I spent most of the weekend at my dear old Dad’s bedside in the hospital, and when my sister took over for a couple of hours I rushed home and, instead of doing housework, I made a Lola! I have got some beautiful merino sweatshirt material that I bought for this express purpose, but I needed to grade the pattern from a 6 at the top to a 2 at the bottom and felt that I needed to make a muslin. This is the wearable muslin that I created.

The fabric has been in my stash for over 20 years and was bought to make little tracksuits for my sons when they were babies. This is the leftovers, and I was quite pleased with the combo.

This was a quick make – around four hours from the tracing to the finished state. The toughest part was trying to decide which colours should go where and matching all those corners. I really like some of the details, including the decal at the neckline. Every part of this Lola came from my stash, including the ribbing at the neck and cuffs. I had expected it to be much shorter – all the ones I’ve seen seem to be halfway up the wearer’s thighs, but mine is a very age appropriate length, which means that all the other ones are modelled by much taller people (and given the fact that I’m vertically challenged, this is not surprising).

One of the best things about this dress/top is the pockets. They are huge! Having said that, hands in pockets tends to widen the silhouette, which is not necessarily a good thing!

The only change I made (apart from the sizing) was to lengthen the sleeves. I am planning on wearing this dress/top camping and thought the long sleeves would keep me warmer.

While we were down at the river we saw a family of black swans crossing a very busy road. Hearts in mouths stuff as buses and trucks bore down on them. However, they made it across and settled into the river quite happily. Some readers may never have seen a black swan as they tend to be indigenous to certain parts of Australia and New Zealand (where they were hunted to extinction). The cygnets are the grey birds with them, and I’ve been watching them grow – they tend to hang out on the island in the middle of the said busy road and I see them on my way to work every day.

Details, details:

Pattern is “Lola” by Victory patterns, made from stashbusted cotton fleece in two tones of blue. Boots are PK. Mark took all the photos as I didn’t have my tripod and remote with me. I am pretending that this is the reason I look a bit fatter than usual, as the angle is higher, making me look stumpier than I already am.