Shutting the Stable Door...

Last Sunday the forecast was for cloud turning to rain in late afternoon, so we set off confidently hatless for a cycle to Yokohama and back. Forecast was wrong and the sun soon got hot, and hotter. James head somehow got burned through his thick mop of lustrous hair. So, in the afternoon I made him a hatlet, out of a cotton print. The criteria are that it has to be as lightweight as possible, absorptive of sweat, and at least partly sunproof. The lack of a peak is not optimal for avoiding nose-burn but it must be better than nothing for the head. We have baseball hats, but he doesn't wear them. James wouldn't want to develop the skill of knotting a scarf round his head each time he got on a bike, so I hand stitched the knots and bits into place. So far he has been wearing it at least... and it's so super fashionable! :-)

Wookie Too

Well, I'd bought too much red fluff so... !

This is my evolving hoody pattern. James' red fluffy number turned out to be a little more snug than expected. I think this is due to the thickness of the fabric. So for my version I left the hips the same as the woolly hoody but increased the size a bit above hips, reducing the shaping on the side seams and increasing the upper arm width a little. The result was still snug, so I sewed 0.5cm seam allowances on the underarm and side rather than the 1.5cm on the pattern.

You might be relived to hear that I did run out of fabric this time. I had to cut the hood from 4 rather than 2 pieces, but this does not show at all, through the furrr. I also added a pocket on the front. 

It is basically too hot to wear this now, but tonight after a cycle ride in the rain it feels great. 

Notes on stitchin' furrrr: I learned a bit about how to sew fur by taking a class by Kenneth King on patternreview.com. I pinned all the seams at about 2cm intervals, tucking in the fur. This would not feed through the sewing machine due to the thickness of the fabric sending the pins into the innards of the machine. So I then basted the seams and finally sewed on the machine. The fabric has 2-way stretch so the stretch stitch was a good idea, but no mistakes are allowed, as it is unpickable on this fabric. All the hems are done by hand, as is the pocket. So, all in all it is quite labour intensive. The flip side is that the stitching can be as untidy as you like, as nothing shows through the furrrr.

Camera Case

The Canon S100 is a small camera but unlike my Sony TX10 it is not quite small enough to fit in a pocket. It is also not waterproof or dustproof, so a case seemed in order. I made a test with the fabric from James' trench coat and then made the real one in Goretex (left over from James' waterproof trousers). The case is lined with fleece (left over from my blue hoody jacket) and the closure is velcro. It is basically just a rectangle with a lid. The lid has little gussets on the side for extra water protection. It hasn't yet been up in the mountains but I found the case very convenient, and the S100 really became a take everywhere camera as a result.