Sun hat for child Burda style magazine #145/06/2014

 

This is a sunhat made for a child. Size is for a 52cm head. However the pattern is for a 50cm at biggest size so I cut it a little larger to take that into account and to ensure everything still fitted together right.

Its reversible because you may as well make it like that. You have to line it anyway though could have an inside seam but its not difficult to make this pattern reversible.

Its a Burda magazine pattern from an old issue I bought used but with intact patterns, from Ebay.

The pattern is #145, 06/2014 but the Burda version is not reversible. Instead they sew in lines around the brim to make it stiffer. Small person had a baby hat I made with a lining to match the outer so I decided this time to make that a feature and make it reversible. And this works well.

This is the issue with this pattern which has just 3 pieces to trace and is very easy to make larger if needed.

Unfortunately its now chucking it down with torrential rain here but thats England! We will get some sun at some point I expect.

Have a great week and thanks for popping by,

Bracken

Jeans finished -prototype

I finished my jeans! 

My jeans don't have a fold over hem. RTW jeans do. To do that would make them shorter than I wanted so they have an overlocked edge to prevent fraying and then a twin needle hem because the fabric contains lycra so stretches. In fact they are a bit too stretchy.

So, I think a stretch stitched hem will be better then a normal straight stitch. 

Unfortunately they do need a belt.

My jeans don't have a hammer in button. I could have added one but my difficulty comes with making a decent button hole not the button being hammered or sewn on. Both require a button hole and none of my machines make good enough button holes. 

In fact the next machine I buy it will by a priority it can make a decent, professional looking button hole. Until then though I have what I have and it's not made such a bad buttonhole in the end. I ended up using my old Brother 3 step buttonhole machine and then hand sewing to reinforce it after. 

However since I recently dropped a dress size by accident I suppose that allows me to put the weight back on. I probably will do. I have the opposite problem to my best friend in that I have difficulty staying in a safe weight range whereas my friend is often dieting. Both are problems according to the health professionals. These days you are meant to fit a certain range in weights and reality says that's not always easy. In both directions!

I am quite happy with how these turned out though they took me ages to finish.

And they are actually ready to wear this spring. England often has cold weather in the morning  in May but is warm at midday.  And May sometimes switches between snow showers very occasionally and more often cold rainy days mixed with scorching hot summer weather. So overall these will work for my spring trousers I think taking all that into account.

And they will be good for Autumn too.

I got held up finishing these by the belt loops. I forgot them. Put everything away and then realised and had to wait for the next sewing session to get them done and added to the jeans. That's done now which is good because as I already said these need a belt to stay up!

I really feel happy to have finally got these finished and I achieved something rather than just the same old leggings and tops I make. I do need those of course, but its good to stretch yourself sometimes and make more difficult things. I will be making more of these. 

Thanks for popping by and visiting. See you soon because I feel I have my sewing mojo back now so I need to get a few things done before it again becomes difficult.

Have a lovely week,

Bracken

Thai fisherman trousers

A few days before Christmas 2024 I had a small package containing this fabric sent through my letterbox. I opened this package and my immediate thought was this is not mine! 

I never sent for this. 

The address on the package was mine and it was addressed to me. Then inside I found a letter and a calendar for 2025! 

Well when I read the letter it was from Pound Fabrics and they had sent me this 2m if lovely cotton fabric as a gift for being a faithful customer. I was so shocked. I have been sewing (and blogging!) for years. No one has ever given me fabric before. I have won a couple of competitions but might have done that if I had not been blogging about my sewing. 

One was with the Monthly Stitch which I was an avid member of for years and the other was Minerva Fabrics. I think there was an element of luck both times really. I still wear the garments made for both these competitions.

Anyway, this is my very first gift of fabric and thank you so much Pound Fabrics for thinking of me. 

I have been buying fabric online since probably about 2010. But not large quantities of fabric purchases until the last few years when I began to blog my sewing adventures so since 2015 really I have been regularly buying fabric. Wow! 10 years!

Anyway, I found pound fabrics after a particularly bad experience with one of their competitors (Pound-a-Meter - steer well clear of them if you don't want to get ripped off is my advice!). But Pound Fabrics have been reliably brilliant. Even then I never expected to get a Christmas present from them

Perhaps really I should have written publicly about this closer to Christmas. I did say a personal thank you at New Year, but wanted to wait until I found something to make before writing a blog post about this. 

Well this really is the perfect fabric for this project.

I have been planning to make a pair of these trousers since 2008 when I came across the ( then free) instructions for the Easy Breezy Wrap pants from Laupre who I think may now be on Etsy.

Whenever I considered making them I just never had the right fabric. Until I was gifted this that is.

And the thing about these is they are super simple to make and wonderful to wear. I have plans for a few other pieces of fabric currently in my stash in fact because now I know how to make these I want more.

You can wrap frontwise as these are or backwise for a different look. I will be going with the easiest way which seems for me to be frontwise wraps. 

I did do a couple of alterations to the original pattern - I added a channel to the top of the front and back panels and then made straps to thread through and so mine have pullords rather than sewn on straps. I like this better. Its more adjustable than sewing the ties to the tops of each piece. I also made these much more gathered than you perhaps could do. Laupre says a 12" overlap. I have much more than that but will just adjust as needed depending on my fabric because you might as well use all the piece if you can. That stops small pieces ending up for years in my stash and makes for a nice loose fit with lots of overlap and therefore modesty. I do not fancu flashing my knickers to the world when the wind blows but thats just my own feelings on this. 

I have to say also the instructions are great and if you wanted to make these I would recommend this seller.  There are also some YouTube videos on these as well if thats your preferred method of making.

So here I have a double thank you to make to Pound Fabrics for the 2m of lovely fabric and to Laupre for the generous sharing of the pattern/ instructions back in 2008.

Have a great week and thanks for popping by my blog. 

Bracken

Tiger suit

It's not really a tiger suit as such but tiger print lounge wear. I have worn both the and bottoms together twice so far though and it feels fine to do so. Usually with animal prints I only handle one item so this is a bit different. No idea why though!

I wanted a wide leg tracksuit.

The trousers are not quite right. I hacked the Lekala track pants onto the Mood Sewciety Jamesia pants with the result the pockets are too long or too large or just too far down the leg. They are OK but when I do this again I will use the Lekala track pants as the top with the wide Jamesia leg at bottom instead of transposing the pocket onto the Jamesia. 

I think that will work better. Otherwise the trousers work well and I expect only I will see what's wrong with them.

The top pattern us a new one I recently bought from a charity shop. Despite being second hand its uncut and was a bargain at 99p.

 It's McCall's M8144.

I think the two patterns work well together. I actually finished this in time for UK Mother's Day when my son took me on a train ride on a vintage diesel train. I just never blogged about this before. Lack of time. Life seems very hectic right now. 

Thats not the same as the Mothers Day the rest of the world seems to have. Ours was exactly a Month before Easter. There's a rhyme " Mothering Sunday, Curds and Whey, Palm Sunday, Easter Day" with each bit referring to one week. It was a fun day out anyway going on the train with my son.

This is a nice cozy suit for the british spring weather which can be very varied.

I made it exactly as directed. It's pretty easy but a very nice top pattern with funnel neck, slight cowl and raglan sleeves. I seem to have a current liking for high funnel and polo necks. This is more of a funnel. 

The sleeves were too short so I added Feyr Trade's thumb hole mitts from the Make your own Sportswear book.

 

That's worked really nice. I might just lengthen them next time but this is really my muslin. 

We have lots of sun right now but the mornings are icy cold warming to about 15 degrees C at lunchtime so this is a nice outfit for the time of year here in the UK. The rain we get in spring has already started too so I suspect its going to be a good outfit for our variable weather and May might be supposed to be warm but it can also snow here so at least I have a nice cozy new outfit now in case that happens. 

Its a very simple to sew pattern and I intend to make a few more tops like this when I get more appropriate fabric. Right now I have nothing I can use that is not already cut into something else. I would like a few of these though. The pattern has 3 sleeve options so I might try a different version next time.

It was very fast to make this and not expensive because its a bargain basement fabric from Pound Fabrics at £2 a meter. I bought 3m. I wish I had bought more! This is the orange colourway. It also came in brown, and grey and white. I think they just have the orange now though, but if they get more of the grey I will be buying more because its a nice warm jersey. They described it as heavy weight. I do not agree. It's quite thin but is warm and cozy. It's not sweat-shirting and works well on this kind of outfit because the fabric has a almost sweatshirt weight to it. But its a knitted acrylic jersey with lycra. It's perfect for all sorts but I only have small bits left. I am seriously wondering if I can squeeze a second top from it but probably will not have enough for this pattern. Maybe with contrast sleeves? Something to look at another time anyway.

Thanks for visiting my blog. I hope you have a lovely weekend,

Take care

Bracken