Getting accustomed to customs

Remember how I was saying orders are unpredictable and variable? And how my patterns were outstripping my ready made clothes a million to one? Not so this week... this week patterns have been slow but clothes busy! And not just any old clothes, custom orders!

First is a variation of my best selling peasant dress, but with long sleeves (well, we are in Scotland after all). It the lovely Alexander Henry Mocha fabric, with turquoise and brown polka dot fabric for contrast.

It has a double elastic neckline, mock placket and fabric covered buttons.

And then I had an order for a peasant dress in red Alexander Henry Los Calaveros fabric (that's sugar skulls to you and me).

I love this fabric and have used it for a lot of different things. This is the last of the red colourway in my stash, although I have some things already made using it.

The award for the most ambitious creation this week was an asymetrical collar jacket in gorgeous orange bird print that reverses to black and white polka dot corduroy.

I'm saying it was ambitious because it's a size 4T / 5T so a little tiny bit out of my normal comfort zone! And let it be known, the combination of asymetrical, directional and reversible is not a happy one for the pattern maker or fabric cutter...

There are two massive buttons for closure. The black and white side (which, apologies, photographs terribly) has buttons made out of a leaf detail from the orange bird fabric. I thought plain orange would maybe be a bit too 'Halloween-ey'. It will also tie the coat together when the sleeves are cuffed to show the orange side.

The orange side has buttons made from the corduroy fabric, which also looks nice when cuffed.

I had only made this pattern up to 18m / 2T, so I had to grade it up through 3T / 4T and then to 4T / 5T. This has taught me that when I draft a new pattern, I really must draft all sizes together. Doing one size and then setting it aside is so much harder and I was up very late scratching my head and staring at things. On the up side, that means that this pattern is now fully graded and ready for testing!

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