Southern India

Images from my travels to Southern India (Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu) and Gujarat 2015-16.
To see more, go to a kiwi in india

Ayana’s Homestay, Alleppey (http://www.ayanashomestay.com/) - highly recommend

Kerala spiced fish - yummy!

Zigzag blouse - vintage Simplicity 3120 (©1959)

Making notes of fitting changes made to patterns is a habit I really need to get into. I have a notebook for this purpose, which has been used, though clearly not as often as it needs to be. Here's the perfect example of how it all can go so wrong when it's not written down.

I used vintage Simplicity 3120 to make this lovely dress earlier this year. The dress is super comfortable and gets heaps of compliments, so I decided to re-use the pattern to make a blouse out of a piece of cotton purchased through TradeMe ($7 for 1.2m + bits). Thinking I didn't make any fitting alterations to the pattern, I cut out just the bodice pieces (and the sleeves this time), adding 20cm to the hem curving upwards towards the side seams like I did for the Crêpe de Chine blouse.

It went together so swimmingly I didn't bother trying it on until I'd finished - I'd already made it once, so it should be ok, right?

Wrong, so wrong. The back neck gapped. Whaaaaat! How did that happen? So I hummed-and-hawed for a bit, then decided really I didn't care enough to unpick and re-cut it, instead coming up with a cunning plan to run a gathering stitch through the neck edge by hand. It took about a minute, and I actually quite like the finished effect. See for yourself in the lower right image.

So once again Jeannie Gandar's saying "Make a feature out of a flaw" has paid gold.