megan nielsen design diary

My friends I think I might need an intervention with regards to light coloured clothing. I have always been one of those people who despite my best intentions ends up spilling things down my shirt – and yet I am constantly drawn to white/cream tops! It’s madness!

But regardless of how careful i have to be whilst eating in this sweater – i honestly adore it. I fabric is called fuzz buster fleece and it’s from KnitWit – the colour is not white though, it’s a cream, so i’m really glad I bought the matching ribbing because as soon as I compared it to white ribbing at home it looked really wrong. I finished the hem on this one with my twin needle, and didn’t bother doing mitred corners, i just turned everything in as I was sewing and kept going.

I find that this Jarrah is the one that I tend to wear with dresses and skirts the most. The colour is so neutral and softening that it tends to be the most common sweater I grab to go with those garments. Unfortunately those times also tend to be times we are going out for dinner… which means the probability of spills down the front increases exponentially hehe.

Shockingly I haven’t managed to stain this sweater irrevocably yet! I spilled chocolate down the front once which sent me into a blind panic, but some great advice from other sewers on IG helped me get that our right away. I swear I am so thankful that we live in a time when we can draw from such a huge pool of knowledge. We really are blessed! Or perhaps this is just enabling me to make more white garments ;)

Here I’m wearing it with my straight leg Dawn jeans which I haven’t had a chance to blog yet! These are my most worn, yet least favourite Dawn jeans. Don’t get me wrong – i really love them, just not as much as my wide leg or tapered pairs.  I made them during the testing process from some very cheap very lightweight spotlight denim and this fabric is a bit weird. It has faded in a really odd way and sometimes just looks a bit dirty or a bit off? I think that’s my main problem – the fabric just looks a little off to me.

This pair is made with a zip fly, and I don’t enjoy that as much as my button fly jeans. I think a lot of the enjoyment of rigid jeans is that authentic button fly experience. I can’t quite explain it – but the zip fly just doesn’t feel quite right in a rigid pair to me.

As they were a test pair I couldn’t be bothered hemming, and left the hem raw. It hasn’t frayed as well as my Ash jeans with raw hem – but I’m still enjoying it and I like that it gives a different look than my other jeans. I think i’m on a real light denim kick recently! I couldn’t find light denim for ages, and suddenly found a lot of it and I think I just went nuts make light denim jeans. I think that’s probably a good thing though as the majority of my Ash jeans are dark indigo – so I like the difference.

This was the first sample I made of the straight leg jeans and it’s the pair that taught me the importance of breaking your rigid jeans in. The first time I tried them on I hated them. They felt too tight in the wrong places, and I was upset by tightness combined with the light colour. But as is always my process during testing, I just kept wearing them to see how they felt in practice – and the more I wore them, the more the fabric relaxed and broke in – and the more I liked them! Then I couldn’t stop wearing them allllll the time.

So if you’ve had the same experience with your rigid jeans I definitely recommend giving them a chance to really break in – be they handmade or otherwise!

photography by Bronnie Joel