As part of the Seamwork Ambassador team, I get to see all the patterns fairly early in the month. I’m not under any obligation to make them, but if one takes my fancy, I have access to it before publication. This month, one of the patterns is the Beckett overalls and I thought they looked like they’d be fun to make!

The Seamwork Becketts are actually drafted as a pair of trouser-legged overalls, but I’ve made a fair few jumpsuits in the last year or so, so I was immediately attracted to the bonus version for the Beckett – which is this skirted version you can see.

The Beckett is suited to a medium/heavyweight type fabric and I pretty quickly thought of this lightweight canvas I had in my stash. I am ALL about green at the moment I have to tell you. It must be my “green period” because almost everything in my project schedule is green. It’s not intentional, and I’ve always liked green – I have no idea why I’m particularly drawn to it right now, though.

As you can see, this is a kind of emerald/kelly green colour with some nice botanical illustration in white and pink. It’s a dream to sew and I had just enough to make a size 16 with 2m of fabric. I think it makes it a little hard to see the back pockets, but they’re there!

Construction is delightful. The instructions are laid out perfectly, so it’s a breeze to put together. I did it over one day – in perhaps 4 hours or so.

I made a few small changes to the design. As you can see from the line drawing, the pattern is drafted so that you have thin straps that you tie through grommets, and quite a narrow point at centre back. I already had this brass hardware sitting around in my notions collection, as well as matching snaps, so decided I would go a little more traditional. This was extremely simple to do and just required a slight widening of both the straps and upper back pattern piece.

Other than that, it was plain sailing. I really like the way the bib is drafted with a curve at the sides. The boxy shape of some other overalls patterns is something that I’ve not been sure about. Each to their own, but I think sometimes larger busts either spill out of the sides like giant side boob, or get squashed into giant monoboob. Again, whatever floats your boat, but this curve seems like quite a good idea to me and I think it works to slightly offset the children’s tv presenter look. Perhaps not entirely though…?

Either way, I like these a lot and would happily wear them like this, styled with a Seamwork Astoria top and some boots through autumn or spring.