Sewing with wool

I have a hard time accepting a gift of fabric and then not using some of it right away.  Remember all that wool?  Not to mention that now is the season for wool – brief as it may be here in Los Angeles.
I made a skirt from the blue plaid,  it is a faux wrap around and looks very cute with boots.Because it is a narrow skirt it has a long kick pleat, or vent, not sure what the official name is.

Matching the plaid at the seams is what makes the garment look professional. These days most store bought plaids don’t pay attention to this detail.  Sure the plaid ‘matches’ but not really.

Another sign of a well made wool skirt – the lining. Helps it hang better as well as makes it more comfortable.

And a close up without the belt.  I hope to get a lot of use out of this, we are having a cold wet winter.

I’m also still loving sewing with knits, I’m so happy with my first Wren that I made another.I’m even trying to come up with new poses.  This version has the narrower skirt. The fabric is from JoAnn’s and I must say I am very pleased with it.  JoAnn’s is pretty good at keeping up with trends, just two years ago their knit section was very meager, a few stripes and solids. Today they are offering some very cute knits. I love how bright and colorful this is.Another change I made was to cut the back with less of an opening at the neck line. Looking at this photo it still looks quite exposed. This will be fine for a summer dress – yes I will be using this pattern often- but I need my neck warm.  Aging isn’t fun,  a lot of warmth escapes from my neck and shoulders now, which means I get to wear many of my shawls, but that includes when I wear this cute dress!

Side view.

The number of photos I take is pretty large, first run through is looking at the pictures in the camera and eliminating the real failures, then I download and go through a couple of weeding out sessions. Then it’s on to the editing program, I use PicMonkey. So the final result is a good grouping of photos.