Tour de France with the Pattern Stash

I love watching the live stages of the Tour de France each year. You get to see so much more of the tactics and scenery than with the daily highlights, plus there is no spoiler on the morning news to tell you who won and my how much. The snag is that the stages generally run from 9pm to 2am in the morning. It’s hard to stay awake, but this year I started sewing as I watched the race.

For 21 stages of the race, I’ve sewn 23 patterns from my stash!  2 jackets, 1 vest, 9 tops, 5 pants, 3 gloves, a bar and a pair of slippers

Sewing the Denali jacket – 1st mountain stage

Not bad going. Most of the patterns are fairly simple so they able to be finished in 3-4 hrs. I found it easiest to do the sewing in the early stages of the race. Then switch to tracing out and cutting the next pattern after midnight. Partly so the machine didn’t wake anyone, but also because I was getting sleepy and my concentration was more on the screen.

sewing McCalls 7446 – Mathews on his way to a 2nd stage victory & the green jersey

It was kind of like speed dating a pattern. Pick a pattern, select a fabric – and sew. None of the dithering about like I normally do. Some of the patterns didn’t work out as well as I hoped but there are quite a few that will get made again and again.

sewing Kwik Sew 3843 – stage 19

Here is the finished sewing pile. It’s a bit of a surprise when I look at it all together like that.  But then there was around 85hs of racing – and that’s a lot of sewing time.

sewing the TDF

 

With La Vuelta coming up next month, it might be a good opportunity to do a Chanel-style jacket.  I’m always planning one, but the amount of hand-stitching and time involved always makes me squib out.  That’s the plan,  PLEASE hold me to it ???