travels, trousers and Gatsby

 

I've been away again for work, hence the delay in posting.  This time in Liverpool, very sunny, very busy and little time for anything else!

 

 



 

The fair-isle continues to progress and I'm on the last piece

 

 

 

However, there is a lot of work weaving in the ends!

 

 

What progress is there on the crochet scarf you may ask?  Well here it is!!!

 

 

 

Yes, I'm afraid that is it and it took me about 4 hours!  The wool is so fine that it's quite difficult for me to see.  I think this is going to take me about a year - and I definitely wouldn't recommend this as a beginner project.

 

 



Rather better progress has been made on the sewing front.  I made some more wide leg trousers.  This time a little more fitted and from Simplicity 3688 which is a released 1940s pattern.

 

I used my buttonhole foot.  Can you spot the mistake! 

Using the foot is easy but starting in the right place isn't.  It took ages to unpick and then I tried again.

I also tried my first concealed hem, which is OK but I think in future I would go back to hand hemming.

I'm very pleased with the fit of the trousers (not very good photo)

- they are quite tight especially since I made the size 14 (and I normally buy size 12), but the fabric picks up every single little hair (and they appear to be coming from a pet we don't even have!).  I'll probably make these again in better fabric, as I think I could actually wear these to work.

I'm also making this pattern, Butterick 6887.

 

It's a reproduction one and is a size 38, so I made a muslin first (which sounds awfully professional!)

 

 

This did help as the pattern was far too big!  I still had a lot of problems though.  Somehow I ended up making it a tiny bit small, I stitch the facing on wrong and the pattern for the bow was far too short, plus the very cheap material actually looked pretty cheap.  So this is as far as I got

 

and I'm not feeling the love, so it's going into the cupboard for the time being and I'm going to try again with some other fabric.

 

Dan and Gemma are now home from Uni and we are waiting for their results, so we've been out and about a bit.  Some antiquing, a suitcase which will hold the table settings at the wedding and a funky retro cocktail shaker.

 

 

We've finally seen the Great Gatsby, lovely costumes and we enjoyed it a lot.

 

 

                                      

 

We had our first picnic of the year

 

 

and some lovely walks

 

 

Another busy week coming up and one night in Swindon.  Hope you have had some sun and fun and thanks very much for any comments you leave.