IAM (not) Colibri

17:00


When I took my son to the hairdresser, she admired my dress. ‘I love a smock dress’ she said ‘all the little girls come in wearing them! I wish they made them for adults’ I complimented her on her dungarees. It seemed we both liked dressing like toddlers- and why not? They are dressed to be comfortable, practical and colourful. Adult clothes are terrible, when you think about it.



People complain dungarees are not flattering but that’s part of the appeal, if you ask me, dressing for yourself, not for other people. Anyway, my son assures me all the cool people wear dungarees, like children’s TV presenters and plumbers, and I have made these blue dungarees and I feel most amazing in them. It’s almost impossible to feel unhappy if you are dressed like this (as my son has pointed out, they are like the poncho from the mighty booth in this regard).



I’m wearing them here after a particularly tough day, as we are leaving Southampton soon, and my son had some trouble adjusting to that. My own response to a substantial house move has been fairly typical- I have bought myself a bloody great house tree. I should point out that I have NO IDEA where I’m going to be living, but I trust it will be large and suitable for trees.


I enjoy wearing my dungas intensely, from the colour, to the softness to the general ridiculousness and comfort of them; and when someone bumps into me I say ‘that’s alright, I’m wearing my camouflage trousers, after all!’
People don’t bump into me much. I’m quite bright.




The pattern is a modified Iam colibri. I’ve modified it so much that I now refer to it as ‘Iam not colibri’: I added proper straps because I don’t have time for tying and untying ribbons (dungaree clips are fun, guys) and also, the grosgrain ribbon twizzleing through an eyelet might be perfectly comfortable, but it doesn’t look it. I added a front pocket for pin badges, and made the legs full length and tapered. I sized up  and added a little around the hips as these seemed to be designed to skinny French waifs (I found the sizing disappointing as to only went up to a size 16, and everyone deserves dungarees).

Finally I changed the facing so that the full bib was covered in nice spotty fabric, so everything is nice and covered when the bib is down- I even made match bias binding as covered the leg seams so it looks nice then the legs are rolled up. I’m also working on a dress version. Other than that, I followed the pattern exactly.

Iam colibri is a simple pattern, with no fiddly adding bibs and fake flies (flies! Do the not just add insult to injury for ladies dungarees) so it doesn’t take long to sew up, but making all the patch pockets and the topstitch take me approximately forever, so for this reason I strongly recommend sewing a muslin for this pattern, unless perhaps you are a skinny french waif with a taste for danger.



You Might Also Like

0 comments

Instagram