Yesterday I told you of my first foray into the Cherrywood Challenge, ending with having to order more fabric.

Unfortunately, the shipment was delayed so the fabrics didn’t arrive until late on Monday evening.

But since it arrived, I have had SO much fun working on it. As a matter of fact I have struggled to remember to take photos, but there are a few that show what I have been doing.

I was a bit sad that the color was not quite the same as the original fabric, but with hand-dyes, I guess that is to be expected….

I am just going to roll with it and keep going!!

I started out by re-cutting the two largest side pieces….

….and adding sleeves and epaulet patterns …..

I sewed the first epaulet, turned it….

….and pinned it in place…..

Doesn’t that look great!!

I had planned to add real buttonholes to the uniform, but since my regular machine is straight-stitch only, I had to pull out my old machine. Unfortunately it wasn’t working right, so after making this disaster….

….I decided to forgo the buttonholes!! After all, I don’t have enough fabric to lose any from bad buttonholes!!

I continued to add bits and pieces to the uniform, including 3-D shirt collars….

…..and a tie….

With that done, I stopped for the day!!

Come back on Wednesday and we will continue this process!!

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I posted on Thursday about my idea of using the Cherrywood challenge as a memorial honoring my Dad.

To start with, I needed replicas of his ribbons and awards. I did some searching and found a great store called the “Armed Forces Super Store”. There I was able to find ALL of his ribbons, awards and insignia……

….along with buttons that would fit the time period.

Next I needed to find a “pattern” to use to create the jacket. So, I started scouring photos of WWII army uniforms and finally found one that I thought would work…..

I then pulled this photo into “Canva” and started adding parts of other photos, ending up with this idea……

I made a line drawing of this photo and enlarged it to the size that I wanted (or so I thought)….

But when I laid the ribbons and buttons on top of this pattern, I realized that the scale was off and the uniform needed to be smaller.

I finally realized the the problem was because I had “zoomed in” too much on the uniform and that I needed to back away and use more of the uniform to fill in the space. More along these lines….

This is what I took to the retreat to work on!!

Now there were two problems….

Firstly, Dad’s uniform would have been a browny/olive green color and that particular colors was not in the fabrics that I could use. After a lot of thought, I decided to use the dark grey (almost black) fabric instead……

The second problem….. I only had a Fat Quarter to work with!!

My plan was to make the uniform 3-D, with the lapels, pockets and epaulets being loose on the top. BUT, that was going to take a lot of fabric!!

So, before I started cutting fabric, I decided to test my pattern on muslin, and IT WORKED…..

The next morning I decided to throw caution to the wind and start using the challenge fabrics, starting with the first lapel…..

It worked well, although, in an effort to save fabric, I I did use the light grey on the back of the lapel!!

I added one pocket and side of the jacket…..

….and then the other lapel and jacket side….

At this point, I realized that I would struggle to have enough fabric, so hopped online and ordered another 1/2-yard of the fabric.

I think that this is a good decision because I really need the jacket sides to be a bit wider and then also need fabric for the sleeves.

The only other thing that I have done to date is make the necktie. It was fun to stuff the “tie” portion with batting to make it 3-D…..

I don’t have a great color to use for the shirt so I am planning to add some color to one of the other pieces of fabric to change the color slightly. Apparently that is allowable in the challenge!!

So now I sit waiting for the fabric to arrive!!

After that, I need to finish the uniform and then decide on the rest of the quilt!!

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