quick to sew and infinitely customisable. The t-shirt dress is a great thing. So when I finished this project and showed it to B, I was very proud when he finally said "I think you've made a nighty".

This dress was another palette cleanser project. I had the fabric for over a year. On our autumn 2019 trip to Japan, B picked it out of the remnant bin in one of the Tomato stores in Tokyo and I wasn't too keen on it. It's a knit with barely any stretch and no recovery. If it weren't striped I would have probably used it for shorts or culottes but bold stripes on that kind of garment isn't my vibe. I settled on a plan for a dress fairly quickly but never really had the time or desire to sew it up.

Roll around December 2020...

I searched a few Burdas for suitable patterns. My first design idea included a centre front placket and collar so the dress would reference polo shirts a little. My second design idea was an overlapped bateau neckline (a bit like my purple stripe jumper) but using some fancy ribbing from my summer myfabrics.co.uk haul. For this second design I planned to copy my sloper and make adjustments.

I started making this in that quiet gap between Christmas and going back to work. I wanted a 'no stakes' kind of project, which meant that I chose design idea #2 over tracing a Burda pattern. This is not high quality drafting or sewing, but it was quite fun to get out all of my rulers, tapes and pencils. I cut the sleeves according to how much fabric I had left. 

I stitched up the ribbing and put the dress on my mannequin. It looked awful. The seam was scratchy and the ribbing pulled this weak dress fabric in all the wrong directions. With hindsight I shouldn't have tried to be clever with the shoulder seam as I drafted it badly. Oh well. I ripped it off and just bound the neckline using some jersey binding instead.

The seams are zig-zagged and then overlocked. There are no pockets because I didn't feel like adding them here. When we get another mega-heatwave I'm hoping this dress will prove its worth. Right now, I'm layering it with tights, fluffy slippers and a duvet.

K x

Low Waste Bog Coat

 I can't quite believe it has taken me until halfway through the year to break out my overlocker and play with the variegated threads!

Today is a quickie blog post to go with a quickie project

I wanted to make a birthday gift for a friend and thought that a bog coat would fit the bill quite nicely. I wear mine all the time and it's relatively easy to cut, size and fit. The pattern is somewhere between low-waste and no-waste depending on how you style it and it is pretty forgiving if you use the right fabric. I have used sweatshirting for both my versions to date. I think this would also work well in a fleece, terry, chunky knit, mock cable ponte roma, hachi t-shirt knit etc. The Threads instructions suggest fancier and more elegant fabrics but I probably prefer the fluffy loungewear vibe.

I used ~1.2m of pink sloth sweatshirting from Empress Mills.

All the stitching was done using the variegated blue and white thread cones from William Gee.

I used my overlocker for a lot of flatlocking detail and have overlocked all the seams. The patch pockets have a flatlocked opening but are otherwise zig-zagged using my regular machine with the same thread.

This took an afternoon to pull together and I think it's a hit!

K

So long, sandpaper trousers!

Well, the re-upholstered Flintan office chair didn't last long. I got back and hip pain from sitting in that chair and then ripped up and completely disassembled the chair during a particularly grumpy moment. 

So, uh, I was without chair again. I bought a posh ergonomic one instead with a 12 year guarantee. Gotta love a 12 year guarantee.

I did make a workout weights bag from the seat upholstery though!

K x