#SewFrugal23

 Hello and happy March 31st!  We've come to the reveal day for the Sew Frugal Challenge over on Instagram and I couldn't be happier to show off my makes for it!  For those that don't know, the #sewfrugal challenge is run by two lovely sewists, Ruan (known as @TheYorkshireSewGirl) and Sam (known as @Frugalisama) and the idea is to make something using a free to everyone pattern and fabric that you already have on hand.  All month long different vloggers post on YouTube with all sorts of suggestions for free patterns and oodles of inspiration!  They've been keeping me company every evening when I'm on the eliptical machine this month and let me tell you that I have so many plans brewing in my head for all the things I could make with my horrendously large horde of fabric!

Anyways, let's get into the nitty gritty of what I decided on.  I went with a theme instead of just picking random things.  I wanted a new outfit for spring, but one that would work well as separates too.  Although as you can see we're a lot of snow melting away from wearing spring clothes just yet...

So I came up with Peppermint Magazine's Wide Leg Pants, Styla Pattern's Reine Top and the Costa Tote from Helen's Closet.  The Wide Leg Pants and the Costa Tote have been on my to make list for ever so long! And when the Styla Reine popped up this winter as a free pattern I was smitten.  Loving a good puffy sleeve as I do, it was right up my alley!

I started with the Styla Reine.  Both fabrics for this top were from "happy mistakes".  The floral french terry was ordered from Prairie Love Knits possibly as far back as 2017 or 2018 (I'm pretty sure I was working for Gen Mills still when I ordered it!).  They accidentally shipped the wrong colourway initially and I decided rather than ship it back I'd keep it (I think the shop offered me a bit of a discount if I wanted to keep it.) But I had no idea what to do with it until the Styla Reine popped up.  The ribbing I used was from much more recent times.  I ordered it in December to go with my pink fleece I had for making my Minerva Brand Ambassador project and I accidentally ordered the wrong pink.  (They have about a billion colours to choose from and I just clicked on the wrong one I guess. LOL)  I figured it would come in handy some day and it sure did!  

Next up in my frugal spring outfit was those pants.  I had lots of choices of fabric - several lenghts of denims of various weights, some floral bottomweights and then this coral linen blend that is from about the same era as the above mentioned floral french terry.  I ordered it from Minerva on sale when it was still their old site, so it's definitely been a few years!  I used a button from my button tin and the zip, while it doesn't match the coral linen - it's tan - is close enough and no one will see it, so I wasn't too worried about what colour I chose so long as it was light coloured!  I LOVE how these turned out!! The pants were pretty much perfect right off the printer (Can't say right out of the package when it's a PDF pattern now can I?  LOL!)  The only change I made was to lower the rise by an inch, and take a small wedge in at the center back.  Other than that they were perfect!  I can't wait to try them in another fabric!  I did do a bit of head scratching over the fly zip, but I think that I was overthinking things and getting myself tripped up because I hadn't done a traditional fly on anything in so long.

Once I finished the pants I had a bit of fabric left - just enough for my Costa Tote.  I found the floral cotton that I decided would be the perfect fabric for my pocket in my "dreams of becoming a quilter someday" bin of fat quarters and other quilt suitable fabrics - it wasn't big enough to do both pockets so I ended up piecing it with the linen for the back side of the tote and then lined both pockets with linen and it worked out just fine!  The lining is from a mystery cotton.  Mystery in that it's a mystery why I ever purchased it.  It's an unfortunate almost mustardy colour, but not in a good way. It's more along the lines of a cross between bile and baby poop.  Shudder! On the bright side?  It doesn't look nearly as bad as a lining for my tote and it gave purpose to an otherwise ugly and unloved piece of fabric! 

I'm so happy with how it all worked out. It feels great to have used up some of my ridiculous horde of fabric and has inspired me to start sewing more from my stash.  I've got grandiose plans of challenging myself to sew frugally, not just in March for the challenge, but throughout the year.  Maybe not always choosing free patterns - because I just had a sort through yesterday of all my PDF patterns that I've printed and it's a bit staggering how many I have.  I should probably impose a pattern purchasing ban on myself for the foreseeable future because I also have oodles of patterns that I've got saved on my computer and have not ever printed out yet to go along with that overflowing box of ones that I have printed.  Anyways, whatever I choose to do with fabric and or patterns it'll be fun coming up with ideas and inspiration!

But for now, I've got a wallet and tote combination I have to finish up for J and C's wedding social in two weeks. (I'm contributing to a "handmade" prize for the silent auction), then I have two garments  that I'm working on as my Minerva Brand Ambassador projects for the month and I just signed up to do a test for Itch to Stitch again.  I behaved myself and didn't sign up for the last one she did and then promptly signed up for the next.  What am I going to do with myself?  I'm incorrigible!  Oh well.  Craftiness is happiness?  (How corny is that?  Ha ha ha!)