Recently I was on social media and saw a smiling woman modeling some clothing she’d made. The fabric was a fantastic print and she looked good.

Then I read her caption. It was a litany of all the ways the thing she’d made didn’t fit right, and that she’d recently taken it apart to make it into something else.

I got a couple of RTW pairs of culottes back when I wanted to wear skirts but we were in the baby gate phase of our lives. There are no baby gates in the house now, but I still like the combination of swish and practicality in a nice, wide-legged set of culottes.

When I mentioned my plan to make culottes, the first question from the fam was, What are culottes?   “Skirts with legs,” I said. My kids were quick to point out the pairs I already had. But as I told them, I didn’t have a black pair.

I first saw the Untitled Thoughts Chandler Trousers on sandi204. It was May 2020. It took until May 2021’s Me Made May seeing Sandi AGAIN in her Chandlers to think, They look so good! I’m going to make those pants.

I don’t have a lot of memories with my grandpas because both of them passed away when I was small, but I think the photos I have of them are why I didn’t need a lot of convincing to add a chore jacket to my sewing projects list. A chore jacket just seems like a grandpa uniform.I don’t remember what exactly made the Julien Chore Jacket stand out over the many other chore jacket patterns – the Ilford jacket and a Japanese mens’ jacket were also in the running.

I picked a luminous chartreuse linen for the outer fabric (warp and weft are an electric yellow-green and a rich gold), and picked a batik cotton from my stash for a lining. I wanted a lining so it could be a three-season jacket.