Merchant & Mills bucket hat; Atenas Jeans jacket

 CATCHING UP

(Should have posted this Sunday or Monday, yet here I am, Wednesday!)

This week I had a couple of sewing objectives, mainly to sew and finish the bucket hat, and to work further on the jeans jacket. Also attended 'frock-talk' with my two local sewing friens!

MERCHANT & MILLS BUCKET HAT

not quite matched!

About the only thing that I could think of making with the scraps from the upcycled kilt project was this hat! And I wanted to do it this month because of the Scraps and remnants pop-up sew-along at Pattern Review. Which I am proud to say, was the result of a suggestion I made to PR to include scraps and remnants as a fabric type when doing reviews. It is hard to know what do do with small pieces, and if, like me, one is opposed to just tossing them, it is nice to have a data base of sorts to go to! This suggestion was implemented, and inspired the September pop-up. I could not host it (due to my trip away), but my online friend Litapita did a lovely job hosting it, and even referred to me as the muse! How nice is that?!  😀

SO, that said, making my scrappy bucket hat was a priority upon our return. I must say, it is awfully cute! Piecing the scraps was a bit of a puzzle at times, but in the end virtually invisible on the hat. I tried to pattern match the pieces I was putting together, but did not do any pattern matching of the different pattern pieces. BUT there is one side that looks like I was trying to!

The pattern is a free pattern. I saw someone suggest using free patterns to 'audition' new-to-you pattern companies. Although Merchant and Mills seems to be fairly well-established, I have not made any of their patterns before, so this was a good audition. The pattern was very well drafted (everything fit together very well), and with a small exception the instructions were thorough.

I was finally able to try out waterproofing with beeswax! (The result has not been tested, though!). I warmed up one end of the block of wax with the hair dryer, rubbed it on, repeated this until the entire hat was coated, then used the hair dryer on the hat to melt the wax in. The block picked up lint, but I don't think it is a great problem.

view from the front and back

pile of scraps to work with

beeswax block, and coating

JEAN JACKET

I am not sure why this is giving me so much trouble. ITS is known for their well drafted patterns with good instructions. But..

Collar seems okay

I struggled a bit with the collar. Partly this was because of some unclear instructions... there are two notches near the centre front which were not referred to in the collar construction. I had to find it on a video online. But even then, I am not sure I got it right. In the end the facing part of the placket is too small. It should be about twice as large, yet, the collar appears to be at the right place. I checked my tracing of the collar pattern, and it seems to be correct.

undersized facing...

 

A lovely camping trip this weekend was slightly marred by an overenthusiastic dog who jumped and landed on a corner of the tent, making a big rip in they fly. Providing me with a mending project, apprently! (The dog was part of our group, 

I think it will need to be taped, rather than sewn, though.