A Life Unbalanced

Posted on September 24, 2023 by craftycreeky

It’s been National Balance Week this week, so I thought I’d do my bit to raise awareness of the issues those of us with balance problems face.

Balance is something we all take for granted, we don’t have to think about it in everyday life. There are three main factors which give us balance, vision, leg muscles inner ears. Take one away and we can usually cope, try standing with your eyes closed and you’re probably OK, try standing on one leg with your eyes closed and it’s not so easy.

Balance problems are often caused by inner ear issues, most people have heard or suffered from vertigo when the head spins on movement, usually lasting only a matter of days. Most people are familiar with that unpleasant feeling when you lose your balance, feel unsteady after a few too many drinks, or unsteadiness after a boat trip. Imagine living with that permanently. Meniere’s Disease causes balance issues, sometimes, like with me, the cause isn’t known and it’s just labelled as vestibular failure.

I have no balance from my ears, there are no bad days or good days, it’s just a matter of managing my issues and being aware of my limitations. As I have no balance from my ears, the other two components of balance are pretty vital. Take away vision with poor light and I’m all over the place, brilliant sunshine can do the same, at this time of year the early morning sun is low in the sky and walking towards it causes issues. Visual clues are important, I need horizons, I don’t mean wide distant views, just a linear marker so I know if I’m going off balance. ‘Horizons’ can be hidden by high hedges or even worse, crowds. I hate crowded areas as everything is moving and there’s no horizon. Sometimes building design makes an unexpected difference, there’s a posh shopping centre in Leeds which has a glossy tiled floor with a large zigzag pattern, it’s a nightmare for me to walk on.

Messages from leg muscles are affected by the terrain. Even, flat surfaces are the best for me to walk on, but rarely exist outside buildings. Footpaths can have quite steep camber and lots of uneven areas due to roadworks. I love walking in the countryside, in the Yorkshire Dales or the Lakes, but I do have to choose my route carefully and I always use walking poles. I’m actually better going straight up a hill, I like a bit of scrambling over rocky areas and as it usually involves hands as well as feet I feel alot safer. I struggle with narrow paths that follow the contour round a mountain, not helped by the thought of the consequences of falling! Very soft terrain isn’t good either, though it does make for a soft landing when I fall!

I like to have a third point of contact, particularly when I’m walking. Waliking poles obviously provide it but it might just be lightly brushing a wall with my finger tips, it doesn’t have to be all the time, it just helps. Similarly if I’m decorating up a ladder, I’ll only use one which has a bar across the top so I can rest my knee against it for that contact point.

Balance issues also cause problems with vision. As my brain doesn’t compensate for head movements, everything ‘wobbles’ when my head moves, so I can’t focus on signs for example when walking down the street. I also struggle in supermarkets as I can’t scan the shelves as I’m walking down an aisle, I have to stop to look. It can be tiring having to concentrate all the time on the little things like this.

Other things can have unexpected consequences on my balance, I started some new painkillers earlier this year which instead of just taking at night time, I had to take 3 times a day. It took a while to realise that this was probably why I suddenly had a lot more falls, I’m used to falling out in the countryside, not whilst getting off a bus!! I reduced the day time dose and changed the times I took them and the falls stopped.

Having said all that, I cope, on the whole it’s manageable. I get on with a pretty full and active life, I know my limitations and on the whole I don’t push them. There’s much worse problems to have than this!

If you’ve managed to get through all this, thank you! If you would like more information there’s lots on the VEDA website

Posted in balance | Tagged | 9 Comments

Owl and Hollow HQAL

Posted on September 17, 2023 by craftycreeky

I didn’t think I’d get so much done over these three weeks as I knew I wanted to concentrate on finishing my garden embroidery, however when we went away for a couple of nights the light in the evening wasn’t good enough for that so I stitched the simpler Owl and Hare Hollow blocks instead. This is a quilt designed by Natalie Bird of Birdhouse Quilts in Australia, it’s being released in the Homespun magasine over six issues. The fourth magasine dropped through my letterbox yesterday so I’m about halfway, I say ‘about’ as I’ve not quite finished the ones in the last magasine, I’m getting there though.

Three weeks ago I’d finished the Queen Bee embroidery and just started the next one. I’d made seemingly lots of hexagons to go round them…

Each embroidered block takes nineteen hexagons, it’s meant to be twenty but I can’t fit twenty in the seven inch circle, I gave up trying on block two! I tack them round first then sew the outer edges, then the inner edges, I find this much quicker and easier then sewing one hexagon at a time. I’m trying to do all the blocks in pretty much the same fabrics to get some continuity, it also saves me having to think every time about how the colours and patterns work together. It took long enough to decide which fabric to use for the inner circle!

I cracked on and stitched the next embroidery too. This one has a lovely circle of foliage round the outside which I did in a variegated green. It then has a colourful flower barrow. I enjoyed stitching this one. Last night I finally finished the circle of hexagons.

The next embroidered block was the first one I really wasn’t so keen on. It has a lovely border of leafy branches again but it then had a pair of dressed foxes which somehow looked a little sinister to me!! I decided to change it and found this delightful embroidery pattern from The Embroidery Place on Etsy. One great feature was that you could print it to fit different sized hoops, I think it went from 3″ to 7″. I used the 4″ size and nestled the deer down in the leafy glade. I love this one and think it fits in well with the other embroideries. I just need to stitch the circle of hexagons on.

My pile of hexagons is going down fast, I think I need another mass production line again! I’ve been making even smaller ones over the last couple of days, each side measures 3/8″. I’ve to make six hexie flowers for each block, two blocks in total. I worked out that means I need to make 84 little hexies!! Another block uses the slightly larger hexies to make a single flower. These are the half inch ones, so only 1/8″ bigger on each side so it amazes me how much bigger the final flower comes out…

I’m making three forget-me-not flowers, I haven’t decided yet whether the other three will be the same three blue prints, some lighter blue prints or pink ones.

I’ve also made an applique owl. I’ve used bondaweb rather then needleturn applique and then just back-stitched round. The eyes are meant to be satin stitched but I’m quite tempted to use these tiny buttons which are the perfect size. He’ll have an appliqued circle of arcs round him like the hare I made earlier.

I’ve prepped a load of 2″ squares too for four blocks which take twenty five each, so they are ready to be stitched into a chequerboard once I get a couple of hours free on my sewing machine. Hopefully over the next three weeks I’ll finish all the blocks in the third magazine so I’ll officially be half way.

Hand Quilt Along Links

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Margaret, Deb, Nanette, Sharon, Karrin, Daisy, and Connie

I’ll also be linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, please follow the links to see what everyone has been stitching.

Posted in embroidery, Owl and Hare Hollow BOM, Quilt-a-long, Quilting, Serendipity | Tagged , , | 16 Comments

Stitching my Garden SAL

Posted on September 10, 2023 by craftycreeky

I’m managing to get a few projects finished at the moment and today is time for another happy dance as I’ve managed to finish my last big garden embroidery for my embroidered garden fabric book. I wanted to finish it by the end of August, anticipating a couple of evenings stitching whilst we were away at the end of August, but the light wasn’t good enough, so last night as I watched (and sang along to!) the Last Night of the Proms I set to and got it finished.

Three weeks ago I was working on the left hand side of the Amber and Amethyst garden…

I stitched the bigger plants first such as the Golden Celebrations rose and the peony. I then made the two green circles into a pieris bush and a geum I filled in with veronica, pulmonaria, bluebells, crocosmia, sedum (that purple spodge in the middle!) echinacea and wallflowers.

It surprises me in a way, just how many flowers you can portray from so few types of stitches, the bulk of the flowers are French knots, of various sizes and some with stem stitch surrounds, they make roses, peony, bluebells, crocosmia, buddleia, veronica, pulmonaria… Chain stitch is also well used with clematis, foxgloves, leaves. Other stitches used are fly stitch (iris), straight stitch (geums, geraniums and echinacea) feather stitch, back stitch and straight stitch for stems.

This is the area of the garden I am portraying…

I’m really pleased with how it’s come out, a fair portrayal I think! I decided against adding the table and chairs as it would have been too difficult to get the angles right. This is where we sit on an afternoon or evening to catch the rays, with a cup of tea or a glass of wine.

I still have a couple of less detailed embroideries to do for my book but it’s going on the back burner until after Christmas (probably) as I need to make a birth sampler for my grandson for Christmas. Here’s the three main garden embroideries…

Here’s a little collage of some of the other pages…

This stitch-a-long is organised by Avis from stitching by the sea, we all post our progress on our chosen piece every three weeks, please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching.

Avis, Claire, Gun, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, 

Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, 

Daisy, Cathie, Linda, Helen, Cindy, MaryMargaret

Posted in embroidery, Garden, Stitch-a-long, Stitching my Garden | Tagged , , | 14 Comments

Coming Home Quilt

Posted on September 7, 2023 by craftycreeky

It’s happy dance time as I have finally finished my Coming Home quilt! I started this quilt back in January 2019, a looong time ago! It was a block of the month quilt by Sarah Fielke, it’s the second Sarah Fielke quilt I’ve made, the first one being the Down the Rabbit Hole quilt….

…as you can see that was a pretty big quilt, it lives on our bed, I still love it.

Sarah’s quilts usually have a fair amount of needle-turn applique, that’s actually one reason why I first decided to make the Down the Rabbit Hole one, I wanted to learn how to do it properly. I also like the medallion style design of these quilts.

As soon as I heard about the Coming Home quilt, I wanted to make it, I particularly liked the border of houses on the DTRH quilt, so a quilt full of houses sounded pretty good to me. I chose a palette of teal, blue and peach mainly, started off with fabrics from my stash which I then added to.

I thoroughly enjoyed making the Coming Home quilt, even if there were an awful lot of windows to stitch! I changed the outer border, partly because it looked a bit too busy for me, and partly because I didn’t want quite such a big quilt. This one is about 80″ square, which is big enough for us.

It was still too big for me to comfortably quilt on my domestic sewing machine, particularly as I didn’t just want an all over design. There aren’t many long arm quilters here in the UK that are prepared to custom quilt, I eventually found Althea of Harrogate Quilting Studio who agreed to do what I would call a semi custom quilting. She used a lovely leafy design for the middle, a feather border for the wide house border and a twirl within each triangle on the outer border

I’m really pleased with the quilting, I’m so glad I persuaded Althea to quilt it, it was somewhat out of her comfort zone but she did a wonderful job. It’s not easy to photograph the quilting but you can just make out the different areas on this photo of the quilt from the back…

I bound it with a lovely soft, dark blue fabric by Lewis and Irene, it blends in perfectly. I hand stitched the binding on which took a couple of evenings but I think the finish is worth it on a special quilt.

All that was left was a label. I decided to embroider the quilt details directly onto the back of the quilt, I usually do it this way, I like using an element of the quilting to stitch the label on. This time I used the fan shape on one of the corners, I kept it simple with just the quilt name, my initials and the date I finished it. I used light grey embroidery thread and chain stitch.

I’ve just decorated our spare bedroom and it looks rather nice in there. I still need to paint the chests of drawers though in case you’re wondering 🙂

Posted in Coming Home Quilt, Quilt-a-long, Quilting, Serendipity | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

Dog Roses Quilt

Posted on September 1, 2023 by craftycreeky

I’ve just had a couple of days off work trying to get on top of a cough and cold virus, rather than just sitting around doing nothing I decided to do a bit of sewing.

Earlier this year I finished the top of my Secret Garden quilt, this was a block of the month kit from Raggedy Ruff designs. I’ve done several of her designs now, I love the detail and the style of her designs. Although this one isn’t very big (about 26″ square) it’s the busiest one I’ve done so far. I personalised the design slightly by swapping the cat sitting in the garden for our three dogs walking through it. I love the fact that all the birds portrayed have visited our garden, some regularly and some very occasionally. Here’s my finished top…

My next dilemma was how to quilt it. I put it up on my design wall, hoping for inspiration. Whatever idea I had, I could see issues, whether it was quilting round major blocks such as birds and roses, weaving a vine round the border or a meander round the background. Andrea, the designer had quilted hers pretty heavily with a background pattern, but for one thing, she’s a much better quilter than me.

As a last minute thought, I took it with me when I went to collect my Coming Home quilt from Althea, the long-arm quilter at the Harrogate Quilting Studio. I showed her the quilt and asked her advice. Without hesitation she said cross-hatch, anything else would distract from the applique and embroidery. I could see where she was coming from.

I decided to take her advice and tackle it whilst I was at home with a bug. I wasn’t sure how big a cross-hatching to do, I started by drawing it on with a Frixion pen. These are heat erasable pens which as many people are keen to point out, they’re not designed for fabric. Personally I’ve never had a problem with them not disappearing or with them reappearing in the cold, I usually use them pretty lightly, just marking with dots or dashes. With this quilt being so busy I did just draw the lines.

I was originally planning to do the cross-hatch based around the star in the middle of the sky but having stitched every other line to start with, I found that Zach, my little black dog, was nicely framed in a square. I decided that was enough quilting.

I found some batik in my stash which was left over from one of the first quilts I made, it has a soft green background with large pinky-purple flowers, it matched with the quilt beautifully. I also added two triangles at the top corners to use with a hanger. I hand-stitched the binding down, catching in the triangles at the same time.

All that was left was a label with the name and the date. I decided to call the quilt Dog Roses as it includes our dogs, one of whom is called Rosie, and some of the flowers look like dog roses.

I hung it on the wall straight away. I chose this spot for it as soon as I started making it, it’s just the right size and I think it looks great at the bottom of the stairs. So far I’ve not found myself putting a hand out there either, so hopefully it won’t get grubby.

I need to finish the Winter Wreath quilt next which has the beautiful barn owl (see below) as it’s centrepiece, but that will wait until next year as I’ve a few simpler quilts to make as presents first.

If you fancy trying some of the beautiful designs from Raggedy Ruff, she has a sale on, I think all pdf patterns are half price until Monday. They’re not all complex like this one, there’s some very pretty simpler designs too. She has also started printing panels of her original watercolour designs which are great if you don’t fancy the applique, I’ve just bought two for my sewing room as they have mice and squirrels making quilts or sewing. Here’s a few of the Raggedy Ruff designs I’ve made over the last few years…

Posted in Quilting, Raggedy Ruff Designs, Serendipity | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

Wednesday’s Wander Round the Garden

Posted on August 30, 2023 by craftycreeky

I’m a bit behind with my posts at the moment, various reasons, sometimes life just gets in the way!

We had a couple of days away this weekend and when I came back, a lily had come into flower. It’s one I got at the Harrogate show this year, I think they’re called rose lilies as they have so many petals. I was beginning to wonder when it was going to flower, August/September is pretty late for a lily and it’s had buds for weeks. Anyway it was worth the wait, isn’t it gorgeous…

It’s in a pot at the moment, but I’m tempted to plant this one in a border as they don’t seem to last long in pots and this one is so pretty.

Just nearby to the big showy lilies is this little pot of violas, easy to miss but worth a peek. I gave them a good trim a few weeks back as they were looking very straggly and they’ve rewarded me with a few more flowers. It’s quite a shady spot but I’ve managed to get plenty of interest with different foliage and textures. The fern is self-seeded in the gravel, there’s a geranium and a diascia on the left. you can just see a cream hydrangea flower at the back, and a little azalea next to it.

The choisya shrub was pruned lightly after flowering in the spring, and that has also put on a second flush of flowers. The miniature cherry is turning a lovely shade of red, though it seems a bit early for autumn colour!

I did a lot of dead-heading a couple of weeks ago, especially roses, long overdue I have to admit, but a few are still flowering. This one is called Golden Celebration, it’s in the Amber and Amethyst garden, the flowers are a gorgeous coppery orange colour, my daughter bought me this one in memory of Rosie, our beautiful golden retriever.

The border by the big fence is in dire need of a hard cut back, I started with the dead heading last week but I really need to start sorting this area out properly as I’m sure there are shrubs getting swamped by bigger ones under there. It doesn’t help that everything has grown so much that it’s hard to get in to do stuff!

I’ve not managed to get out in the garden much this summer, whenever I’ve been free it’s been raining – we’ve had a very wet summer here in Yorkshire!I think I’ll be starting the autumn tidy-up early! I’ve already been making a mental list of plants that need dividing or moving, so I think I’ll be pretty busy.

Posted in Garden | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Owl and Hare Hollow HQAL

Posted on August 27, 2023 by craftycreeky

It’s three weeks since I shared my progress on the Owl and Hare Hollow, a bi-monthly QAL by Natalie Bird. I’ve not made as much progress as other times as I’ve been concentrating on my garden embroidery, but I have done some. Three weeks ago I’d just started another embroidered block…

I’ve now finished the embroidery for this one, I just need to add an applique circle in the middle and the nineteen 1/2″ hexies round the edge.

I’ve spent a couple of hours making lots of hexies, rather than making what I need for each block I’ve made half a dozen of each fabric, so they’ll last me a few blocks. There doesn’t look so many in my box lid but that’s about ten different fabrics, so about sixty hexies…

I’ve also started another embroidered block, this is my handbag sewing, so it’ll take a little while. I’ve almost stitched the leafy border, then there’s a wheelbarrow full of flowers in the middle.

Hand Quilt Along Links

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Margaret, Deb, Nanette, Sharon, Karrin, Daisy, and Connie

Posted in Serendipity | 16 Comments

Coming Home Quilt

Posted on August 24, 2023 by craftycreeky

Some of you may remember the Coming Home quilt top I made, it was my second Sarah Fielke QAL and I was really pleased with how it came out. I finished it in May 2020, mid pandemic!

It’s a pretty big quilt, about 100″ square, I had hand quilted the first Sarah Fielke quilt I made (Down the Rabbit Hole) which is a similar size and it nearly put me off hand-quilting for life!!I decided to send this one to a long arm quilter as it was too big to manage on my domestic sewing machine. For the non-quilters among you a long arm quilting is done on a huge frame with a special sewing machine that moves over the quilt.

Whilst I wanted it machine quilted, I didn’t particularly want an all over design, called a pantograph, I wanted it more custom quilted where the quilting fits with the design. Whilst there are quite a few long arm quilters here in the UK, very few do custom quilting, they just do pantographs which the newer computerised machines do automatically. I rang or messaged quite a few with no success.

I then messaged Harrogate Quilting Studio where the lovely Althea hesitated and then said bring it along and we’ll have a chat. Her quilting studio is in the pretty village of Summerbridge, in Nidderdale, so a nice drive out from Otley.

Of course I made sure I had both the quilt top and some backing fabric when I went a long. Talking of backing fabric, that wasn’t easy either as of course we were in the middle of the pandemic with all the shopping restrictions so I had to buy on line, I needed extra wide fabric too which both limited my choice and meant it was a major purchase, so I didn’t really have the option that if it wasn’t quite right I could stash it and buy some more. I chose some dark blue digitally printed cotton which has like a filigree pattern on the back. It does actually match the darker blue fabric in the front pretty well but on mass looks a bit brighter, I’m sure it’ll settle down in time!

It was fascinating to see how the long arm machine worked, I could see why Althea hesitated! I thought that all the custom quilting was effectively done by moving the machine by hand. However, from what I can see most are now done on computerised machines, a laser is used to draw round the shape, a pattern is selected and the machine automatically fills the shape in with that pattern. I could see the issues my design would have with this.

I decided I would be more than happy with what I would call a partial custom quilting, using different patterns around the medallion borders. I chose one for the triangles in the outer border with piano key quilting at the very edge. The wider border with the houses on has a feather border and then the central design has a lovely swirly pantograph.

Having seen the quality of Altheas work I had no hesitation about leaving my quilt with her. She did ask if it was OK if she left it a few months to get a few more quilt tops under her belt, no problem with me.

And the months went by…I did see her and have a chat when ever it was the Harrogate Quilt show and she was obviously just trying to pluck up the courage to do it. I never doubted her ability to do a wonderful job but last month it crossed my mind that she might be a bit like me, much better with a deadline, particularly with something that you’re a little anxious about and therefore putting off. So I messaged her asking if there was any chance I could have the quilt by the end of August.

It was ready for collection a week later, she admitted that I was right, she needed that gentle push to crack on and do it.

It’s stunning, I’m so pleased with it. Here’s the two outer borders…

This shows the design in the central panel…

If anyone lives within striking distance of Harrogate, I would certainly recommend Althea for long arm quilting.

I’m now just hand stitching the binding down. I found a lovely soft dark blue quilting cotton which I think works beautifully, you can see it in the first photo.

Once I get it all finished, I’ll do some photos of the whole quilt.

Posted in Coming Home Quilt, Quilt-a-long, Quilting | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Stitching my Garden SAL

Posted on August 20, 2023 by craftycreeky

I always work better with a deadline, even a self imposed one. Having decided to give my two granddaughters a quilt each for Christmas and having already promised a quilt as a christening present I decided that making one each month in the Autumn sounded a reasonable plan. To add to my workload however, I also want to make a birth sampler for my grandson, I’ve already got the pattern, it’s a traditional Beatrix Potter one. This is where my deadline comes in! I want to finish this piece by the end of this month, so I can then concentrate on the sampler. I’ll put the Stitch-my-Garden project on hold just until after Christmas and hopefully come back to it with fresh enthusiasm. I’ve a couple of small pages left to do which I’ll probably do in the meantime but otherwise I’ll probably spend my time planning how I’m going to make it into a book.

So…I’ve made good progress over the last three weeks, I was just pootling up one side when I last shared it with you…

I finished the Port Sunlight rose in the middle of the right hand border, added a purple heuchera, some purple foxgloves, bluebells and a veronica.

It still looked a bit empty up the righthand border until I remembered the clematis! I have three obelisks which border on this bed and this year one of them has wandered over to the rosebush, making a lovely late display, so I decided to embroider a trail of clematis up the side of the bed and it fills the space nicely.

I stitched the seat after drawing the shape onto tracing paper and then bondaweb. I kept the stitching simple and I think it works pretty well. However I’m not sure how much longer the seat will be there as I sat on it yesterday with a cup of coffee and there was a bit of an ominous crack! Here’s a photo of the seat from last month, the arch isn’t as wonky as the photo looks!

Last night I started stitching the lefthand border with the Lady Emma Hamilton rose bush. I’ve another rose, a large peony and then lots of filler plants to do on this side. Hopefully it will be finished in three weeks time when I next share my progress.

This SAL is organised by Avis from Stitching by the Sea, we share our progress on our projects every three weeks, so please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching.

Avis, Claire, Gun, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, 

Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, Cathie, Linda, Helen, Cindy, MaryMargaret

Posted in embroidery, Garden, Stitch-a-long, Stitching my Garden, Textile Books | Tagged , | 13 Comments

Inside Out Skirt

Posted on August 8, 2023 by craftycreeky

I can’t remember where this fabric came from, I wonder if I picked it up on a swap table. It’s a fairly firm cotton, the label on the selvedge says Indigo Wax Katagami, Japan. It’s been in my stash for a while. I pulled it out of the cupboard a few months ago, thinking it was nice…and then realised I was looking at the back!! The front of the fabric is quite a stark white on navy print, quite busy too for such a contrast. It went back in the cupboard!

I chatted about it to my daughter and showed her it when she was home one weekend. We decided I had three choices, charity shop it, sell it, or make something using the reverse.

Last week I pulled it out again, I wanted a skirt length to try out a new pattern. I decided this would be perfect as a wearable toile, it was a firm enough cotton to hold the pleats well. I had nothing to lose if it didn’t work out well as I wouldn’t use it the other way round.

The pattern I wanted to try was the Shepherd Skirt by Merchant and Mills. It has pleats front and back and a buttoned pocket opening both sides. I checked the measurements and my new 28.5″ waist should have been a 12, luckily I checked the finished measurements – who wants 3″ of ease on a waistband!! I cut out a 10 instead which gave me a comfortable 1.5″ ease instead.

I ran into issues from the beginning. Personally I think it is a badly designed pattern when the two main pieces are 46″ wide. For the non-sewers amongst you, 45″ is a standard width of fabric, especially for cottons. I decided with the pleats I should be able to lose an inch. The instructions include an optional lining which I wasn’t doing, therefore I didn’t twig that the pocket bags were meant to be in lining fabric, it didn’t cause an issue per se, but it probably does make them a bit bulkier.

The pockets took some concentrating, I’ve done pocket openings before, albeit a long time ago, but these are buttoned pocket openings with a button placket on each edge. If I say there are five pattern pieces for the pockets and you need six button plackets cutting then I’m sure you get the gist! I stitched them and I like them, though I seem to have missed instructions for finishing a couple of edges and I ended up hand stitching the bottom end below the opening as I couldn’t work out what I was meant to do.

You can just about make out the pocket opening on the photo below, there’s one more button hidden in the pocket.

Next major task was the pleats. Now these are not just standard pleats, there are actually four pleats on each side disguised as three, hidden underneath the middle pleat on each side is a second little one going the other way. This was the obvious place to gain the 1″ to compensate for the fact that my fabric was too narrow. Unfortunately it wasn’t that simple for my brain! The order of making the pleats in the pattern was centre front, mini pleat, large pleat over it and then pleat by the pocket. Somehow it just wouldn’t alter neatly. I fiddled and faddled for a whole afternoon and eventually gave up and just made three even pleats and ran a basting thread over the top…and that was just the front!

Next day I reluctantly started looking at the back, planning to just do the same, but I couldn’t get my pleats even, I even resorted to maths to work it out. In the end I decided to have one last try with the pattern pleats, this time I left the mini pleat to last. I fiddled with the big pleat to get a little extra width and then just folded in a little excess to make the mini pleat. It finally worked, so well in fact that I undid the front and refolded the pleats the same way. It probably took me over six hours to work those darn pleats out, it was worth it in the end though!

With the pleats done I could attach the waistband, hem it and make the buttonholes. These were also quite a fiddle as the lower two are on the edge of the pocket, so the machine buttonhole foot (which is about 3″ long, has to go inside the pocket. I’ve made a note on the pattern to see if I could make these buttonholes before the waistband is attached so the pocket will open further.

All in all it ended up being a bit of a challenge, some of it my own doing with my fabric choice. However, now it’s made, I really like it. It fits well, I like the pocket opening although it does bulge slightly at the top of the button placket. I love the wrong side of the fabric, there is a slight discrepancy in the depth of the colour which is noticeable on the side seams, it will be interesting to see what happens on washing! I will make this pattern again, though maybe with slightly wider fabric!

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