A story of two waistcoats and a little bit of Morris dancing.

Hello dear friends,

Sorry I have been away for so long. It feels as though in our little part of the world we have had every season during what usually is known as summer here in Wiltshire.

The holidays have been spent travelling back and forth to Bedfordshire, where my lovely S.H. resides.
We have been to another wedding, and on the creative front I have been sewing, knitting, then giving up on the knitting and starting again.

Meanwhile I am slowly begining to change the face of my little blog. My daughter has offered help to bring more life and colour into it too.

 Now for the first of the makes. These were for two very special little girls. My neices daugthers.

The girls dance in a Morris dance troup,

Now I am a Northerner living 'down South' and when I told people I was going to make my great-neices wasitcoats to hold their Morris dancing medals, everyone thought I meant this

(source)

Now what I did not realise was, the kind of Morris dancing I used to do and the girls do is actually very regional to Lanashire/Yorkshire and North Wales. I only found this out while looking for these pictures.

What the girls do is more like this

(source)
It can be seen as a cross between cheerleading and Irish dancing. Although I had never heard of cheerleading all those years ago but when I tried to descibe it that is the only way I could think of.
If you wish to learn more about Morris dancing it can be found here.

And so to the waistcoats. Using this pattern

I used McCall's M6229. For the fabric I used black cordroy for the outer layer (to support all those medals they are going to win.) and for the lining I dyed a lovely firm white cotton sheet black. I would guess it was egyptian cotton by the feel of it but as it came from a charity shop, I will never know.

( my son this evening walked up to me asked if I knew what the word cordroy meant, then proceeded to inform me it is because it is the fabric of kings, and then walked off. He does that sometimes. I do not know if it is true, I would have said that was velvet but hey I am not going to go searching it out. )

The cutting in progess.

And then along came sleepy Javaise, or as he is known Java baby bear (I have no idea why we call him that)

My wonky hand sewn lining edge, really not good. Out came the unpicker, time to redo

Wow, much better. And finally...

The only extra tweak I did was to top stitch all edges. The pattern did not ask for it but I think it gives a much better finish. (Yes the bottom edging is level, it is my model betsy who has developed a wonky side to her personality)

And the back view.

The only tricky bit was the top stitching I used a jeans needle but even so it did not like all those bumps. Even though I cut the seams down to minium so they were inside the top stitch seam.

Now my machine is truely in need of a service and has been for a while. The machine I use is one of those computertized sewing/embroiadary all signing all dancing ones. For some time I have been thinking about getting a more solid and dedicated sewing machine and leaving the other just for machine embroidary and now I am glad I have. The nearest service to me is over an hours drive away, so until I have a day when I can spare the time to take it, leave it and then go back to pick it up. It will be cool to have another machine to use and not lose sewing time while one is away being serviced.

How about you do you have certain machines for certain jobs?
Have you sewn with cordroy, how did you manage the bumps, any tips would be great.

 Love to all Vala x

P.S. I really must remember to do those little tags at the end of each post. Oh dear.