Kiwi!

So, my mother’s birthday was a while ago and we had a party!
The theme was colours, so everyone was expected to wear something in a fun colour. I assigned myself green, so I could wear my green pants, with a kiwi sash (see below for kiwi sash).

Kiwi sash

I was planning on wearing a black top with a cowl/drape front bit. So, I figured I had to make something nice to go over the top of it. Otherwise black is black and that is, apparently, boring. I started thinking and made the choice to make a green bead necklace. However, it wouldn’t only be green beads, I also wanted to make kiwi beads. I got out my fimo clay and started the work.

Green beads were easy, just roll green clay into beads and stick a pin through it to form the hole. (Admittedly they sat on the living room table for about 3 days before I punched the holes, since I was distracted at some point.)
For the kiwi beads I looked at the matching sash for the green pants (and clearly missed the light middle part). I started with a small green roll, then added really thin alternating green and black rolls to the outside. Another layer of green and black tiny rolls was added. Then a layer of green and a layer of darker green was added to the outside. I mixed some random bits I had left over and they made brown (which leftovers always seem to do). I rolled out the brown very thinly and added it around the roll. I rolled out the now quite fat roll to tighten the cane and make it a bit smaller.

Kiwi bead

I made green-ish beads as a base bead that I could stick three kiwi slices on. I did that a couple of times, until I thought I had enough of the kiwi sliced beads. I still had about 15 cm of kiwi-cane left. So I decided to chop of about 1 cm bits and round out one of the sides. This would form half a kiwi (like the one above). I poked holes through those too, and chucked all of it in the oven. They cooled down and I got extremely frustrated with the wire I chose. It is metal ish and quite thin, but it holds knots very well. I also likes to tangle and fall of the ‘wireholder(?)’. So I yelled at it, but in the end it cooperated and I made myself a necklace. This is it.

Necklace Necklace

The shorted wire holds green beads, the longest the half kiwis and the middle is the sliced kiwis. I like it, and have worn it since the party!

Really Green Pants

Since I’ve had a lot of bad experiences with pants/jeans I figured that for this next pattern, I’d better try it out first. I decided to use the same fabric I used for my frog pouch (here).

It’s a pattern from the simplicity pattern magazine, I’m guessing that it also comes out as an individual pattern, but this is the picture:

Pattern

I really like these pants. They are really comfortable, not too difficult to make and I only made two alterations. The first was to sew the waistband on 2 cm below the original seam line, this raised the crotch and made it look a lot neater. Next to that I angled the back waistband so it would hug my back better. This meant that I sewed the front to the back waistband on an angle, and thereby also had to cut of a little of the back leg panels at the top, but that wasn’t too difficult either. Now, the final product!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Back

Excuse the mess.
Here are some details, though. On the left, a close up of the sash. It’s a kiwi fabric, which I though would match perfectly with the green in the pants. I feel it does. Next to that is the patch that I had to add to the right leg, because apparently there was a hole in my fabric before I started cutting, and I missed it completely. Now it’s a ‘design feature’ (and I love it!).

Sash Patch

As I said before, the insides are completely finished, both legs are flat felled and I enclosed all the other seams with their counterparts.

Insides 1 Insides 2

Lastly, the zip. I’m quite proud of this zip, it’s a side zip, which I’ve never done on pants before, but will in the future.

Zipper

I’ve been wearing it for two days now, so excuse the wrinkles, but it’s really comfortable. I love the colour and it makes me feel happy. I guess that’s much more important than what other people think. So even if grass green isn’t your colour, I’ve decided that it is mine!

I’m also still working on the brown dress, hoping to finish that tonight!