Sunday 21 June 2009

Small projects


I've been washing, mending and altering some warm clothes from op shop finds. A long grey woollen skirt reminiscent of winters in 1910, black wool ski pants that Audrey Hepburn may have worn in Charades, a 1960ish olive wool cardy in need of pocket removal and button replacement and a very bright red woollen waistcoat.


I love this rather boxy style with its raglan sleeves and now it has its cheery buttons I've worn it a lot.
While it took a month to finish the cardy, I whizzed through the waistcoat in an afternoon.
The waistcoat came in at the waist, a style I'm not keen on, so I made it nicely boxy too with kantha-style quilted edging. This was really fun to sew, and it's extremely comfy to wear.

I used up some strips a friend gave me from her recent quilt so the back and front edges are a bit different. Sewing good cotton to fine wool is very pleasurable. I might use a length of wool I found as a backing for the pieced cotton top of a child's quilt I'm working on, instead of using wool batting and a cotton backing as I'd first planned. Two layers will be light, warm and washable.


It's cold enough now for the dogs to welcome a bit of wool too, despite their thick winter fur.


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