Liverpool Shirt - in process

Not so hot and stick today, but that doesn't mean I'm in any mood for modeling. So, herewith, a work in process on the hanger:

This is the popular Amy Butler "Liverpool" shirt/tunic/dress pattern. Believe it or not, this is the shortest -- "shirt" -- length, with the 3/4 length sleeve option. It's not hemmed yet (or even pinned up) but even so. It's a long shirt.

It's either going to be awful or wonderful, and right now I'm close to hating it. On the other hand, it's a muslin, so marginal fit and questionable fabric choices aren't the end of the world at this stage.

You might think I''m nuts to use such a yummy fabric for a muslin, but it has been in my stash since the dawn of time, and for good reason: it's a tightly woven, super-crisp cotton, poorly suited for garment use. I got about 3 yards of it several eons ago at the Pierre Dieux store on Madison Ave. in Manhattan (I think that location closed long ago, but I could be wrong), where they used to sometimes put bolt ends and remnants on sale at normal-people-can-almost-afford-it prices. The print is "me" in that over-the-top way, and I love it enough that I was getting sick of seeing it in the stash. The urge to use it for something, anything, came over me while I was rooting around in the stash for a fabric to test this pattern with.

The contrast trim is a kooky quilting cotton, also of ancient vintage, with abstract football-ish shapes in blue-red-yellow on brown. I like that it almost has a leopardy look to it from afar. There's a good chance I'm the only person on the planet who thinks these two fabrics go together. On alternate minutes, when I'm not wondering what the *&%$#! I was thinking.

As you see it here, it's all done except for buttons/buttonholes and hemming. The front edges are pinned together, as it will look when buttoned. I left off the sash, BTW, and the cuff buttons.

You'd think 6 darts on the front would result in good shaping, but eeesh, the shape of this shirt is not matching up to my shape very well, in spite of great efforts taken with flat measurements and pattern adjustments. I cut a size L, but used the lower, XL, dart positions, because I need more length in the torso and the L darts were clearly too high. I also moved the waist down a half-inch.

Something about the waist is still not right: the widest part of the fish-eye darts is now at my waist, but it still looks like it's sitting a little high at the side seams. And I either need to open up the side seams and put in the sash I left out, or add a couple fish-eye darts to the back, which is schlumpy and shapeless compared to the front.

Usually a size L top is huge across the back on me (and too narrow across the front), but this one is too large (though not too wide) in front, and pulling across the shoulders if I move my arms. The armscye is way high, to the point that I almost have to wriggle into the sleeves, and couldn't possibly wear anything but a sleeveless T under this. Which is a problem, as at this point I'm thinking that getting a good fit buttoned up may be impossible, but it has possibilities if worn open as an overshirt.

This may sit in the UFO pile for a bit. I think it's salvageable if I:
1) Fiddle with the bust darts, which point straight in from the side seam (odd), and I think they need to be at an angle
2) Fiddle with the fisheye darts: I think there's too much nipping in at the waist for this fabric; slightly narrower darts might ease the poor draping (although this crisp fabric will never, ever drape well)
3) Experiment with adding small fisheye darts to the back, which is huge at the waist
4) Lower the armscye (no idea how to do that, but I've got several books that cover that kind of thing) enough so it doesn't pinch, without losing mobility

Ugh. None of those tasks is the kind of thing I feel at all enthusiastic about. On the other hand, I've come this far. And look what a nice job I did matching up the print on the L/R front pieces... abandoning it will feel like a loss.

I need to focus on sewing some clothes for my trip, and I don't think this one is going to make it. Unless I get around to muslining jeans out of the sky-blue stretch twill I got super-cheap for that purpose. In a perfect world this shirt, over a light blue pant, might end up feeling groovy.

Chances are slim, at best, that both "muslins" will turn out wearable, but I can dream, can't I?

Mini-Wardrobe Done!

Yay! Two skirts + two tops = happy camper!

Another Linen Top

I'm slogging slowly forward on this Mini-Wardrobe Challenge over at PatternReview.com, and was all set to finally make something from some gorgeous stretch rayon in my stash. Until I realized that there was just enough -- maybe -- of the turquoise linen left over from making MWC garment #1 to make a simple tank top.

Inspiration credit goes to this top, with which I am much enamored, although I'm past the age where spaghetti straps in public are a good idea. Isn't that ruffled hem adorable?

Unfortunately, the Japanese pattern book it's made from is not among those on my shelf, and I don't have time to order a copy of it. Plus, I'm supposed to be making this challenge from stash, fabric and patterns.

Once bitten by this image, making a linen tank for my second MWC top seemed essential. Plus, it would use up that fabric. Which is a lot more appealing to me this week than putting a scant yard-ish size piece back in the stash. This is supposed to be the year of sewing from stash (and finishing UFOs, not that I'm doing spectacularly in either department, yet, but it's only April, I've got time). Plus, a sleeveless tank would be a nice counterpart to the long-sleeved Patricia tunic, and maybe even fit into a THEME for the challenge, which has so far been lacking. (More on theme later.)

I rummaged through the pattern stash, which yielded a couple of items that could be easliy altered into sleeveless tank-ish tops, but alas, not from the limited piece of fabric I had left. So I self-drafted one, very loosely based on a linen pull-on (no buttons or zip, yay) JJill top that fits well through the bust thanks to armscye darts.

So I copied that, sort of, adding to the length (aiming for lower hip area) and whipped up a quick muslin. Yikes. Okay on the top part, but wow, did I underestimate what would go around my hips with any kind of ease. So now it's more trapeze-ish in shape.

Then I trimmed the neck (very slightly gathered at center front) and arm edges with bias strips cut from the Anna Maria Horner "Guest of Honor" fabric left over from making my office curtains. So far so good. On to the ruffle. Which turned out not to be such a good idea. The cotton print is huge scale, and I planned a deeper ruffle to show just a bit more of it. But a gathered length of wider cotton, even quilting weight, was too heavy for the very lightweight linen. (Took a pic, but it was a dud.) So I cut the ruffle off drafted a straight lower border and went with that. Super-narrow double-turned hem, top-stitched at the seam.

It's okay, but not quite as super-delicious spectacular as I'd hoped. Which is about normal for my semi-experimental sewing. I'm happy with the fabric combo, though, and although there is still a yard-ish size length of the GofH fabric back in the stash, it was fun to use some of it for a garment purpose. Probably I'll make a simple skirt from the rest, but no tackling that until I've completed (or given up on completing) this mini-wardobe thing.

Finishing the white denim skirt is next. It's been hanging in the sewing room closet for a week, waiting for me to give it a waistband and a hem...

I'll post photos of me wearing this stuff when I have complete outfits to show off. Which will be sometime within the week if I'm going to make the challenge deadline.

Patricia Tunic #1

Finally, one garment done for the Pattern Review Mini-Wardrobe Challenge. Which means I'm behind schedule, but I'm probably delusional to think I have any chance of finishing four garments in a month. It's nice to have gotten something done, even if garments 4,3, and/or 2 don't happen on time.

That pink spot at the neck is a fake tag made from a random print from the scrap bin, because it's fun and bit silly, both of which are good things in my world:

Pattern is the "Patricia Tunic":

Thanks to Angie for bringing this one to my attention not long ago!

I made the same option as shown on the pattern cover, with long, contrast-faced, bell sleeves and contrast facing at the neck. I've been wanting to make a tunic for some time, and the princess seaming on the front of this pattern appealed to me, along with the design possibilities implied by the sleeve and neckline facings. Here's a line drawing I extracted from the PDF file:

As you can see, I took some liberties with the facing line. This pattern overal seems to be designed with ease of use for a beginning sewist in mind, hence the nothing-challenging neckline facing line. There are a number of "I made this!" photos online which encouraged me to go with this pattern, but I gotta say the facing looks too bib-like in many renditions. So I redrew it with some nice curves.

I like Jennifer's fabrics but my main purpose for making a tunic (any tunic) was to use the blouse-weight turquoise linen that's been in my stash for several years now. It was one of the first fabics I purchased when I decided to try sewing my own clothes, and I still hadn't done anything with it.

Funny how I didn't remember, until I was cutting the fabric out, that I've never sewn linen before. Fortunately, although tricky to cut perfectly (it's lightweight, and a bit wriggly to handle; a good candidate for rotary cutting, but I don't have a large enough matt for that), it is a dream to sew.

The contrast facings are a Kaffe Fassett print. You can't imagine (or maybe you can) how many fabrics I've pulled from the stash as I pondered, repeatedly, over many months, what would go best with this linen. I'd have gone with this one from the get-go, and saved myself a lot of pondering time, if I'd realized I had enough of it. I thought I had only the one scrap, which was plenty for the sleeve facings and back neck, but not the front. Serendipity came to the rescue: while I was looking for something else I came across a second largish scrap, just enough for the front facing! Yay!  (Erm, yes, my stash is a little untidy. I'll tidy it up one of these days months years.)

I called this post "Patricia Tunic #1" because I'm quite sure I'll make it again. I have some cotton lawn to use up, and more Kaffe Fassett prints.

But first I need to do some more sewing on this mini-challenge (it would be nice to get at least two garments done), and write up a review of this pattern, which is mostly good but man, have I got one HUGE (or very small) peeve to snipe about...

Butterick 4985 in progress

I've been inching along on sewing projects, all these days I haven't been posting. It's slow going, a few minutes in the morning at a time: cut something or pin something or sew a seam, or press the little bit I sewed yesterday. But eventually it adds up to progress. Here are some things I've been working on...

Butterick 4985 (not yet hemmed, awaiting buttons/buttonholes)


This is a wearable muslin from stash fabric. You can't see any of the nice details or shaping to the blouse in this photo, so here's the official view (I made the version at lower left, with band collar):



If I ever figure out how to fix the fit issues it will be better than I'd hoped.The print suits the pattern better than I expected, and I'm looking forward to wearing this... someday.

For now, it's back in the UFO pile. I made a bunch of adjustments to the pattern, adding length both above and below the empire seam, and to the sleeve, and increasing width at the bust, and gathering instead of a dart, etc. All that measuring and double-checking and remeasuring took forever, and although it's close to okay (better than it would have been without the adjustments) it still manages to be too big across the back shoulders, and not wide enough across the front.

How the front can be too narrow in the center and still have too much fabric at the front underam area is a mystery. Will probably just have to live with that. And the extra at the back doesn't bother me much. Big problem is where to find room to have enough overlap at the front for buttons...

Got this far about a month ago and set it aside to come back to in a bit for a fresh take on problem-solving. For now, I have other things in the works. I do want to get this right, but have no enthusiasm for going futher at the moment.

What I learned from this is that my bust measurement may match the pattern size exactly, but I need to cut a size smaller at the upper back, and add an inch to the center front. Too late for that with this one, unfortunately. I'll come back to it someday, because I have some luscious Kaffe Fassett fabric to make this from if I can get the fit right.

Simplicity 2962

I finished this top just in time for what passes for wintry weather here in Hilo, but it was warm enough yesterday afternoon to wear for several hours. Nice and comfy, but sheesh, it's big. I made my size and yikes, I'm swimming in it. The yoke is too wide (I have broadish, square shoulders, fit there is not usually a problem), and the armscye is gapier than it should be. I thought I liked that the front yoke is lower than in similar other patterns, but when I wear it I wantto hike it up an inch or so at the shoulders.


I ended up making View B (shorter length) with a contrast yoke, and skipped the pockets.

I chose this pattern because I like the pleats (rather than gathers) in the front. I'm not so thrilled with the square yoke in the back, and would prefer a circle yoke that goes all the way around. But this is intended to be around-the-house wear using up some stash fabric, so the yoke issue isn't a big deal. Original plan was to add the cute pockets in the yoke fabric, but I ended up deciding on a shorter length, so pocket placement would be awkward.

Haven't decided yet whether to stick with this length or add a contrast band of a third fabric at the hem to make it long enough to be worn as a short dress. A dress would fit my need for steamy-day-around-the-house wear more than a top does, but I don't have a fabric in my stash that looks right with this. Theoretically I could purchase another half yard or so of the yoke fabric, but the whole idea was to use up my last piece of that. So it may stay a top forever. Whether it will stay in the closet, or see regular wear, is as yet unknown.

Construction was pretty easy, BTW, although getting the yoke and yoke facing all lined up just right was a bit fussy. The back of my bodice ended up about an inch wider than it should have been to fit the yoke width (I suspect that's my error: I did not intently heed the instruction re trimming S/A at the armscye), so I took a small pleat in the center back as well, which you can see here:

Remembered to add a fake tag to the inside yoke, too, just for fun. It's not exactly centered, big deal.

I skipped the back ties. They don't really seem necessary, since most of the extra is in the front. I made ties, but didn't insert them when I sewed up the side seams because I wanted to check placement first. And then I decided not to bother, as most of the extra size in this is in the front. I might take in the sides a couple of inches, see if that helps it feel a little less gargantuan. Yeah, I wanted loose and cool, but there's loose and then there's gigundo.

I've got a similar pattern to this (Butterick 5179), with a higher yoke, in dress length. I'm gonna try that before attempting this again. If it fits/looks better and I want another top, I'll just make a short version of that one.
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UPDATE: I've worn this top several times now, and am liking it more and more. It's just so comfy. I think I will make it again, going down a size and see how that fits. I also want to try out those cute pockets and make a shortish (not mini, I'm too old for that, but a couple of inches above the knee) dress length for hot day wear. That may be one project, or two.

I've got other things higher on the fashion sewing list, though, so don't know when I'll get back to this. Probably around the time the weather gets warm and sticky again and I feel desperate for light, loose clothing.