93: leapard print cullottes

I made the same cullotte pattern last year here: http://brackencrafts.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/030516-me-made-may-day-3-spring-greens.html

I did manage the pockets this time so I have slightly improved I think.
The problem was the green fabric was really too heavy for this pattern I think so I started this pair to make a second attempt, but never finished them since winter set in and this is a lightweight summer cotton ( from Ikea) so I stashed them ( in my fabric stash) till this week when I decided they would be good to get finished for this spring.

I do not really like this pattern. Still I have made them and can see me wearing them quite a bit once the weather warms up.


I will do a few attempts  with different shoes etc. because this choice went with what I took off to take the photos. Not the best mixture
Maybe its the shoes and socks but I do not like them much together.

 

 

I will maybe chop the bottom off these and my green pair (shown below) as well. I reckon better as shorts. I will have to see how it goes with them long!
And it depends on the weather!

 

 

 

 Thanks for visiting my blog. Have a lovely day,

Bracken

03/05/16 Me-made-May day 3 - Spring Greens

Well its day 3 and I am at work today so I had to try and make my me-made clothing a bit ordinary looking and from looking at my pictures I think I failed. No one at work has made any comments as yet which is good.


Today I am wearing my Burda Cullottes which I started here:

23: Khaki cullottes
and literally finished on Friday 29th April so just in time for the May challenge.

With my cullotes I am wearing a T-shirt here:25: Comparing the free raglan sleeved T shirt patterns available on the internet




It is very sunny today and I have had some problems with finding somewhere I can take decent photos because of the lighting.

Thats Emily, my lovely chicken, you can see in the background asking me to let her out so she can trash my garden. Poor Emily will have to wait cos I have to rush off to work now.

This is me leaning against our new porch.

We spent the entire Bank Holiday trying to build this and have yet to finish it as you can see. There are no cover strips yet on the side panels and also no glass in the roof!

The bright green jumper I made here:
30: Green cable and lace jumper

And a hat I made here: 31: chunky hat






 To be honest now I have finally completed them I am not at all sure about these cullottes. Maybe I will make in a less thick fabric next time. They were begun over Christmas although I never actually sewed anything until March. It was still cold then. Not sure how comfortable they will be now. Should be good on colder Spring days and in Autumn though, assuming I still want to wear them then.




The cullottes are made from a material that is so thick I had to hand sew the waistband in the end since I kept breaking needles trying to sew with my machine. I also couldn't get the fabric under the foot which meant I had to try and pull it through to sew it hence broke loads of needles before giving in and doing it by hand.


Heres the photos:

Below: Hand-finished waistband - on the inside, the outside was attached OK with the sewing machine. Then the fabric was just too thick to sew even after attempting to trim all the excess off.

I closed the waistband using Prym's large sew-on poppers/press studs because the fabric was too thick to even get underneath my presser foot so there was no chance of making a button hole.

What I have really learned with these is the press, press, press, mark the seams mark, mark, mark and keep pressing and try to be accurate as possible since these are pretty easy to make and took me forever it seems. I also missed out the side pockets which is not ideal since I really do like pockets and although I made patch pockets which I intended to add similar to combat trouser pockets that also went wrong mainly due to the thick fabric I used for my cullottes. In future I need to try and select fabric that fits my garment a bit better and be far more accurate in my marking since I had to redo one of the front pleats three times and I am really not happy with either of the pleats even now. I have just had enough of this garment and need to finish it and get on with something else before I give up completely on my entire project to make 100 garments.

 

 Thanks for visiting my blog. Have a lovely day,

Bracken