The fabric is the heavy tencel from merchant and mills, that I bought many years ago to make some Miller trousers with. That pattern didn't massively work for me though on my first go, so I just left the fabric sitting in the stash. It's perfect for this tough, it's substantial, but also super drapey. And these trousers have a lot of swish to them, so drape is ideal. One thing about it though is that it is extremely frayey, and if I did this again I think I would overlock everything before I started sewing the pieces together to save me from having to snip the frayey bits off after

The pattern I've obviously made many times before, and I didn't use the instructions, so nothing to report other than I still haven't figured out how much I need to shorten the legs by. I took (I think) 10cms off before cutting out but this still has a massive hem using another 12 cms. I needed these to be wearable outside without soaking up the rain, less of a problem previously with the pyjamas. It might still be a little too long even now!

After I made the trousers, I was pleased to discover I had enough fabric left for an Elizabeth Suzann Georgia top, another of my comfort patterns. I must have made a dozen of these by now! I usually French seam these but given what I learnt about the fabric fraying I decided to overlock and topstitch down instead. The pattern has a bias binding piece to make it in the fabric, which I do sometimes do, but with this fabric I'm pretty sure that would have ended in disaster, so I used shop bought

Patterns: peppermint samford set trousers, Elizabeth Suzann Georgia tee in the shortest length

Size: G for the trousers, one size for the top

Fabric: merchant and mills heavy tencel

Adjustments: shortened the trousers by 16 (?) cms. Finished the neckline of the top with shop bought bias binding

Anyway, bad sewing machine luck notwithstanding, the jacket is now finally finished.

It is the Tracey, a chore jacket with a lot of details. Nice style lines and a lot of topstitching and four pockets which you can't see at all on this, but it's all there! I also really liked that it is shaped for women, and not completely straight/unisex as many chore jackets are. So it fits over my hips without being loose on top which is nice. I actually think this would also be nice in a lighter fabric as a shirt. 

I'd never used a Minerva Exclusive pattern before, I was impressed. They're printed on normal A0 paper, not tissue paper, and the instruction booklet is a glossy A4 book.

There are two size ranges, misses is the smaller sizes with a B cup and women the larger with a D cup. Based on my measurements, I could have gone for either size H (third largest in misses) or size K (smallest in women). I went for H. I think my thinking was that this gives me the flexibility to go both up and down, although given this is a pre-printed paper pattern and it’s now cut out in the H size, that is not particularly likely to actually happen. In didn’t make any adjustments and this fits me well, including going over the hips comfortably, which is where i usually struggle, and there’s no problem with the cup size either,

The fabric is another new Minerva Exclusive print on demand base, the stretch woven denim twill (there’s also a dfenim without stretch, which I’ve not tried). It is cotton with 2% Lycra `nd it's got 20% stretch widthways. It feels very stable to sew, not drapey at all, it’s not so much stretchy as it has a bit of give. I would describe it as a medium weight, although Minvera describe it as medium to heavy. My needle did struggle through it a bit where there were loads of layers you had to topstitch through (and broke obviously!). I sewed most of this with my standard universal needle but after I got the machine back I changed to a thicker one and that helped.

The print is called Pearl Pansies, I think it works well for a jacket, I didn't fancy something too multicoloured because printed denim can be a bit naff, can't it. But this is monochrome, but still interesting. It doesn't half hide the pockets though! 

Anyway, that's me, very successful make all round!

Factual details:

Pattern: Minerva Exclusive Tracey Jacket

Fabric: Minerva Exclusive Print on Demand stretch denim twill. The print is called Pearl Pansies

Size: H, no adjustments

I asked on instagram for pattern recommendations but everyone recommended women's ones! I suppose it makes sense because I almost exclusively sew women's clothes and so it makes sense that people who follow me are the same. But obviously something drafted for women is not gonna be ideal for a prepubescent boy.

In the end though I just couldn't fine anything, and I did have the samford set pattern already, so I thought I'd give adjusting that a shot with some stash fabric. 

The top is dartless, and accommodates boobs by being very wide. Ellis chest measurement actually matched that of the smallest size (size A0, and I adjusted it by taking out 2 cms off each side of the side seam, so 8cms altogether. That worked pretty well and I don't think the width needs any further adjusting. 

The top is also cropped, and I planned to lengthen it by 4cms. Alas, I forgot to do the same on the facing, and ended up taking all the length out again in favour of all the insides looking nice and tidy. Ellis is happy with it, but I think it definitely should be lengthened next time.

The trousers were more of an issue. Ellis measurements were quite a bit smaller than the smallest size there, but the pocket construction meant grading down isn't that straightforward so I decided to just go with it as drafted and gather the waist more with the elastic. Again Ellis is happy, but I think this one definitely needs a bit of adjusting. The shorts are a bit flared and ever so slightly skirt like. I think I may need to do another toile before I have a go with the satin.

So I think that's all there is to say about this one, but I'll just leave you with what Dave says it looks like the villain from Lilo and Stitch

Uncanny!

Anyway, I’ve swithered so long about hgow much fabric to order for the satin version, and I can’t find any viscose satin IRL, it will have to wait until after Christmas

Just a quickie today, or some knitting I did in the summer and then forgot about. This is the Rose Petal Bandana by Dagmar Tamura, it’s an easily memorisable repeat, started from the tip, son you can do it in any weight and just keep going until its the sie you want, or you run out of yarn. I’m pretty sure this wont be my last! The yarn is some rowan tweed I was given by a friend

Anyway, I rejigged my plans and decided to make another Sew House Seven Toaster (view 2). This will be my fourth, I'm way too lazy to keep trying new patterns all the time so everything gets made repeatedly. It's a great match for the fabric, and perfect for the season. Dave called me Mrs Claus, hehe.

I made the size L, I think the size range has since been redone cos when I checked it on the Sew House Seven website, it's numerical sizes. I'd be a 12 according to the size chart that is now up, if it makes any difference.

I didn't massively follow the instructions. Possibly as a result of this, the sleeves have ended up ridiculously long. I may end up shortening them at some point but for now I'm happy just scrunching them up my arm if needed.

I think I will wear this lots over the holidays, I’m liking the Christmas vibe!

Factual details below

Pattern: Sew House Seven Toaster sweater, view 2

Size: L 

Fabric: Minerva core range 4 Wale Velour Rib Stretch Knit Cord Fabric in the dark red colour. I had 2.1 metres but this takes 1.5 metres, possibly less. 

Adjustments: none

The pattern is the Vogue 9237 which I've made twice before, both times in African wax, it's such a cute easy to wear shape. The fabric is print on demand on the stonewashed textured cotton, which is a base I love, it's so unusual, and the perfect balance between structure/weight and drapiness. I think it might be my favourite print on demand base, alongside maybe the tencel twill. 

The print is from  the Keechii B collaboration, it's called floral fiesta. I am always here for a bit of bright green, but the pale pink is a departure for me, I don't own anything in this colour at all. I actually found this quite hard to style for winter (I was picturing it bare legs and sandals when I ordered it), I've gone with fuchsia pink, which I think works pretty well!

I had some issues with tightness around the arms on one of my other versions, so I added a small (3cm? I can't remember) full biceps adjustment to the sleeves, and I'm really happy with how loose they're feeling. On my previous versions I used a hook and eye to fasten it at the back, but for this I added a button and button hole, which feels more secure, the hook does have a tendency to come apart. I think I might go back and add buttonholes to the other two dresses actually 

The other way in which this is different is that I seem to have ended up with a slight hi-lo hem, I'm not really sure why, that's not happened on the other two. I like it though!

I also used up all my fabric scraps by making a tote bag and some scrunchies!

Details: 

Pattern: Vogue 9237

Fabric: 2.5 metres stonewashed textured cotton from the Minerva Print on demand range. The print is floral fiesta from the Keechii B range

Size: L

Adjustments: 3m full biceps adjustments, swapped the back closure for a button

I settled on the Maddie Harvey Nettle Earnest, which is a boxy top that is made of one big piece seamed together at the edges with just a bit of shaping round the shoulders/sleeves. I mostly knit this in work calls, apart from the shaped bits, it's so straightforward. 

The yarn was heavier than the pattern called for but I swatched (!) and it worked out ok with me just making the second smallest size. It's so boxy fitting isn't massively essential anyway.

The pattern as drafted is longer at the back and has a vent at the side, but since I had limited yarn I wasn't able to do that, I actually ended up having to make even the front pink band narrower than it said. I started from the front, did the pink band, knitted up one skein of the grey and changed to the pink for the shoulders, and back to the second skein of the grey. I then didn't have quite enough for the back bottom band, so unravelled the front one and divided the yarn into two by weight to make them even. 

I also made a mistake when changing from the grey to the pink yarn and as a result the upper band had ended up the wrong way round with a really bobbly texture instead of the broken rib intended. I kind of like it! It's just as well I had to redo the bottom bands anyway, so I could make them wrong side to match

I'm super happy with this and finally having used up the yarn from all this time ago!

The fabric is tencel twill, which I generally love! You used to not be able to get it in prints much, but now it's a print on demand base for Minvera I am a happy bunny. This is my second time using this base, and I do think it's changed ever so slightly, what I used before was a smidge lighter and more stable than this, which has quite a substantial feel but is drapier, and also quicker to fray. I wonder if the fabric supplier has changed? I like both kinds though!

The pattern is from the Terrance Williams collaboration, he is a fashion/print designer, one of the big Minerva collaborators. This lovely uneven dash design is called Tender Tally

Even though this was my second time making this pattern, I had a bit of nightmare and a lot of things went wrong. Because the fabric is quite slinky, I don't think my cutting was super accurate, and combined with a bit of stretching out, I ended up with one collar piece being like two cms higher than the other. I managed to fix it, but pulling threads out of the fabric in the unpicking, so it's not perfectly neat. It’s also very sloightly lower on the side that was initially higher. But it will do, I don't think any non sewing people would notice

There was also a couple of things I ended up not fixing. Firstly, despite thinking very carefully about fabric direction for the different pattern pieces, I managed to somehow cut the two sleeve bands in different directions, so one has the dashes going vertical, and one horizontal. I do have enough fabric to recut one side, but I'm worried I'd fray the bit where it attaches and then it would be worse. Plus I’m lazy and I think it's a fun 'spot what's wrong' thing!

The other thing that went wrong is three of the four button holes didn't work on first go, so they have a line of failed button hole lines next to the successful ones I eventually managed to make. I don't want to unpick these because that definitely would destroy the fabric. I'm never very good with automatic button holes, I think the reason these went wrong in particular is that the placket is very narrow, and the hole went into the bit where all the seam allowances are, ie through four layers of fabric and 2 interfacing. I wonder if I should have done the holes vertical actually!

Anyway, all of these problems notwithstanding I really like this dress! The fabric has such a nice feel and it looks great. I particularly like the dashes running in different directions

Details for the end:

Pattern: Seamwork Jo

Size: 12 (I think? I had this cut out from ages ago)

Fabric: 2.5 metres of tencel twill print on demand from Minerva

Adjustments: apart from doing one button less, none

I ordered this fabric with the intention of making a Sew Liberated Ember dress with it, but when it arrived it was so full on summery that I started thinking using it for a long sleeve dress wouldn't make sense. I did think this lovely floaty lawn would be perfect for some summer pyjamas though, so I changed my plans to the Peppermint Samford Set, drafted by Sew to Grow for Peppermint magazine

I made this in two bits starting with the top, which I'd not made before. It's a nice boxy, slightly cropped button up shirt with a camp collar. It's quite loosely fitting, and in this lawn for me the feel is definitely pyjamas, but sized down one in an ever so slightly substantial fabric, this would definitely work as a daytime shirt. It actually uses fairly minimal fabric, it says 1.5 metres, but I'm pretty sure less than that. 

The trousers I've made twice before, once in a double gauze and once in a check flannel. I use both of these as pyjama bottoms, though I think they would work as outdoor ones too. 

I made the size G according to my measurements. I didn't  do any adjustments to the top, but did a full seat adjustment on the trousers as usual and also shortened them by 10 cms. They are *extremely* long as drafted. I reckon it I were ever to make them as proper trousers, I would shorten them even more, maybe fully cropped actually. They are very wide so it's a lot of fabric swishing around your ankles. I also ommitted the drawstring, because I don’t see the point of that if there is also elastic, and topstitched the elsatic down instead.

I didn't follow instructions for the trousers, because elasticated waist trousers are my comfort zone, but I did for the shirt and they are good quality, no complaints. One thing I woukld say though is that this overestimates the amount of fabric wildly. The patterns calls for 4.3 metres, I had 4.1, but I have at least 50 full cms left over. I did shorten the trousers I guess, but still!

Details Summary:

Pattern: Peppermit Samford Set

Fabric: Print on Demand Supina Cotton Lawn in the Summer Pastures print from Minerva, roughly 3.6 metres

Size: G

Ajustments: Full Seat adjustment on the trousers, shortened them by 10cms, ommitted the drawstring

Usually when we travel to cities we go round looking for speciality coffee places which there were surprisingly few in Helsinki. I think the reason is that the coffee is really good everywhere. Finland has the biggest per head coffee consumption in Europe, and you can tell. When we were buying teabags in the supermarket there was one option and one option only, but two whole shelves full of coffee. Everywhere has filter coffee in big vats they just give you a cup and you help yourself and it's really cheap. I couldn't work out if the cup also entitled you to refills but I wouldn't be surprised. We went to a tiny takeaway type sushi restaurant with three tables and even they had the coffee and it was free. And somehow good quality, not that overstewed stuff you get at conferences. 

There were two coffee places work mentioning. The first is Helsinki Coffee Roaster (on google maps by its Finnish name Helsingin Kahvipaahtimo) in Vallila was the one speciality coffee place we went to, and the reason we even went to Vallila. More of a shop really, with just one table inside and two outside, but a fun random vintage things interior.

The other notable coffee place we went to was Cafetoria near the rock church, which specialises in Latin American coffee and also sells delicious empanadas. 

Back to food, here is the places we ate I can remember the names of:

Green Hippo in Kallio. This is not quite vegetarian but very heavy on the fresh raw/minimally cooked vegetables. I had a bowl with all the things and the others had a chicken broccoli and black rice salad thing (main picture for this post)

Levain is a very instagrammy bakery/ brunch place. There are three branches, we went to the one near the Kamppi flea market which I think is the original.

Olivia in Central station, a pizza restaurant with a really lovely interior in a big arch

Fuji Biyori, a small Japanese restaurant and sake bar with counter seating and really nice interiors. The  menu was small and fancier/more expensive than we expected, but we had the ramen which wasn't and was lovely. 

Everest Katanjanokka, a Nepalese restaurant on the Katanjanokka island (?) to the east of the main harbour, in a street with some really cool art deco houses. The guy was super chatty and the food was delicious. The boys had butter chicken and I think this might actually be the nicest sauce of that I've tasted. One funny thing was that he warned Dave twice that the biryani was spicy but it wasn't at all.

We had food on both of the islands we visited, the pizza place on Suomenlinna was meh, but the cafe on Seurasaari was great. I had a baked potato with salmon which was a proper sauce with dill, not your usual baked potato filling. As close to actual Finnish food as I got on this trip, strangely.

We also had sushi in Vallila in a place I can't remember the name of and burgers from the chain Friends & Brgrs which has an excellent sounding varied menu that was just fine, it didn't quite deliver on how good it sounded

The fabric is Liberty lawn I bought in a destash some years ago and haven't ever known quite what to do with. 2 metres isn't quite enough for a dress in my size and anyway, I'm not sure lawn is substantial enough for a dress, I prefer slightly weightier fabrics for skirts. It is pretty perfect for this though, it presses beautifully of course. I was in two minds about whether to use interfacing for the collar or not,

I decided to in the end and it works well. I didn't put any in the button band though

Other than that, I didn't do anything differently from last time. 

Quick fire details:

Pattern: Style Arc Archie

Fabric: Liberty lawn

Size: 14

Adjustment: body lengthened by 15cms

The central station is a very cool art nouveau building with giants holding up laterns as pillars. Weirdly this was the thing that made Dave think of Helsinki as a place to go and also was the only thing I could have told you about Helsinki before I started researching for this trip, because I saw the giant statues dressed in the green Käärijä jackets for Eurovision 2023.

Suomenlinna, a fortress island that predates the actual city and is a UNESCO world heritage site. Mainly just a nice island to walk around, there are a couple of local history museums, old houses, wee crafty shops and workshops, cafes and restaurant and a submarine for some reason, all in a nice walking loop.  The ferry you get over was included in our week ticket. Apparently it's a hipster place to actually live. Not sure if I'd want to live somewhere with so many people walking about, mind!

Seurasaari, another island, with an open air museum of historic buildings from all over Finland that have been brought there you can see the different architectural styles, with some people in historic costumes to explain stuff. You access the island by a bridge, and you can actually just walk around it, the museum fee is just go go into the houses. You have to get a bus there (or you could cycle) the bus ride is a nice one that takes you past the Sibelius monument, and some beaches and harbours.

The Sibelius monument is a large metal structure for the late 19th-early 20th century composer. I actually expected this to be slightly larger than it is, and to somehow be pipes that make a sound. But it's still cool and there's a good playpark next to it

Rock church. This is a big circular church whose walls are dug into a rock, and it has a big domed copper roof. There's also a rock garden on the hill it makes, which weirdly had several sunbathers in.

Pasila street art area. This is an area with lots of amazing streetart. I was wxpwcting something hipstery like Prenzlauerberg in Berlin, but actually it's a residential area with lots of 1960s (?) apartment blocks, that was also weirdly deserted. There are a lot of concrete walkways and underpasses, and that's where all the streetart is.

From Pasila we walked (along a not super pleasant wide road, but if you come from the centre is nicer) to Vallila, which is an area of low rise wooden houses in the middle of all the apartment blocks. We didn't spend huge amounts there, cos we had all the wooden houses in our commuter town, but it is definitely different from the rest of the city!

Kiasma museum of contemporary art. We walked past this and were attracted by some big inflatables in this museum, and then it turned out it was free entry the next day (first Friday of the month) and it was really fun. The inflatables were petroleum chamical compounds, part of an exhibition by Kuwait artist Monira al Qadiri about her country, and there was another great exhibition about the use of different materials. Obviously depends on the exhibitions. There are several big contemporary art museums you can visit.

There are two central lakes just north of the station that are nice to walk around, and have various things on the shore, like the Olympic stadium, an Alvarado Aalto designed concert hall, old wooden houses in a surprising state of disrepair, various playgrounds and place where you can rent canoes

North west of one of the lakes is the Kallio area, which is as close to a hipster area as we found, with various vintage shops, colourful buildings and some excellent traffic calming street furniture I got very excited about. A few pictures from there in the first post.

Kamppi flea market. The day we went here was the one say the weather wasn’t great, so ut was quite quiet, with lots of lots not taken. But some fun stalls with lots of homewares and Marimekko, on aq sunnier day this would have been brilliant.

To get to Kamppi on foot you walk through an area called the design district, which has lots of fancy interior design shops and a few clothes one. This had the most interestingly designed buildings we saw, some really cool art deco stuff. And the most amazing shop selling handmade small batch toys/trinkets. Not really for kids! Some extremely fun Russian dolls (my fave was the vegetable one), and the walls are painted in multicolour stripes that merge into the shelves. Only open very infrequently but definitely an experience!

Part 3 will be about cafes and restaurants!

I’ve split this post up to keep the length manageable and to squeeze more pictures in!

We left it quite late to decide where we were going and by the time we had finally committed a lot of the airbnbs were gone, and what was left was either not that nice or very expensive. We eventually found the place we stayed in, which is not in Helsinki proper, but a commuter town called Tapanila about 13 kilometres from the centre. This turned out to be an absolutely excellent decision! The guest house was in the ground floor of an old wooden house, with a terrace leading directly onto a garden with a trampoline and a basketball hoop, and directly next to a playground, a football pitch and a basketball court. And a sauna inside! The actual space inside was quite small, and we didn't all sleep in the same room but because of all the outdoor space that didn't matter.

And because Helsinki public transport is so amazing, it actually took less time to get into the centre than it would have from most of the apartments inside the city. 15 minutes on the train and a train every 10 minutes!  We got a seven day ticket (you can get any amount of days up to 13, the first day is €12, but then just €6 a day after that) which meant we could get on any tram, bus or public ferry. All the buses and trams have screens and announcements for stops, and the app with the routes works really well, so you always know exactly where you are. That being said though, Helsinki is pretty compact, so we did do a lot of walking too. But it was nice to have the option to jump on a tram. The cycle infrastructure was also excellent, or course, and there really wasn't huge amounts of cars driving about and they actually stuck to the speed limit, which I don't think I have ever experienced anywhere else.

As always with these trips, a lot of the best stuff was just to see the city go about its business. One of the great things about this trip was that it's not at all touristy. Lots of stuff was signed and explained in English, and everyone we interacted with spoke English. But you didn't see loads of tourists and there isn't a touristy central core of the city like there is in most places

In terms of structure, the city is almost entirely mid density (5-8 storey) apartment blocks, with the exception of the wooden house area Vallila, we didn't come across any areas that were single family houses or mansions. There are lots and lots of parks though, and people are using them. In particular there was loads of people in them sunning themselves in bikinis/swimming trunks, which I found quite strange!

Anyway, I thought this fabric I had was perfect for that. I think I maybe bought it in Edinburgh fabrics? I do remember I intended it to be a Seamwork Jo. But I've made quite a few dresses recently and I generally prefer trousers day to day. The colours in this are quite full on but it's summer, right?

I chose the style arc bobs and the Elizabeth Suzann Georgia, both of which once made a million times and can do in my sleep. They are both very fabric efficient patterns, so I was able to get both out of the three metres I had. There's just a tiny bit left which I think I'll do a few scrunchies with if it's long enough. 

So yeah, nothing much to report on the construction or anything, so just the usual details

Patterns: style arc bobs, Elizabeth Suzann Georgia

Sizes: 16 (I think?), one size

Fabric: cotton African wax

Adjustments: full seat adjustment on the trousers.

The fabric is some linen viscose I got from a friend, she was getting rid of it as she thought it was too pale to suit her. I don't usually wear these sort of colours either but I was persuaded to give it a try because it is so pretty. She thought there was 2.5 metres, and the pattern called for 2.9, which seemed doable to me. Except there was only actually 2.35, and that wasn't quite possible. I ended up shortening the skirt pieces by 10cms, and that was enough, and I probably could have got away with just shortening by 7. So I reckon 2.5 actually should be just about doable. Maybe 2.6 to be on the safe side. In any case, this pattern is drafted for 5'7" and in 5'4" so it being shorter is definitely not a problem

I was overconfident and only skimmed the instructions and that bit me in the bum slightly, as I missed that you need an absolute ton of bias binding to finish the wrap fronts and sleeve hems and also some elastic for the waist. Fortunately I had just about enough of both to make it work, phew!

I also don't know if I followed the instructions properly anyway, as it seemed to be suggesting that you finish the curve with bias binding and then turn it over again, which sort of defeats the point of using it in the first place? I probably didn't read it properly. In any case, just attaching it to the inside worked perfectly fine. 

Speaking of turning things under a couple of times, this fabric is on the thick side and in places you have to get through four layers, which my standard needles struggled with a bit. The other thing I struggled with was threading the elastic through the waist. The channel is made out of the bottom on the bodice and the top of the skirt, so there are a lot of seams with folded over seam allowance to get past. I ended up having to unpick the channel at the two side seams.

One thing I would do if making this again is to line the waist ties, because this fabric does have an obvious wrong side, which you can see when it's tied up. It does suggest doing that in the instructions, but my the point I got to this step I just wanted to finish it, plus I'm not sure I would have had enough fabric anyway. 

So that's quite a lot of problems I've had with this, but I actually really like this pattern and am very happy with the result. It's an interesting and clever construction and it's something different for me, including the colour. This makes me feel as if I'm going to the royal garden party!

Factual details at the end as usual!

Pattern: Elbe textiles Homme wrap dress (view A)

Size: G, C/D cup option

Fabric: 2.35 metres of mystery linen viscose

Adjustments: possibly I did the bias binding wrong?

Mostly people seem to have made the versions with the ruffles on the sleeves and/or the skirt, but I fancied something a bit more streamlined.

I made the size 42, which it says needs 2.5 metres. I had 3 metres, and I'm pretty sure I have a full metre left. Need to experiment to see if this is actually possible to squeeze out of 2!

The fabric is from Minerva, it's one of the bases for their Print on Demand service. It's called linen look cotton and it's my favourite of their bases I've tried yet, after the tencel (I LOVE tencel). It has a textured feel, but it's not slubby. It's just the right kind of weight and it cuts really easily/accurately. The print is called Falling Fronds.

The buttons are from my stash, I was given a massive tin of buttons years ago, and it's usually hard to find matching sets, but I have lots of these olivey ones, so I'm happy I can finally use them

Nothing more to report on sewing this up, I didn't make any adjustments and followed the instructions as written, and it all went smoothly. I used to find button up shirts a bit intimidating, but I've done enough now that I don't worry about it any more. Not quite at the stage where I don't need instructions, but I'm getting there!

Hoping to make another one of these dresses soon!

Factual details as always:

Pattern: Deer and Doe Mysosotis dress, view B

Size: 42

Fabric: Minerva Exclusive Print on Demand Linen Look Cotton, in the Falling Fronds design

Adjustments: none

I chose this Archie woven shirt from Style Arc fairly randomly, I didn't do a lot of research, it just looked fun with the Barry trousers its paired with by Style Arc (which I also plan to make) and it doesn't take a lot of fabric. 

It says 1.5 metres for up to the size 14 (which is what I made), and 1.7 metres for the sie range up from that. I would say that's pretty spot on, I had a 1.7 metre bit of (what it said was) 1970s fabric I bought in a vintage shop years ago, and I have some left over. The fabric is cotton, and pretty weighty, so it's come out quite structured, which I like.

I didn't do any adjustments at all, just followed as it was written. I thought the instructions were clear (not always the case with Style Arc) but obviously not that detailed, as is their style. Doing a burrito yoke always messes with my head and it feels like a total gamble whether it will work or not. I'm not sure why, it's never gone wrong for me but somehow I don't trust it still. Anyway, it did work perfectly fine!

I've worn this loads since making it, I think it being navy but not plain works really well for me. One thing I will say about this is that this shirt is VERY cropped, more than it looks in the pattern illustration. Maybe it's in account of my boobs, I don't know, but if I make another one I will definitely lengthen it quite substantially. But that's for another post!

Trying again with a video

Factual details to finish off

Pattern: Style Arc Archie woven shirt

Size: 14

Fabric: vintage cotton the heavy side of medium

Adjustments: none

These are the Archer Work Pants by Matchy Matchy Sewing Club (not to be confused with the Archer button up by Grainline of the Worker Trousers by Modern Sewing Company). They're elasticated waist, and barrel legged, with a lot of details. The leg shape is achieved by darts at the knee and they hem, and there's squint patch pockets at the front sewing into the side seam, more standard patch pockets at the back, and an inseam panel you can do in a contrasting colour for extra interest, as I did here.

For fabric I used a pretty substantial linen cotton in a slightly grey ish navy from fabworks, and some medium weight chambray for the inseam bit and the back pockets. The two are not a perfect match, but it works ok.

I am surprised these worked as well as they did, because when I first saw the pattern pieces, I thought no way were these going to fit me. The main front and back trouser pieces are extremely long, and very narrow. Partly the length is because these don't have a separate waistband, but rather the tip is folded over, but even so, the curved bit on the back is TINY. I always do a 4-5cm full seat adjustment on any trousers, and it was actually quite hard to find the centre of the curve that you spread it from. Somehow it worked out though!

I think if I was trying to perfect this, I’d need to move the back pockets up a bit so they sit on the bum rather than just below. Ideally I'd also want to remove a bit of length in the seat in favour of some fullness, but I can't think of how to do that, without then also having to redraft the contrast inner leg band. So I think that is slightly beyond my commitmnt to fitting, as long as it doesnt impede my movement I’m not that bothered what my back looks like.

I really liked the instructions on this, the diagrams were very clear. There are open darts (if that's how you say it. You fold it like a normal dart but only sew along half way to the tip) on the knees which I'd never done before and caused me some head scratching. But I can't really fault the instructions and just following them step by step was ok. And now I know how to do it!

Overall, I love these trousers. The darts make this a bit special, and I think these have the potential to replace (or come joint with) the Bobs for my go to trousers.

Experimenting with adding video on here, it seems to have desaturated it and made it small, which I can’t seem to change, but good to see the outfit in movement!

This loopback French Terry I picked for them is a little lighter than I expected, but actually that works perfectly for the pattern, less bulk in the waistband.

I made a size 14 which is what I had the pettern cut out to. Looking at it now I wonder if sizing up, or doing even more of a full seat adjustment would have been good. They're kind of a different level of looseness in the front and bag. But actually when I shared them in a Me Made May post someone specifically commented on how well they fit. In any case, I don't think I can be bothered to reprint and cut the pattern.

The adjustments I did were a small full seat adjustment, and width added to the ankle bands because if you don't use ribbing or something with a lot of stretch they're really too tight to get over your heel otherwise. I also omitted the drawstring, cos I don't really see the point of that if there's already elastic in there.

Looking forward to getting plenty of wear out of these.