Making lemonade out of a lemon.

We all know what the lemon was.



Here's the lemonade: Burda 9828. Cut one piece out of each leg. This fabric is so perfect for this use because we use cloth nappies with our son and commercially purchased trousers are often too small in the butt. With 30% crosswise stretch everything fits very nicely. The green is a little bit pastelly so I manned the pattern up by adding their optional cargo pockets and adding some navy blue buttons.

Righty ho that's enough sewing for someone else let's get back to more important matters: sewing for me.

It has been said several times, and in a manner not meant to be flattering, that I am a person who always has to have the last word. So this is not the last you have heard of Burda 07-2009-102. I have already sized it up with another straight-legged pattern that works well for me and added about an inch an half to the front leg so we are good to remake this number as soon as I get some appropriate fabric.

If you enjoy other people's wadders, check these out.

Worst. Project. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever.



However, I have to say I learned some very useful lessons and you know the saying, "what doesn't kill you, only makes you a better sewer." Or words to that effect.

I learned that

1) not all stretch corduroys are created equal
2) the primary use of stretch corduroy is for skinny jeans, and skinny jeans are for skinny people.

Can you see what made me fall in love with the pattern though (BWOF 07-2009-102)? It was this dinky little flap extension and the slanted squared off pockets. I also felt the straight leg had potential, but it is a very narrow straight leg and I prefer something a little wider.



But because I realised very early on I had a wadder on my hands, I experimented with finish, and practised edgestitching and catching the inside facing of the waistband at the same time. Normally that produces horrendous results for me. One side is always wonky. The secret, blog sewing friends, is the edge foot on your machine.



Sewing on the inside, you run the bar along the joining seam and position the needle slightly to the left. It automatically catches it evenly on both sides.

The Wadder Wallet:
fabric - 8 bucks, zip+cotton 4 bucks, 1 piece of tissue 2 bucks, Interfacing 1 buck = $15 bucks of landfill liner.

ps Miri, not even for gardening, or mucking the cows.

The "f" words.

To a home sewer, the big 4 "f" words for successful projects are:

- fit: tailoring the pattern to your body
- finish: sewing everything nicely and neatly and accurately
- fashion: choosing a style that suits you
- fabric: matching the weight and hand of the fabric to the design of the garment


I fell down BIG time on the last one. I decided to make a pair of cords in Burda 07-2009-102, and sewed them in a stretch corduroy. Since I have sewed stretch corduroy before, I was lulled into a false sense of security about its properties, thinking they were all alike.

Wrong. Only after I sewed these pockets and they stretched out did I stop to measure exactly how much stretch was in them. 30%. That's HUGE. That's MASSIVE. That's like, this is so wrong, so very wrong, for this pattern.

So I added a few more "f" words to my repertoire and thought about what to do.

In comes TMB to the kitchen to find me chortling away to myself.
"what are you laughing about?"
"oh I was just remembering my last pair of green cords."
"and..?"
"they were given to me by my sister for my birthday. They were hideous. She realised she'd made a blunder after buying them and decided to "regift" them to me."
"so why is that so funny?"
"I've just remembered it's her birthday at the end of this month."

Still wearing the pants.

If you thought the bargains I got at Nick's looked too good to be true, they were. The shipment was meant for the more up market Global Fabrics across town, and there they have been rehoused, with a new and improved price tag.

In the meantime, I've made up the first of the fabrics - this pretty green cotton drill in the same pattern as the previous post (BWOF 05-2009-101) - here I am chanelling my inner air hostess. I'm fond of good flare, me I am.

You know how Gok says the average British woman spends 2000 pounds a year on clothes? I don't know if that's true because a google search told me that is was closer to 800 pounds. And US women spend on average $1800 (US).

In the interests of research I'm going to start totalling how much it costs me to sew a garment.

Air hostess trousers in Nick's special green: fabric 1.8@ $4 a metre = 7.20 + interfacing 2.0 + zipper 50c on special + thread 2.0 + tracing paper - half a packet $3.50

I'm not counting Burda into the cost - that's just for entertainment, making something out of it is a bonus.

= 12.30 NZ dollars. That's what, about 7-8 US dollars.

PS fly on correct side this time.

I really do wear the BWOF 05-2009-101 pants.

The pockets are quite high up - that's because these pants reach to your natural waist - a woman's best friend when it comes to combatting the 'muffin tin' effect.




I once said to my husband, "it's not so much that I wear the pants in this relationship, it's that you wear the skirt." Anyway, he took one look at these pants, and so, "no, you definitely wear the pants." Yes I sewed the front fly man style on the right instead of left.

Now I blame BWOF for this. When they say left, they don't mean left as you are looking at it sewing, they want you to imagine you are the fabric, and if you were the fabric what would be your left fabric self.

Hence the fly sewn man-style. No-one's going to notice and I'm sure not going to bother re-setting it because it's a fancy hidden facings / fly shield number. Fly shields are a nice detail but so unnecessary in womanswear don't you think? It's not like we drop our drawers to use a communal public toilet and need the extra coverage.



You may also have noticed the cotton batiste lining to protect the inevitable thigh chaffing courtesy of lurex threads. I have Kbenco to thank for that handy piece of advice. Funnily enough she then left me another message directing me to a thread where people were discussing the merits of using batiste as lining.

Naturally, the ones who had never done it before were the most sure it shouldn't be done. Well in the privacy of my own blog I get to say that they were wrong - it makes a lovely soft cushion from nasty pointy threads and is impreccably behaved falling nicely without skewing or bulking seams. Any bulk you see in these seams is one hundred percent natural. So there!

I made a couple of changes from the pattern - I eliminated the button and ran the zipper full length. I also added a double belt tab for centre back - a feature I copied from a pair of RTW jeans I had.



Finally, bless me father for I have sinned. I've stashed up big time. When Jenni-from-across-the-road rang to tell me that Nick's fabrics had a shipment of Karen Walker fabrics in for $4 a metre I knew this was the moment to break all the rules. For 60 bucks (about $40 US) I bought this selection of cotton drill, corduroy, silk cupron, silk satin with lycra, cotton lawn and denim. Peacock colours - aren't they stunning?






Trousers - BWOF 05-2009-101
Fabric: cotton lurex from Smart Dress Fabrics, Mt Albert.

the 49th instruction:

Post editing note: here it is finished, and worn with protective long sleeved rayon tunic...



You remember me quipping that an easy pattern did not need 48 fully illustrated instructions: actually I'm going to add another - wear this garment with a full slip, and here's the illustration:



Yep, you are one gust of wind away from a Marilyn moment with this full skirt and unsecured cross over. This dress sure wouldn't pass any "modesty meter" tests. Anyway, privacy of my back yard and the internet, no-one's going to mind but I can tell you I'm going shopping before this baby goes public.



It's actually not finished: I've got to hand sew the hems on both sleeve and hem, but I thought I'd save that treat for America's Next Top Model tonight - then my evening has not been completely wasted on vacuous television.



This dress goes live at our Playcentre fundraiser movie night on Monday. With a week to go and only half the tickets sold it looked like our fundraiser was about to become a fundloser but a last minute shove from the organiser got everyone to sell off their tickets and we sold out.

I am of course, already thinking about my next sewing project, and I've got to a bit of a dead end. I bought this fabric in anticipation of making some pants for summer. It's cotton, but with some lurex in with the weft threads. I wrapped it round my arm and wore it round the house and within 5 minutes I had my answer: it's not comfortable enough to be worn at close quarters. Trousers are out. I toyed with the idea of lining them but then who wants to wear lined pants through a hot sticky summer?




Dress: Butterick 5030
Fabric: Vintage viscose (rayon) from Salvage

Kreativ Blogger - it could be you!

Thanks to Sue who nominated me for the Kreativ blogger award. I saw it was going around, but you never know you luck. (Could be your lucky day blog friends too, stay tuned).

One part is to share 7 things about yourself that blog readers wouldn't know.

1) I have a degree in Classics. The old fashioned kind, Greek and Latin. People always used to ask me, "how are you going to get a job with that? Well, the longest I've ever been unemployed is 6 weeks, ever. It's about education and opportunity and maximizing both.

2) I was raised as one of nine children.

3) I have a volunteer flower arranging job which I do every second Tuesday.

4) My last job was teaching adult literacy. That's when I learned that you teach a person first, and a curriculum second.

5) I meet 2 friends for dinner every Thursday. We have been doing it for years, despite serious illness and major life changes.

6) I am "housekeeping challenged."

7) My husband does not read my blog, and if he must read one, he'll read my sister's in preference. "Yours is just about sewing." JUST ABOUT SEWING. Like that's a bad thing???

He is a very good husband in other respects though so I'm not complaining.


Right now one of the things about being raised as one of nine children is that everything has to be fair and equitable, so I can't just choose 7 people, that would mean leaving worthy people out. So instead I invite anyone who is reading this who would like this to be their lucky day, I nominate you!

I bought back some treasures from my Nelson holiday. My sister gave me "the twins" for my son but he's not allowed to put a sucky licky toothy paw on them, they sit guard in my sewing room. Some toys are just too good to be trashed so early in their lives.



And I got this gorgeous vintage silk. It's so beautiful the only way I'll be brave enough to use it is if I make a muslin of a muslin and then another muslin just to be triple sure.



I am currently working on Butterick 5030 with some other vintage fabric. It's so long that I've sewn anything other than BWOF that I've forgotten quite how easy a pattern already traced and pictorial instructions are.





In fact, I'm looking at all 48 fully illustrated instructions and thinking, "what? do you think I'm a moron?"