I’ve been on leave (only three days, but combine that with Easter and Anzac Day and I managed to get 10 days off), and have been busy in the sweatshop.

Over this time I’ve made quite a bit including two flannel shirts – one for Mark and one for Tom. They look pretty similar in that they are both red toned, but I thought I’d show them off anyway.

This one is Tom’s. Everything came out of my stash. The buttons were op shopped (thrifted) from some Roxy shirt and didn’t look too suitable but I turned them over and they were perfect.

I thought I’d show off my sleeve placket. I’ve fiddled with a variety of these for ages and this is the best one I’ve found. I think you’ll agree that it’s really neat. The tutorial is here: http://off-the-cuff-shirtmaking.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/tutorial-shirt-sleeve-placket.html and it really is excellent. My stitching doesn’t do it justice…

Here is the placket closed

and here is the tower placket from the outside – hard to see, but I think that’s the point :).

Mark also got a flanno, he had been wearing it and I forgot to take photos but found it discarded on the bed, hence the rolled up sleeves.

They were both a nightmare, because the printed plaid was off grain and I had the choice of on grain and no matching, or matching and going off grain. I had to match! Can you see the curve of the front edge on Mark’s which was the worst? Luckily it hangs ok when he’s wearing it, and he is thrilled regardless.

When I looked at the fabric I could also see that it was kind of warped

This made pattern matching an interesting activity to say the least!

Anyway, I survived, and I have two more to make, but I have put them on hold until I am feeling stronger emotionally.

In the meantime I also tidied up the sweatshop. I have acquired all my mother’s stash, and I had bags and bags of zips, bias binding, elastic, ribbon – you name it. I decided to put them into shoe boxes – this is just the zips. My mother cut them out of everything that she threw away and I can trace some of them back to the ’50s.

My stash cupboard got a makeover

and the whole room is now completely decluttered. I made a few interesting finds (I have more suspenders than I care to think about), and rediscovered some fabric. I should mention that this is actually only a sample of my stash – I have more in a trunk in the shed. Oh my giddy aunt, when will I sew all this?

Details: The shirts are my favourite pattern, KwikSew 3422, and the flannel is from Homecraft Textiles. Everything else is out of my stash, I have used up several spools of thread – hurrah!

This is not all I’ve managed to churn out, there is more to come just as soon as I get it worn and photographed.