Hot. Sweaty. Yuck.

It has been hot hot hot here in the South East of England. I hate to be all British and complain about the weather, but for serious, I flipping hate this sodding weather! I can appreciate the sunshine but I would really prefer that it came with a side order of gentle breezes and hold the humidity!

So, because I find knitting really difficult in the heat it has taken me around 3 weeks to turn the heel on my Greenwich socks. Because they are not much different to the last time I posted about them and also because I am very lazy I'm not going to bother to photograph them.

In an attempt to make myself feel like I am creating something I've turned to my sewing machine. I don't have too much to show for that either but I don't feel like that's a bad thing. Sewing is something I'm still very much a novice at and I'm trying to slowly remedy that. To that end I've been taking my time, making practice garments and polishing my finishing skills. I want to feel confident enough to use better fabrics than I have been which in itself will improve the look of my garments. I'm also not going to bother posting any of these practice runs until I finally finish a wearable garment that I'm proud of. It feels much better to say "here's a load of crap I made, but hey look at this great thing I made off the back of it"

However, I'm not just here to tell you what I'm not going to post about, I do actually have a little FO. I made shorts for Cassie!

These are sort of a practice run, which is why they are made from kind of formal looking herringbone fabric with bright yellow pockets, but they are wearable and pretty fun for a two year old.

She wore them to a family get together and I got loads of compliments on them so I was really pleased. They probably only took a couple of hours of actual sewing time so I'm definitely going to make her another pair in fancier fabric.

Rockin' cock!?

The pattern is from Burda Magazine 06/2014. Because they are little kiddie shorts tracing the pattern and adding seam allowances wasn't too painful and the instructions weren't too mind bending either, again because tiny kiddie shorts. The only change I made was to shorten the waist elastic a little because it wasn't gathering the fabric at all and there was no way the shorts were going to stay up. Next time I'll probably leave off the back pockets, especially as I plan to use a busy patterned fabric because I think they'd be lost in the detail. Although I wasn't really sold on the necessity of in seam pockets in shorts for a toddler, I think they are really fun so I'll probably leave them in on any future versions.