This’ll probably be the last sewing post for the year. First up, a short-sleeved shirt I made from one of Late Lucy’s choir dresses. I’d attempted to make a peasant top and failed, but the pieces of fabric were just big enough to test a vintage shirt pattern, though it did mean there’s a seam down the back. I left out the waist darts, and somehow this made what was a rather traditional floral pattern now look, at first glance, like a Hawaiian shirt. The pattern instructions for the collar are strangely complicated and the button band facing doesn’t sit properly, but that’s why I do a test sew of ‘new’ patterns. I wound up unpicking and resewing the collar the old fashioned way, which made for a much neater finish.

In the middle of the above project I stopped to make a fidget blanket for Mum. It contains fabric from two pieces of clothing she made years ago. I made a couple of additions since I took this photo. The ‘curtains’ are fixed apart and there’s a duck in the middle of the sky background. And there’s a stuffed velvet heart attached by a ribbon to the inside of the denim pocket.

It was fun to make the squares, and was a great excuse to use the lettering embroidery function on the machine (text obscured in the photo) so that was interesting. Assembling and quilting reminded me that I’m not that keen on quilting. I showed my Dad some photos of it, then the next day he called to say that a couple of fidget blankets had turned up at the home. They’re very basic – the squares are just sewn to a fleecy polyester backing. Mum’s will probably get lost among them and I’m trying hard not to worry too much about that.