Travel clothes 3. South Island New Zealand

Hooker Lake Walk, Mt Cook National Park
The rest of the family needed some additions to their travel wardrobes too.

Leggings BurdaStyle 01-2011-130, made from a rayon/lycra knit from Gorgeous Fabrics. This was sold as suitable for jeggings (which I think are psuedo super stretchy leggings with jeans type embroidery, being an interesting denim look fabric, but unfortunately was far too thin for this use. It worked nicely as leggings for travel, drying quickly, but the fabric was a bit too fragile for New Zealand scrub, and became rather full of snags and pulls after a week of hiking. I squeezed 3 pairs from 3 yards, so was rather pleased with the economy of the cutting out.

2 poly wicking t shirts adapted from BWOF 09-2008-143( I have to use up that polywicking stuff in the stash somehow) and polar fleece trousers adapted from BWOF1-2009-143 pyjama trousers. I used wicking poly knit for the trouser waistband and cuffs, which dried very quickly, particularly important for the cuffs which were subject to puddle abuse and creek crossings.
I did not think my son would really need polar fleece trousers, but my husband convinced me, and he was right. It snowed, quite unseasonably, in Milford Sound whilst we were there,which was very exciting, as my son had never seen snow before.
(yes, I know, hardly any snow at all, but we live in the subtropics)

I also made a poly wicking turtlenecks from BurdaStyle 09-2010-121 for my daughter.

This pattern had looked so hideous on me that I threw out the tracings, but my older daughter traced it out again for herself, and it suited her very nicely, and was very quick to sew. My younger daughter, who has a more similar figure to mine, found the turtleneck equally unflattering, and wore a previously made one from a Kwik Sew pattern. I have no photographs of the turtlenecks as they were worn under coats and jackets.
Lucky last, in fact, so last that I sewed the button on in the car on the way to the airport were a pair of seersucker cotton shorts for my older daughter.

BWOF 07-2009-113

I suspect that these are more suitable to the subtropics than New Zealand, but again they dried quickly, and were worn with the leggings for the warmer days.

psuedo BWOF 09-2008-143, another embellished t shirt

I sat down last night with the dubious dress from the last post, and thought quite hard about deepening the neckline, adding a stay, shortening the skirt and unpicking the waistband to add a new, contrast colour belt. I am very appreciative of this good advice, please don't think I took no notice, but I am a weak woman.
Thinking about doing it was rather exhausting, and lasted about 5 minutes. I put the dress in maybe later pile (AKA the wardrobe) and got out an elephant stamped piece of knit fabric instead.
It was much quicker than retrofitting, I'm sure :).



I embroidered around the elephant with stem stitch, varying between two and three strands for different emphasis, and left some thread ends for the tail.
Then I sewed it into a t shirt, using the boy's woven cossak shirt pattern from BWOF
09-2008 again, coverstitching at neck and hems in pale grey elephant colour thread. The fabric is a nice medium weight cotton/lycra knit.

Unfortunately the elephant had wandered a little off centre during the sewing process (I was rather tired). I added some flattened grass at the rear, and a little upstanding grass to the front to explain the wandering.

I am quite pleased with it, but the boy would not model the t shirt. I hope this means that he does not like modelling, rather than meaning he does not like the t shirt.

Shirt of rocks and school holiday mess making project

The making of new shirts has exceeded the photo modelling capacity tolerance of my son.



Here is the last BWOF 09-2008-143 for the moment, now that there is one to wear, one for the wash, and one for spare in the right size.



The print is allegedly a quilting cotton but is tightly woven, has a very slight sheen, and is a little more thin than your regular quilting print. It is cotton, no poly. I think it is more like a nice shirting cotton. I don't suppose that fabric printed with lots of rocks (or my husband says potatoes) sells as shirting fabric very often though.



The contrast print is regular quilting cotton. I used this print for the tabs, which are inspired by Carolyn's shirt posts. (She is not to blame for the print, I meant the tabs) I was finding the unadulterated boy shirt a little dull, even with such interesting fabric.

I had the day off work yesterday, in order to spend quality time with my younger children, and managed to convince them that playing with fabric would be fun. Much more fun than making another shirt
They took to it with considerable enthusiasm, and mixed results.





I wasn't thrilled with my fabric painting/stamping/stencilling. I think I should stick to sewing when I play with fabric!
I have a few t-shirts to make now, with crafty insertions.

The pointed question. BWOF 09-2008-143 boy's shirt again

Mary Nanna's comments make me laugh. I have here a perfect example of how her insight helps me to keep amusement in my sewing.
I love this fabric. It is a beautiful lawn, and is far more tasteful that the fabric for the last boy shirt, as it was given to me by Hen, when I met her in London.
Unfortunately, it was given to me by Hen, just to make a shirt for this boy, more than a year ago, and boys have this habit of growing whilst their mother allows fabric to mature irresponsibly in her stash because it is special.



I had to cheat a bit on the sleeves, because 7 year old boys are not so consuming of fabric as those who have passed 9. (There is a pocket in that photo too, but despite doing no pattern matching what so ever, it is not terribly visible)
The direction of the cars, I suspected after irreversibly cutting them out instead of some more intelligent option, might give rise to, as Mary Nanna says " pointed questions like, "hmm, did your mother make that..?" ". . I regret this mistake, this does not happen to fabric that is still stash.



When I visited my dear friend this afternoon, with my well dressed boy in his new shirt, I had to explain why her kind question provoked fits of laughter.
She has been kind about my sewing for about 12 years now. I wonder if she will ever be able to talk to me about it with a straight face again?