In A Pickle

Hi! Anyone left here, or just crickets?

The end of 2019 and early 2020 were a bit... Crazy. We moved to a new appartment and I had three exams right after that. I spent the month of February taking a bit of a break and working on some projects, and thought 'hey, once the weather gets better I'll be able to go out and take some pictures!'.

And then the lockdown happened.

(For your information, I'm in Belgium, where measures aren't as strict as in Spain or Italy. I'm technically unemployed because all non-essential businesses had to close, but we are allowed to go outside for walks or bike rides. I try not to do this when it's not necessary since the weather is great and everyone seems to have taken up jogging, but it's tough.)

So yeah, going out to take pictures for a blog seems like a stupid idea right now. So we did a living room photoshoot. Get used to this background because you might see more of it!

The moment this dark green wide wale corduroy arrived at my job I knew I wanted to make a pair of overalls out of it. My boss very generously let me take some home and I set to work reworking the Megan Nielsen Dawn jeans to work for this. I previously turned the Closet Case Patterns Morgan into overalls (which I've made a few times and really became a wardrobe staple) and it's a very easy hack: you just need to redraft the waistband to open at the sides and draft some facing pieces for the side closures if you want to do buttons and buttonholes. I went for exposed zippers on this one, so it was even easier.

The bib portion was stolen from an old Knipmode pattern. I shortened it a bit to work with the higher rise of the Dawn jeans (the original was drafted to start just above the hip). I only had 1,5 m of fabric so had to get a bit creative with the layout. The bib lining and underside of the straps were cut from leftover cotton. I also added a caravan pin my friend Karen got me. She calls me Caravanneke.

While making these I was a bit worried about looking like a pickle because of the colour and texture of the fabric, but I think that worked out fine in the end. And even if I do look like a giant pickle... Would it really be a bad thing?

My first pair of Dawn jeans was made in a rigid denim and even though they are comfortable (maybe not after a day of eating) these are a lot softer and feel like pyjamas by comparison.

(Can we get real about lockdown clothing by the way? I try to put on 'real' clothes every day but... I just can't deal with anything tight or rigid right now. I've always been pretty sensitive to fabric textures on my skin and how clothes feel when I wear them all day, and this seems to be worse when I'm home all the time. I also can't stand feeling restricted right now. So most days I'll wear leggings and loose shirts/sweater dresses and call it good enough...)

These overalls did get a load of wear already, and I think they will get worn a lot more often. Even if they make me look like a pickle.