Simplicity 2451: Sewing For Others (what, again?!)

A couple of weeks ago, I declared my involvement in Tilly's One Week, One Pattern! project. To recap, this project is designed to celebrate the sewing patterns we most enjoy and have found most sewable. This is achieved by wearing the fruits of your chosen sewing pattern each day for a week, starting yesterday. Over 90 individuals are taking part and you can see Tilly's fascinating statistics on the project here.

As previously explained, I will be 'repping' Simplicity 2451 (pictured at the top of this post). I have three versions of this pattern in my wardrobe, but actually I have lost count of how many times I have sewn this pattern for other people, including my best mate, Harriet and some women from my company. I haven't bothered to document all these garments on this blog, but I have a made three more in the last few weeks so I thought this OWOP! week would be a good time to show you them.

As most sewing-fiends will know, there can be no higher praise for a garment you've stitched for someone else than when they ask you to make them some more! This is what happened recently when my best mate Vic, who loves wearing the navy-with-white-spots version, asked me to whip her up some more of these work-friendly little numbers. So I reached into they ol' stash o' mine and found suitable fabric for two more. The first, pictured above and below, uses the grey and blue striped wooly-fabric I scored at the Brighton De-Stash Meet-up last month. I forgot which of the wonderful attendees it originally belonged to, but I'm hoping they'll pop by this blog, see this post and feel happiness that it didn't stick around long before being made into something ace!

The second skirt I made for Vic was out of a piece of fabric that has been dwelling in my stash for far longer than that stripey wool. This red cotton has a rip-stop type hatching weave and has been living in the Stash O'dreams for a good nine months now. It wasn't sufficient in size to cut out all the pieces, so I used some stripey poly cotton for to make a nautical contrast facing! Free AND fun? What's not to love, I ask you?!

The final version of this recent triumvirate is the knee-length version in some black slightly stretchy stuff I acquired from work. I was feeling pangs of something approaching guilt that maybe I don't make my mum enough garments, so to redress this situation the below skirt was born:

Apologies for that grainy photo, instead let's see one of the lovely lady herself:

There she is, all ready to rock and head to London to go to work. Feedback: she said the skirt was very comfy and garnered a fair few compliments (I'm enjoying picturing her deliberately approaching people saying 'My daughter made this!' instead of a standard 'Hello' greeting!) but the shoes killed her feet! Ah, she is willing to suffer way more for fashion than I am!