Summer Sewing

I begged and borrowed sewing machines on my summer holidays to whip up a couple of projects.

The shorts are 17 shorts denim from Patrones No. 328.    I had been planning on making capris, but I took the wrong piece of fabric with me, so had to flick through the couple of magazines with me to find something else.  The Patrones patterns often have interesting little details.  This one does not use a zipper in the fly.  The shorts are relatively low-waisted, so the fly is rather short, and then they use 2 buttons instead of a zip.  Both buttons show on the outside, so it is a bit different to making a button fly. 

I didn't make a muslin and then they turned out to be too low and too gaping in the back.  So I pinned out the gaping, removed the back yoke, cut a new yoke about 5 cm higher at CB taping to nothing at the side seams and reinserted the yoke.  A bit of a hassle, but it turned out okay.  Next time I sew these, it would probably be good to add a little to the height of the sides as well.  I left off the belt loops, as I never wear belts.  These would be perfect in a non-stretch fabric, but stretch out a bit over the day (in spite of using non-stretch interfacing in the waist-band), so I am considering adding some side tabs.

The fabric is a lovely quality, very smooth denim.

The top was designed to use a tiny remnant of fabric with a peacock feather print.  My shirt-dress was the last garment I sewed before the holidays, and the pattern was still out when I was packing, so I took it with me and used it to make this top.  I left off the collar and played around with the front bib bit to create a pleated, wrap sort of bib insert. 

 

 The wrap bit looked lovely but was a bit of a wardrobe malfunction.  I think sewing wraps closed loses some of the effect, so I sewed a stay on the inner layer instead, which you can see if you look closely not quite halfway down the bib.  It works rather well, but the first time I tried to photograph this top was on the beach in gale force winds, and it doesn't actually hold up in gale force winds...so I won't be wearing this in a cyclone.