Almost Finished

A while ago I decided I wanted to try to dye with eucalyptus leaves and try to iron infuse my material with a leaf imprint.

My grey material below was originally a dusky pink from berries but when I utilized my eucalyptus leaves infused with iron I used the whole bath not realizing that everything would go grey.

Not to worry I threw the material aside and thought that perhaps maybe it might do for something later on

My husband recently had his birthday and requested a pair of shorts .

I wandered into the surf shops and was appalled by the cost of a relatively plain pair of shorts, it got me thinking that perhaps maybe I could make the boys some shorts.

This is an idea of what I was thinking about and I could utilize my own dyed fabrics. Finding the pattern was really hard. Once upon a time you could buy numerous styles of mens short patterns in every pattern book you looked at. I found maybe three short patterns and none of them came near what I wanted

I trolled the op shops a came up with nought for many days, then yahoo I found 2 mens patterns and one child's  short pattern. I really wanted to utilize a pattern to get the sizing right because I hate unpicking.
I left off the back pockets and chopped the legs in half to give a two tone effect. This pattern had also a lot of extra material utilized for facings and I was short on material so they went too.

blurry photo but you get the idea of matching seams!

 I am really lazy and did not wash the material so it still has plant debris on it and smells of eucalyptus.
But I did manage to match up all my seams..amazing

 I still have to add a button hole, but a little practice is in demand before I do that, my machine is not so good with button hole - nothing to do with the user!!!

back view

Also been working on the crochet cushion for the back room, have to sew in the ends and sew it together

And last but not least Matilda and I want to send a big warm welcome to everybody whom has joined. Makes me feel like not such an idiot for talking to myself for the last year. So thank you, thank you.

 See you next time..
PS .. so far the reaction to the shorts from my boys has been less that luke warm. Not a very appreciative lot   are they.