Victoria II and a give-away

Oh Victoria.. how I want to love you..I so absolutely love Sonja's (Ginger Makes) versions of the Victoria  but alas, it is not created for a lady of my stature. I am just too wide-shouldered to carry off a boxy blazer like this. But I had to give her another go. The first one is now long gone via the charity shop. I feel a bit bad about that but perhaps someone found a use for it and at least I have learnt some new skills. Part of me even likes to think someone is wearing it somewhere. What do you do with your "failed" makes? I feel like (with the exception of the sleeve heads) this is a good quality garment so I'd be sad to take it apart which is why it will travel to the charity shop too but I'm still not sure that's the best solution.

Anyway, I digress- please meet Victoria II (and excuse my rabbit-in-the-headlights expression- it's quite hard taking photos using the iPhone as a remote):

 I cut the Victoria at size 12 US/16 UK and omitted the modifications I made last time as they actually made the fit worse. See- so boxy:

I added lining to the whole blazer as just lining the body felt very unfinished.

Both the fabric, a lightweight grey polyester suiting, and lining have been sitting in my stash for a while and are from the now-closed Sew Fantastic on Essex Road. I have been on a bit of a de-clutter mission recently so have not allowed myself to buy any more fabric until my stash has been significantly reduced.

Here's a picture of the back where you can see how miserably I failed to set in the sleeves.. oh well..

I really would love to love this pattern but it really does not work for me. Being an hourglass shape, I really need to emphasis the waist or I risk looking like a big ball.

With that, I would like to give my Victoria pattern away. Now, it has been cut to size 12 US/16 UK (I know, I never used to do that but fell into a bad habit for a bit last year) but it's easy to size up or down. To get your mitts on the pattern, just leave a comment below, telling me what material your Victoria would be.

Office-appropriate

Finished! I made some office-appropriate shorts and a blazer. The shorts are Claire from In-House Patterns and the blazer is the fabled Victoria from By Hand London (worn here with a T-shirt I made a while ago by copying an old one).

For the main fabric of both, I've used the mystery synthetic I found at Ridley Road market and I used a lovely viscose I bought in a fabric shop in Brighton for the lining, pockets, blazer cuffs and waistband facings. (Is it weird that the lining cost more than the main fabric?)

I'm sorry to say that I found the Victoria pattern instructions really difficult to follow- they just didn't specify things like where the cuffs were going exactly (how should they line up) and what the tailor tack was for (the dart, of course the dart- as I discovered once their sew-along got to that point). 

I also foolishly graded the pattern to accommodate my ridiculous bust (isn't nursing great?) but take into account my (relatively) normal hips. That does not work with this pattern. It would if there were buttons to be done up. As there's not, I just ended up with my pockets slightly too far back. Still, it's a nice casual-ish blaster. Some details here:

I have no idea how they meant for you to finish the lining inside the jacket but I decided to cover the seams with a black satin bias tape which I hand-stitched. It looks really neat.

That said, I will definitely have another go at this pattern once I figure out which fabric I'd like it in. 

The Claire pattern went together really well and was an absolute joy to use. I cut between sizes (I am so naughty!) but it works really well and the shorts are super comfortable. I had never  made a fly zipper opening before so it was a learning curve. I think it turned out really well, specially for a first time. Not that I could tell you what I actually did. 

I used some more satin binding for the crotch seam as I had that seam break in the wash on my Iris shorts (boo). I also had to join the facing material as I didn't have enough of the fabric to cut it out straight. Lucky the pattern is so busy- I don't think you can tell without looking for it. 

I definitely see many more of these shorts in my future though first I have to finish the Juniper trousers I started a while ago. Just have not been feeling it as I'm not really getting on with the pockets (long story. 

For now, it is faaaar too hot to sew... Oskar slept through last night which still has me confused as it's not really been his habit since he was born. Long may the sleeping continue.