“Stashbusting” silliness – sewing my strangest fabric

The Stash Monster is eating our office. Seriously, I have so much fabric it’s ridiculous; stacks and stacks in teetering piles on the floor and the sittables of our spare room/office, with only a semicircle of clear floor around the desk unencroached upon. So of course I wanted to participate in the Stashbusting Sewalong co-hosted by Cation Designs. Each month has a theme, and of course February’s is “love” – that is, make something from stash for a loved one. Add needing a special Valentine’s gift to the equation, and I finally had the motivation to sew up what is possibly the Most Bizarre Fabric I Have Ever Encountered.

I picked this up at (where else?) the Crazy Fabric Store a couple years ago. I mean, how could I not? I always intended it to become something for my husband, but I didn’t really know what. I only had a yard of it, so there weren’t a lot of options. I considered making a tie, but that would only showcase a sliver of the awesomeness (plus he sadly almost never wears ties), so I finally decided on boxer shorts. Really awesomely weird boxer shorts:

Why yes, that is a Hawaiian-style print with all Russian things! I’m particularly fond of the poorly illustrated caviar in the bottom right corner… Please, tell me, why does this fabric exist? Why can I find Russian-Hawaiian-shirt fabric but not a nice chevron print jersey? And why was there enough of this fabric in the world that not only did a bolt of it show up in a discount fabric store in Solvang but also online at Fashion Fabrics Club? (I actually saw this exact print, in two colorways, for sale on that site last year. I had a minor freakout at the time, but couldn’t tell my husband why I was convulsing because I was keeping the fabric a secret from him until I made it into something. So of course I have no proof. Wait holy crap I found it! It’s still for sale! That means you too can make bizarre Russian boxers for your special someone!) At any rate, I’m glad it does exist, because my husband has a random affinity for all things Russian, so this fabric seemed like an in-joke especially for him.

For the boxers, I used the Simplicity 2317 pajama pattern as a base. I used the XL in the regular pajama pants pattern, and cut them off just under the crotch (I made them as long as my fabric would allow, which is to say not very long at all. The inseam on these is no more than 2 inches, hence the very narrow serged-and-turned hem.) Since it’s a pj pants pattern, the crotch is rather low for boxers; I’d raise it if I used it again. I measured the elastic for the waistband off a pair of his RTW boxers. And I cut an appropriate piece of the print (my husband loves chili peppers) from a scrap, serged the edges, and stitched it on the inside back as a tag so he could more easily tell front from back. From cut to finish I’d say these took no more than an hour and a half. I can see myself making more boxers in the future – they’re a good way to showcase a wacky print that, well, perhaps I may not want featured in a garment that my companion wears on the outside… Anyhoo, he loved the finished product, even though they’re far from perfect. It’s the thought that counts – and the bizarro fabric, of course.

So that’s my “stashbusting” for the month. I say stashbusting in quotes because, really, sewing up a fabric that took up probably a millimeter of space in the stack (it’s rayon, so it’s super thin and folds up to be almost nonexistent) is not exactly making a dent in the Monster consuming the office. Sigh. I may not be capable of busting the stash, as evidenced by what’s on my sewing (/dining) table now: two dresses using fabric from my most recent visit to said crazy store – they didn’t even make it into the office at all! (One of them I’m trying to finish for the current PR contest, which ends – gasp – day after tomorrow! Best be getting on that.) Not to mention I just found out that I’m being sent to LA for work again next month… and how could I not partake of the fabulous fabric offerings of that great city when I’m living there for two and a half weeks? Especially not when I could have the opportunity to do so with awesome local sewasauruses? (And I now can track you all down, thanks to this totally brilliant map!) So what do you say, anyone in LA want to meet up and support my totally unhealthy stash habit? Or, ya’ know, just hang out. But surely our office can hold just a couple more cuts of fabric…

Simplicity 1716 – a cowly win!

It may be (just slightly) clear at this point that I enjoy a cowl neckline. While I do like the sew-on-a-tube variety of cowl, my favorite is the all-in-one-drapey-bodice type cowl (is it called a “cut-on cowl? I think it is). I have a couple of this type of shirt from Gap a few years ago that I love, and I’ve been on the hunt for a pattern to make more. I like McCall’s 6078 (oh, it’s out of print now! Sad.), but it’s sleeveless (could I add sleeves? Well, yes – in fact, I did once) and the cowl is a little lower than I like. Enter Simplicity 1716. And you know, it’s pretty perfect.

I had my eye on this pattern since it was released in the fall, and even though I was excited to try it, other projects kept pushing it down the queue. I actually cut it out back in December, but ran out of time before the holidays so I didn’t sew it up until the new year. But once I finally sat down to sew, I had a shirt in about an hour. Easy but not boring is my absolute favorite combination! A couple of pleats at the shoulder, back neckline finish, then just sleeves and side seams. I omitted the strange additional pleat that comes out of the armscye (I just folded it out of the pattern before I cut) because I thought it was odd and I don’t need the extra room in the bust (plus one less pleat to sew!). Bonus points: it fit well with no adjustments (cutting my regular 10-grade-to-12). And it’s really long, something I like in a top.

There’s not much more to say about this one, but it’s a keeper! I will certainly make another of these (maybe a couple) and I’ll give the weird twisty neckline variation a try at some point (even though some clever blogger that I can’t place right now thought it looked like the neckline was eating the model’s head, and now that’s all I can think of when I see the pattern envelope… still, might be worth the risk of head-consumption).

My pattern review can be found here.

Oh, yeah, and about the fabric: this is another piece I dug from the bins at Michael Levine Loft back in November, just a regular ol’ cotton-lycra jersey that was a pretty color and had a nice hand. Or so I thought. Those wrinkles you see in the picture if you zoom in (or, really, just look closely)? They’re permanent. Although it looks like I’ve just left the shirt at the bottom of a pile of dirty clothes for a week, in fact this is what it looks like fresh from the dryer. And it’s totally impervious to ironing. Not only does the iron not remove the wrinkles, but it makes the fabric turn a darker shade of purple for several minutes. This is a crazy thing, right? Is my fabric possessed? Well, it’s lucky I really really like this shirt. ‘Cause this sucker’s getting worn a lot, even if it makes me look like I just rolled out of bed.

Adventures in sweater knits: Vogue 8634 and Jalie 2682

I’m still playing catch-up with posts (which is good since I have not sewn a stitch in over a week! – too crazy at work), so here’re two tops I whipped up before Christmas. I had never sewed with a sweater knit, so when I came across a couple pieces in the piles at Michael Levine Loft in LA I picked them up, thinking they’d make good cozy tops for my holiday travels to colder climes. I wasn’t sure about what patterns would pair well with sweater knits, but I theorised that tops without neckband finishing would be ideal, since sweater knits are not the most elastic of the knit fabrics and I didn’t want to mess about with neck bindings or bands.

To that end I started with Vogue 8634 for the thicker magenta piece. I’ve had this pattern for forever (purchased, obviously, because it features two of my favorite design elements: cowl neck and empire seam), but somehow I never managed to get it to the top of the queue. The cowl neck is my favorite solution to the I-can’t-bind-a-neckline-in-this-fabric dilemma, so it seemed a no-brainer.

And, well, it’s okay. I thought I would like this pattern more, given the legions of positive reviews on PR, but it just doesn’t quite work for me. The raglan sleeves, which are usually a feature I like, seem to slide off my shoulders somewhat, and the neckline seam where the cowl attaches hits wider than my bra straps, which seems a bit wide. I’ve got a bunch of fabric pooling between my armpit and my boob (any ideas why this is? It happens to me a fair bit. Is it a small bust thing? Wrong pattern size?) and the armsyces are rather low for my taste. The empire line serves no purpose, it’s just a design detail (and one I like, so I didn’t omit it as many folks have), but in this thickish fabric the topstitching just looks kinda amateurish. I’m not sure if a different size or some fitting or a different fabric would make me like the pattern more, but the whole point of this kind of pattern is to make a quick knit top without much futzing, so I don’t know that it’s worth the effort to find out. There are a thousand cowl neck top patterns out there (and I may actually own about 900 of them), so I’ll probably just move on.

For my second piece of sweater knit, not wanting to make another cowl, I cast about for a different no-neckband style pattern. Enter Jalie 2682, which I bought a long time ago when I had a coupon at PR and then promptly forgot about. Well, that is, I forgot it could be used to make a normal top, since I bought it to try my hand at making a bike jersey using the sleeveless, zippered neck option (I still hope to get to that this summer!). But when I pulled the pattern out again and really looked at it, I realised it would be perfect for a fabric that’s tricky to work with.

This pattern is frigging ingenious. When I finally deciphered the instructions (which are printed sideways in a corner of the pattern sheet, in small print, with all the diagrams separate from the text and labeled with numbers to correspond with the steps, which I hate), I totally fell in love with the construction method. Basically you cut two identical front pieces, lay them right sides together, stitch a line right down the middle, then fold it over (like a butterfly) and the line of stitching in the middle becomes the center seam and the fold the finished the neckline. Brilliant. Plus it goes together super fast. I so loved this pattern when I was assembling it, but sadly I liked it less once I put it on. Don’t get me wrong, I do think this top is a win, I’m just not as over the moon about it as I thought I would be. I wanted slash assumed that this top would end up a little dressier, but the pattern is kind of sporty to begin with, and with this fabric it turned out more casual than I’d've liked. Not helping matters is the fact that I had to finish the sleeves with cuffs since I wasn’t paying attention when I was cutting and the bottom of one sleeve got placed on an already-cut-out section of fabric… oops. I think I would like to revisit this pattern at some point, maybe in a drapey knit to see if the neckline behaves differently and if I can get it to look a little fancier. Meanwhile I’m going to see if I can incorporate this bodice construction into, like, everything I make ever. Mind. Blown.

My full reviews on Pattern Review can be found here (Vogue) and here (Jalie).

But now some thoughts on sweater knits: I’m not sold, I have to say. The thicker fabric made both of these tops not look as dressy as I wanted, and while casual tops are fine, they should at least be cozy, which these tops aren’t really either! The looser knit of the fabric makes the shirts slightly drafty, unfortunately, and despite feeling thick and springy to the touch, when worn the fabrics are both thin enough to show every lump and bump (I had to scrap a whole set of photos taken with another pair of pants because the fly and beltloops were showing right through the shirts). So I’m glad I gave sweater knit a try, but I think I’ll be sticking to regular jersey and doubleknits in the future!

Simplicity 2281: Knitifying Fun

I’m playing catch-up, as resolved, and sharing some of the things I’ve made lately… or not so lately. I actually made this dress in mid-December, but lack of light (and, really, laziness) put off the taking of good pictures until just the other day. So please pardon this slightly used dress, since I love it so much I couldn’t not share it!

I clearly have a problem. I’m a knitaholic. While I suppose most people would think a knitaholic can’t stop knitting things (my actual knitting count: 1 and a half items), I’m defining it as someone who cant help but make any pattern with a knit fabric. “Oh what a cute design!” I’ll think. “But so fitted… surely it would be more comfortable in a knit?” That’s right, I seem to exist solely to turn fancy dresses into sweatshirts. And it’s awesome.

Now, I can’t take credit for the idea to knitify this pattern, Simplicity 2281 (a Cynthia Rowley design – can’t you tell by the giant midriff and dirndl skirt?) That came from Andrea at foursquarewalls, who made the pattern up in a red doubleknit last summer, and when I saw it I immediately wanted one. Since immediately for me means “sometime in the next 16 months”, I finally got to it in December. And of course I had to shamelessly copy her, so I searched for a while for a rust-colored ponte knit before finding one at Michael Levine in LA. I also had the advantage of her detailed rundown of all the reasons this pattern was totally unsuitable for knitifaction. But dammit, I was going to make it work!

I started by choosing the long sleeve version, both because I wanted a winter dress, and also because that meant I wouldn’t need the bodice lining to finish the armholes, avoiding the too-thick-seam problem. I omitted the bodice lining entirely and lined the midriff in a thin rayon jersey from the scrap pile (it’s purple, but whatevs, they’re complimentary colors). No lining meant I had nothing to gather the neckline to, but I just measured the lining piece and gathered the bodice to that measurement. I bound the neckline as the pattern indicated, but halved the binding piece lengthwise so it was just a single layer folded over. At first I was going to leave the slit in the back and fasten it at the top with a button or snap (since I didn’t want to do the tie closure), but the slit stuck out funny in this fabric and when I pinned it closed I could actually get it on over my head, so I just sewed the back up all the way.

Having sorted out all the lightweight-woven-to-heavyweight-knit fabric issues, I sewed up the side seams (I left them for last, of course, for easier fitting) and tried it on, and realised the last problem that I hadn’t considered: a long sleeved, high necked doubleknit dress in a solid color can be a little overwhelming, to say the least. As in, I looked like an Amish pumpkin. So, resolved as I was that this unlikely dress would work, I set about reducing the amount of fabric covering me. I took in the sides for a better fit, shortened the sleeves to 3/4 length, and took a good 5 inches off the skirt. It wound up being a smidge short (making this a leggings-for-sure dress, which is fine, ’cause it’s been cold!), but it did actually make it cute, I think. It’s amazing how hem length can change the look of a dress totally!

In the end, I really really like this dress. It’s like wearing a really comfortable but fashionable sweatshirt. And did I mention the pockets? Pockets! It’s even cozier when there’s somewhere to put your hands! And I can ride a bike in it, something that would almost certainly be impossible in the woven fabric version of this pattern. So yes, this dress is totally fueling my knitifying addiction… but I’m okay with that.

My review of the pattern can be found here.

One gripe, though, with the fabric. It wasn’t too helpfully labeled in the store, but I’m pretty sure it’s the ubiquitous Sophia Doubleknit that you can get from fabric.com and others. It’s poly, which I don’t mind, except it pills like the dickens! I’ve worn/washed this dress maybe 5 times and it’s already pilling like crazy. And the dress I made from the turquoise Sophia two years ago (this one) is basically a textured fabric now. It still looks okay from a foot away, but it’s not anywhere near as nice to wear. Any suggestions on how I can delaying the pilly demise of this dress, or recommendations of doubleknits that don’t pill? I think doubleknits are my new favorite winter fabric, but they need to last more than one winter!

Thoughts for the (not so) New Year

Well hello there.

What’s that you say? I’ve taken much too long a break and it’s rather too late for some kind of yearly wrap-up post? Ha, nonsense! The fourth week of January is the perfect time for a new year’s retrospective for the consummate procrastinator. Which I obviously am.

It’s funny, I’ve been kind of (or more than kind of) avoiding writing a post like this (and therefore not posting at all, since somehow I thought a recap should be my first post of the year – I mean, I couldn’t just ignore the turn of the year, right?), because I thought it’d be a pain, or take too long, or because for the last few weeks all I’ve been wanting to do is stream old episodes of How I Met Your Mother while knitting (man I knit slowly). I’ve sewn a few things, but nothing that I’m excited enough about to motivate me to blog. But now that I’ve finally started to think about my year in sewing, it’s actually reinvigorated me. Look at all the things I made last year! They look so pretty all together! Hey, I want to do that some more!

Observant followers may notice some pictures of things here that I never blogged (no, actually, I don’t expect anyone to be following so closely that they’d remember all my makes – that’s why I’m confessing it!) Like what is happening currently, at some point over the summer I made a bunch of stuff in a row and never took the time to write it all up. If there’s something you spot that you’re absolutely dying to know about, do let me know and I’ll try to dig up the details.

I tallied up my totals for the year – I made:

• 21 dresses
• 17 tops and 1 tunic
• 2 skirts
• 2 pairs of crop pants
• 1 pair of shorts
• 2 jackets
• 1 pair of pajamas (plus 2 unphotographed pairs of pj pants)
• 3 bags and a camera insert

So, not bad! Looking at my closet now, even though I added 20 dresses to it this year, I still find myself wishing for more. I think that’s because only a handful of the dresses I made land in that sweet spot of nice-enough-for-work-but-not-too-nice, especially now that I’m generally commuting to work on a bike and I need dresses with some stretch. I like making tops ’cause they’re quick and a good use of just a yardish of fabric, but my sad lack of well-fitting pants means they hang in the closet unworn most of the time.

All the same, it’s actually hard to pick a favorite item of the year. I’m particularly proud of my Anthro knock-off tank and of my whole Mini Wardrobe. My Minoru has been seeing a lot of action in the last couple months (rainy season), and all my knit dresses are in regular rotation. My biggest fails this year were definitely my sad rushed poly dress and an unblogged maxi dress that I wound up cutting in half and turning into a top and a skirt. And as far as least worn goes, although I like them, the two sacks-with-belts I made this summer will likely languish in the closet in favor of some of the fancier knit dresses I also made.

Which brings me to the lessons-learned-and-applied section: Thinking about what made me happiest to sew this year, I’ve realised that I’m really a practical sewist. I like to make things I wear, and I want to wear-it-NOW-already! So taking six weeks to craft a complicated, perfectly fitted fancy woven dress is just not my thing at all (sorry, Gertie’s Bombshell Dress Course, I don’t think I’ll ever get around to you). Now, that’s not to say that I only want to make boring garments – I love color, prints, and unusual construction details (I’m so on board with all the twisty jersey dress patterns I’ve been seeing), and I rarely make the same pattern twice. So I suppose my goal for the new year is… more of the same. Wow, ambitious, right? Well, I’m the first to admit that I’m honestly not that interested in stretching myself too much – this sewing lark is supposed to be fun, after all. But I do want to keep improving my skills: getting better at choosing appropriate fabric for patterns, getting more confidant with my routine fit adjustments, getting faster. And I do want to sew some more complex things this year – pants and coats, for one. But only things I can really see myself wearing every day.

I also need to get a handle on the Stash Monster. Fabric has literally taken over our office, to the point that there’s no place to sit anymore and the cat has to vault straight from the floor to get to his sleeping spot on the back of the futon because of the teetering piles of fabric that have taken over the seat… To that end I’m joining Cation Design’s Stashbusting Sewalong for sure. I can’t swear off buying fabric altogether (that’s just setting myself up for failure), but I do want to stop buying fabric online. I have a bunch of knit fabric in the stash that I ordered that is staying unused for some reason, mainly because it’s thinner than something I would have picked out in a store. So my only stash additions this year will be from my local 99 cent bolt end store and from any incidental vacation/special trip fabric shopping I may do (LA garment district, I’m looking at you!). I love nothing more than browsing fabric online, but I’ve learned that the fabric I’m most likely to use is the stuff I touched in person before I bought it.

My last big nebulous goal for the new year is to not let myself procrastinate this blog into nonexistence. I think the key to timely blogging is to not let finished projects build up. I just need to get into the rhythm of finish a project, write it up, start new project. Once a few things build up, it’s hard to motivate myself to sit down and blog because it seems too daunting and I’d rather just keep sewing. I want to try to keep sewing and blogging together as more of a unit so I can write about things while I still remember what I did!

So that’s my year in sewing, and my sewey goals for this year. I do feel like I should mention what else went on in my life last year, since thinking back on it now it actually was fairly eventful. In May I left my job of nearly 7 years and transitioned into a job closer to home, eliminating my hourlong commute and also decreasing my work hours each week (which did translate into more sewing, but not more blogging, as discussed above…) I’m still figuring out my new schedule and how to not just spend my extra time each week perusing cooking blogs (though I have been cooking a lot more, which is great). Happily, the job shift has also allowed me to spend more time with my friends, and has resulted in the growth of some great friendships. My year in biking was certainly eventful also – I rode almost 5,000 miles and climbed over 300,000 feet in 2012. I rode 5 organized rides: two full centuries (100 miles), two 70 milers, and 90 miles of the Death Ride. If you’d asked me two years ago if I thought I’d ever participate in any kind of organized athletic event, let alone something as challenging as Death Ride, my answer would have been a resounding “are you crazy?” But much to my surprise I really enjoy it. And, of course, also this year I had my first major crash and broke a bone for the first time in my life! I hope this year I can ride as much or more, but I’ll do without the crashing, thank you.

But back to sewing, one last thing that was great about last year was just the fun of participating in this crazy awesome online community. I’ve loved getting to know everyone through their blogs, and having the pleasure of meeting a few real sewasaurases in the flesh! And I don’t say it often enough, but thank you all so much for reading and commenting! I’m dreadful at replying to comments, but every time a new comment shows up in my inbox it absolutely makes my day. I can’t articulate how cool it is to find out how much I have in common with people all over the world! Thank you for making me feel so welcome and appreciated! I was even nominated for the Lovely Blogger Award (thanks Adrienne of stitching on the edge!) Rather than make this post any longer by sticking to the letter of the award rules, I’ll just finish up by calling out some of the blogs that really inspired me last year (and I’m sure will continue to do so this year!):

• Cindy at Cation Designs is slowly convincing me that I may be able to just wing it and make something awesome without a commercial pattern,
• Andrea of foursquarewalls has given me the baby step option of just altering the heck out of my existing commercial patterns before I try to leap off the patternless cliff,
• Lisa of notes from a mad housewife has helped me to not be afraid of real coat construction (I hope to apply those lessons soon!),
• Jess of the Sometimes Sewist has shown me that you really can just jump in to a big complicated project and just make it happen,
• and Anne of Pretty Grievances has made me laugh harder than I thought possible at sewing related matters.

Thanks, ladies, and thanks to all the other bloggers who I just happily devour whatever gorgeous thing it is you’ve made this week – there are too many of you to list, and that’s the best thing ever!

Here’s one more collage of the things I made last year (a happy accident that occurred as I was trying to figure out the online collage maker). Recap over, back to regularly scheduled sewing (and sharing the things I’ve already sewed before they get away from me!)

So here’s to a great 2012, a better 2013, and lots of sewing for everyone!

Christmas goodies

I hope everyone who celebrated Christmas yesterday had a great one! Mine was lovely, and I wanted to share a couple sewingy things it involved. First up, a Christmas Renfrew!

What makes it Christmasy, you may ask, besides the Christmas tree in the background? Why, nothing at all, except the fact that I wore it on Christmas eve. I bought this soft and cozy knit fabric at the FIDM store last month in anticipation of needing some warmer tops for the holidays in Nevada. I thought it would make a perfect casual Renfrew, and so it proved. The fabric is lovely, warm and thick but with fantastic stretch and recovery. My first Renfrew was a near miss, due to fabric choice and dubious off-grain stripe placement decisions, and because it was the first time I realised that the Sewaholic patterns are drafted for folks with narrower shoulders than I, but I vowed to get this one right. This time I cut about a straight 8 (I say about because of course I am a pattern cutter and not a tracer, so my pattern was cut on the size 6 line, so using the other lines as a guide, I just graded up as I cut to what I thought would be an 8), veering toward a 10 at the shoulders just in case. That plus the super stretch of the fabric means I can reach my arms forward comfortably in this version, hooray! The neckband also worked much better this time and lays properly with no problems. I’m still getting some wrinkles from the armpit to above the bust, I suspect due to the whole not-drafted-for-broader-shoulders thing, but I’m not going to make a ton of fussy adjustments to a knit tee pattern. I may just seek a TNT tee elsewhere… blasphemy, I know, but I’m just not sure the Renfrew is perfect for my shape up top.

That’s not to say I’m going to stop making Sewaholic’s patterns, though… because one of those presents under the tree turned out to be her new Cordova jacket! I’m thinking I’d like to make it in a doubleknit, because I’m really into the whole knit jacket trend, and also because I think it might mitigate the shoulder issue a little. I’ll be cutting a bigger size in the shoulders for sure, anyway.

I also got a french curve set and some of the famed Swedish tracing paper – yes, I’m going to attempt a bit of pattern drafting in the new year! Possibly. Not anything major, now, but maybe getting in to some more serious pattern modding and RTW knockoff fun. My need for jeans that fit is getting dire, so at this point I’m actually seriously planning on some quality jeans-pattern-making time. Soon.

And one last Christmas present – I was nominated for the One Lovely Blog Award by the appropriately lovely Adrienne of stitching on the edge! Thank you so much! I’ll need to ponder a bit more about what 7 random things about myself to share, so more on that next time, but I just wanted to say thanks!

So Happy (belated) Christmas and (soon) Happy New Year, and (always) Happy Sewing to all!

 

Variations on a Mini Wardrobe

Look familiar?

Yes, it’s the same outfit that kicked off my Mini Wardrobe back in September, McCall’s 6513 top and the Tori pant. I made this redux back in late October as a quick addition to my LA trip wardrobe, but I just photographed it a few weeks ago (to spare you another picture with a cast!), back before the weather took an abrupt turn into capital-W Winter (as winter as the Central Coast gets, anyway, which means mid-50s and rain) and it got too cold to wear it any more.

I don’t often make a pattern more than once, but I liked both of these and they were easy (plus I hadn’t put the patterns away yet!), so I figured why not? I love how just using different fabrics can make a totally different look and feeling to the same pattern. I will say that these are the new, improved versions – now with pockets!

Yep, I added pockets to these pants. Hooray! I love my yellow pants, but the lack of place to stash my phone/keys/hands is very disconcerting. I started by tracing the front pocket pieces off of a Butterick shorts pattern that I haven’t made yet, but I shrunk them quite a bit based off a pair of RTW cropped jeans I have. It was a bit of a challenge incorporating the pockets with the front darts and folded-over elastic waist of the pattern, but it turned out okay – the darts kind of overlap with the start of the pocket, and when I was stitching down the waistband it pulled more than usual because of the pockets (I like this pattern, but it is really hard to fold down and topstitch the elastic waistband without it pulling terribly), but, hey, no one’s going to see it… except you all, that is:

I lined the pockets with some scraps from an Alma blouse I cut out but haven’t sewn yet. While I kind of winged the pocket shape, I based the construction on the Thurlow trouser pockets, topstitching scraps of denim onto the pocket lining pieces for the bit that shows. I also made a faux fly, by cutting on a fly shaped piece to one front, folding it under and topstitching in a fly shape.

For the back pockets I traced the back pockets on those same RTW jeans. I placed them in the same place as on those jeans relative to the center back seam, but I think they’re a little too far apart. Oh well, they hold my phone!

I also changed the hem vent on this pair – rather than doing the whole overlapped vent of the pattern, I just made little slits in the side seam hem. I sewed the side seams to the hemline, hemmed, then topstitched along the slits. Here’s a super awkward mostly blurry picture:

For the shirt, I basically made it the same as the first time. My funny-shaped piece of fabric (from my favorite place), a super drapey rayon knit, didn’t allow me to cut the full length of the top. I thought it’d be okay since it’s drafted so long, but it wound up being just a little too short for my preference. So rather than doing my usual twin needle hem, I scrounged up a strip of fabric that was about 2 1/2 inches wide to make a very narrow hem band, which made it just a wearable length for me. Phew! I made the sleeves as long as my fabric would allow. And even though I made the same size as the last time, for some reason this top fits a little closer through the neckline and is less prone to gapeage than the black and white version. And I just love this color!

I got a lot of wear out of this outfit in our extremely brief fall, but now I’m firmly entrenched in winter sewing. In fact, I just finished a doubleknit dress in this same color that I’ll share soon. Hope your warm-clothes-making is going well too!