May Garment of the Month

Again, I have been a keen bean with my May Garment of the Month.

Originally I had planned to make Butterick 5949 but on fitting the muslin I realised that it would need some serious alterations, so I opted for Simplicity 1810.


The fabric is a jersey picked up from Goldhawk Road. It was priced at £3.99 and this top required 1.5 metres. Those that know me outside of blogging know that I don't really like animals. However, when it comes to fabric I don't seem to mind them. Check out my squirrel dress and some of my recent fabric purchases here. Here is a close-up of the fabric, this time with birds:


The pattern itself was simple to make and didn't take very long. It has pleats at the shoulder and darts in the back for added shaping. The ties are sewn into the back darts which gives added shape when they are done up. I really like this detail although most of it is hidden by my busy fabric. 


The only thing that I don't like about this top are the facings. I'm not a huge fan of facings in general, but these ones seem huge and despite all of my pressing and understiching they refuse to lie flat. I expect it is partly my fabric choice as I doubt that I would have the same issue had I chosen a woven. 


I french seamed the sides because I love a good old french seam, and sewed baby hems on the armholes and hems. I have had this pattern in my stash for a while but have always been worried that the lack of fittedness around the waist would make me look as though I was expecting a baby. However the ties sit at the right place and soft drape of the jersey works well. I don't think that I would sew this with a woven.  


As this was a wearable muslin I am really pleased with how this turned out and I am tempted to make the dress version in a black jersey just to have as a wardrobe staple. The top is really comfy and I have already worn it out and about in jeans. Expect this to pop up in my Me Made May summary!

You can view my Pattern Review here.

My June project will be Vogue 8827 (now out of print). I have read some reviews that mention that the instructions for this are not the easiest and the sizing is a bit strange, so fingers crossed it is not too tricky. 

Happy Sewing!



Comments

  1. MJ4 May 2014 at 03:33

    Wow you look great! Love the new top, gorgeous fabric :) Hope to see you Wednesday maybe?

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Winter~Queen4 May 2014 at 08:40

    Loving this top! Great colour too :)x

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous4 May 2014 at 15:15

    I like french's too. Thanks for the share.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Unknown5 May 2014 at 11:55

    Top looks great on you, the colours really suit you

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous18 July 2014 at 09:40

    This is next up on my list of projects and I had a lightweight cotton set aside. After seeing your great top I may rethink my choice. Thanks for the idea.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

April Garment of the Month - Dress for Easter

Image
Pattern Review: Butterick 4443 Happy Easter! After spending Saturday in sunny Brighton, today in London is a such a contrast. Grey and miserable, but the perfect excuse to curl up in bed with a coffee and catch up on sewing blogs. So here is my April garment of the month - another version of Butterick 4443 . I have made this previously here  and I really love the style of the dress. I picked up this crepe like fabric from Goldhawk Road priced at £3 per metre sometime last year. I knew instantly that it would be great for another version of the dress. It drapes perfectly. As the fabric was quite thin I underlined all of the pieces with some stretch lining picked up from Simply Fabrics in Brixton, priced at £1 per metre.  I cut a size 14 and made my usual alteration to take in the waist and under the bust. I was very proud of myself as last time I made this dress I altered the skirt to make it shorter and remove some of the fullness. For this I traced ...
Read more

July Garment of the Month

Image
Pattern Review: Simplicity 1872 My mum had a retirement party this weekend and of course I had to make a dress to celebrate. I had been wanting to try out the dress from Simplicity 1872 for years and finally decided to take the plunge. I have made this pattern as a peplum top  before, but it was so old that it went to the charity shop earlier this year, so it's nice to have another iteration of the pattern in my wardrobe. Ok,so let's talk fabric. I picked this up at the textile district around the Sacre Couer on my holiday to Paris with my mum last September. It cost €10 for 3 metres which is a bargain. I am pretty sure that it is some kind of polyester chiffon. I underlined the dress with stretch lining from Simply Fabrics in Brixton priced at £1 per metre.  I know that a couple of people have mentioned that there is a huge amount of ease in this pattern. It is true and I took out approximately 2" in the bodice and cut a larger armhole to compensate. T...
Read more

Scrap-Busting - Part 2

Image
Pattern Review: McCall's 3341 Firstly, some breaking news which is that I am currently featured on Pattern Review as their Member in Focus. You can check out my interview here. As promised, here is my second stash busting mini. For this skirt I used McCall's 3341  and went with View E. I have made this before in my pre-blogging days, also to use up a remnant of leftover fabric. This is a simple a-line skirt with darts in the front and back and is a pattern that I stole from my Mum's stash years ago. I cut a size 16 and sewed this straight out of the envelope. The only (lazy) change I made was to omit the waist band. I am trying to demonstrate with my above pose how the skirt is designed to sit just above your natural waist. I always find this quite strange in patterns, as so few RTW clothes have this feature. I'm sure that I have seen a tutorial somewhere (maybe Threads?) on how to lower the waistline of a pattern, but as I was doing some stash-busting/insta...
Read more