more culottes and revisited blouse

I've made my fourth pair of culottes.  These will do for slightly cooler weather, though since it has been around 26C and very humid since Christmas cooler weather is hard to imagine.  Again these are from Burdastyle 8/15 #131.

These were made from fabric described by Spotlight as silk tweed.  They are lightweight, but a bit heavier than the rayon culottes I've made and lighter than the broadcloth ones.  The fabric was $15 for 2.5 metres at 148cm wide.

I revisited my Burdastyle blouse from July 2015 #109. I blogged about it here. I really wasn't happy with the amount of flounce around my bottom and felt I would never wear it.  I wanted to remove some of the bulk of fabric and reduce the flounces below the waist to one instead of two.  The flounce immediately below the waist is narrower than the bottom one.  I couldn't remove just the bottom flounce as the blouse would then be too short.  So I had to unstitch both flounces and unpick the invisible zip in the side seam.  As the seams had all been overlocked, if I'd used a regular 5/8inch seam the blouse would have been a bit too short, so I sewed with a 1/4" inch seam.

Photos before change

And after



I may have taken out a bit too much bulk as it is a bit on the tight side around the hips now.  I'm still not sure when or if I'll wear it but I think there is more chance it will get out of the wardrobe now.

Culottes, 2 tops and Spirit of Winter is finished!!!

After 4 1/2 years of stitching, Spirit of Winter is finished.

Now she just needs to be framed.
The stats:  Started 1 September 2011.  Finished 9 February 2016.  1173 stitching hours, 152,600 stitches.  Stitched over one on 22ct Hardanger.

Next up is a Golden Kite design, Gossips by artist Daniel Ridgway Knight.  The chart is available in blended colours or solid colours.  I am doing the solid colours version.  This design is even bigger than Spirit, at 400x 502 stitches wide, that's 200,800 stitches and on 22ct Hardanger the finished size will be 18.2" x 22.8". It has 185 colours, that's a lot of thread.  Fortunately I have such a huge stash of thread I've only needed to buy a small quantity.  I am busy kitting this up now.








Daniel Ridgway Knight was an American artist (1839-1924) who lived in France from 1872.  His work focused mainly on the French peasants.  He had a rather idyllic view of them, painting leisurely scenes rather than the reality of the hard lives they faced.

My sewing over the last couple of weeks has been repeat sewing.  I made some more BurdaStyle culottes from 8/15 #131.

I stupidly made the invisible side zip far too long, its almost down to my knees instead of just past the bottom of the pocket. This creates a bit of bulk on the left side seam.  These are made of rayon from Spotlight $24.89 for 2mx148cm.

I made 2 more Colette Sorbetto top.  This one is made from leftover material, voile, rayon and gingham.  There wasn't enough material to do a front pleat, so I ignored the pleat part on the pattern and put fold of fabric on inner pleat line.  Cost $0

This one is made from poplin from Spotlight.  I had 2 metres of this and still have .9metres left over.  $10.12