Stitch and bitch thread #5 This whole thing is fabricated.

[NutellaEllaElla]

Welcome back seamsters! It is soon to be September and Autumn is on its way.

Ooh, you lot really are fabric enablers!!
Thanks for the recommendations, I’ve got a fair bit of alpine fleece in my stash already. My Favourite Hot Coffee is a ecru melange with wonky hearts from Sew, Sew, Sew last year. In the end I went with an alpine fleece, with stretch from Jenny Stitches (and at her recommendation a pale pink ribbing - as I shorten the body and sleeves and make extra deep cuffs and band). I bought this one www.jennystitches.co.uk/products/alpine-fleece-valentine

Bit of help needed please. I need size 10 trousers to go round my waist but they are then all too big in the hips and legs as I’m more a 6-8 in those areas. I think my best option would be to take them apart and recut the legs taking off excess fabric from both sides of the legs rather than just taking them in down the outside.

Would this likely work as I find just taking in down the outside means they really don’t look quite right.

thank you

@Wizzelina Are these trousers that you've bought or ones you've made and need to adjust?

What’s the fit like around your backside @Wizzelina ? If there’s a lot of excess fabric there, you may also need to shorten the crotch curve. This article explains it in more detail.

www.threadsmagazine.com/2019/10/23/qa-how-to-alter-pants-that-are-loose-in-the-seat

To be honest, I personally wouldn’t mess around with that curve in shop bought trousers. In my (limited) experience, it’s really tricky to get right.

Thank you 😁 They are shop bought and I have several pairs as lost over a stone for DD’s wedding. Retiring soon so only need to do a couple of pairs as live in jeans which fit fine!

@Wizzelina if you take them apart and trim the legs then you may struggle to get the waistband back on. And trimming the inside leg seams will affect the curve of the crotch seam and possibly the length of the legs.

I think the best way to tackle it yourself would be put the trousers on inside out, pin where you want to take it in then hand sew it fairly loosely/with long stitches. Don’t trim anything yet! Then try them on the right way round (checking if you can get in/out comfortably) and see if things are hanging right, because if you’ve got a seam off grain the legs can twist. If you’re happy then machine sew your adjustment, trim and then neaten the raw edges.

I made good progress on my shirt, until I added the collar and realised that the button band was nowhere near the middle of the shirt.

After much head scratching, googling and a bit more head scratching, I realised that even though the pattern pieces are identical for both sides, it says on the pattern (in small letters, written vertically...) that a few inches need to be removed from the right front piece before it’s all sewn up.

I’ve already finished all the seams etc, so there’s no way I can unpick it all. I guess I’m going to have to write this one off as “useful practice”. It took me more than 4 hours to cut out all the pieces, so I’m feeling more than a bit 😡 right now! Who knew sewing was such a rollercoaster of emotions?!

Oh no @CrimsonAlligator thats so frustrating! Can you extend the collar pieces to match the new neckline or do you not have enough fabric to recut?

I tried that and that does make a difference in the collar area. Unfortunately it’s still really noticeable that the button band should be a couple of inches to the right of where it currently is. The shirt would need to be almost completely deconstructed to fix the problem and I don’t think the fabric could handle that 😞

Ah well, at least I didn’t cut into any of my nice fabrics. That would have really wound me up! The pattern on the fabric I used was seriously off grain, which was why it took me ages to cut it out in the first place. Hopefully I won have that problem with the next one and I will have learnt from my mistakes and the next shirt will be totally amazing...I live in hope 😂

Happy new year all, I've tried to post a few times but I alway struggle to do so when they get long.Nice surprise for tonight is the Guthrie Ghani insta live has just started again after a few weeks off. One whole glorious hour of being enabled in my fabric addiction

My jungle fabric has arrived! It’s a little bit more muted in real life, which is not necessarily a bad thing...It’s not quite screaming dress or sweatshirt or anything like that yet, but I’m sure the inspiration for what to do with it will come to me at some point.

I have a job interview lined up for next week, where I’ve been told the dress code is neutral clothes, without distracting patterns. I’m half tempted to sew something up with my new jungle fabric, just to stick up my middle finger at that kind of prescriptive nonsense. But I’ve done the sensible thing instead and ordered myself a nice blue shirt...covered in tiny seagulls. I don’t think they’ll be noticeable over zoom, so that will be my little act of rebellion 😄

I like your style @CrimsonAlligator good luck for the interview!

To be honest the whole of mumsnet is painfully slow for me. Do you want me to start a new thread?

Another completed item, it’s another hot coffee. This time the cowl neck version. I’m not sure how I feel about the colour but I’ll give it a go. I think it’ll look good on my mum if I decide I won’t wear it much.

Wow @SBAM you're on fire! Well done.
I've recovered from my cold and am hoping to make a good start on the dress for my friend this weekend.

I have started a new thread Stitch and bitch thread 6. What a yoke!, come on over!