Teal/green hoodie - Butterick 6101

Another piece of fabric give to me when my mother when she retired her stash was this lovely teal/green merino wool, also from Manawatu Knitting Mills.

Using the same pattern as this, this and this - Butterick 6101 (ca.1980), with all the same adjustments, once again it has a self-lined the hood and body.

Simplicity 6068 grey wool houndstooth jacket

Late last year, my mother and I were browsing in an Op Shop and spying a piece of wool jersey, I commented "You don't see fabric like this anymore". Returning home, she disappeared into her sewing room, and reappeared sometime later with a lovely piece of grey houndstooth wool jersey. She can't remember exactly how long she'd had it, but for many years. Would I like it? "Yes please!" I love the kind-of punk fading check pattern.

There was about 1.2 metres (a rough-cut metre), x 1.4m wide, not much more than a skirt length. But it didn't feel like a skirt to me. At first I entertained the idea of making a tunic dress, before settling on a short jacket. From my own stash I pulled Simplicity 6068 a pattern from 1983, but soon realised there wasn't going to be enough fabric even to make that, so I need to get creative.

To achieve the fade from hem upwards, the body pieces had to be cut on the crosswise grain (hem on the selvage), while the sleeves were cut on the lengthwise grain. But there still wasn't enough fabric. I scoured the shops until I found matching grey leather in The Fabric Warehouse and cut a yoke and pocket trims. It was a very tight squeeze, the facings are scraps patched together, and there are virtually no left-overs.

I'm very happy with the results, and as you can see by the rumpled photos, it has been worn a few times already.

Leaf Patch for Jeans - free pattern!

My comfy old jeans have for some time now been relegated to wearing only while gardening or cleaning the house. They recently got a hole in the knee, but because there’s still life left in them, I’ve patched them.

I made the leaf template/pattern myself by scanning a leaf I found in a park, then tracing over the image in Adobe Indesign. Feel free to download the attached jpg (simply click on the image and copy/drag to your desktop) to use for yourself - its scaled to fit an A4 page.

Patching is a great way to use up your favourite scrap fabrics, and you can pretty much use any fabrics (ok, probably not chiffon!) - simply fuse lighter weight fabrics to give them more body, and if you do this before you cut them out, you halve the amount of cutting you’ll need to do.
Using heavy duty machine thread in a contrasting colour, attach upper leaf bits to lower leaf bits using a zigzag stitch on a regular sewing machine. I set the stitch length fairly short (2 on my Elna) and the stitch width at the widest setting (4 on the Elna) because I still wanted it to look like zigzag, but be tight enough so the fabric wouldn’t fray too much.
 

Make it easier to attach patches to the jeans by splitting open the side seam (the one with no top-stitching).
(At this stage, I put a patch on the back to make it super strong for kneeling down in the garden, etc, but you can skip this bit.)
 

Hand baste the patches in place. Once your happy with the placements, zigzag around the whole outside, then zigzag any raw edges inside to complete the leaf shapes.
Finally, re-sew the side seam, and enjoy!

Time = 3 hours approximate.
Let me know how you get on - I’d love to see your results!