Froggy Batwing

I bought this froggy fabric somewhere, some time ago. I don’t really remember, but I always thought they were very cute and that my mom would also find them quite funny. They are colourful and different and would be perfect for a top. When I made the Cheshire Cats batwing top, it was basically meant as a wearable mock up for this fabric. I brought it to my mom and when she tried it on, it fit fine but could probably do with a tiny bit more width. So I printed out a new copy of the  Amy Bat Wing Top, now in a size M. There were two adjustments made, one to add a bottom band and one to add a neckline band.

Everything was sewn on the serger apart from a line of stitching around the neckline to keep it in place. This is definitely the benefit of adding bands instead of hemming tops. I really like the frogs and the colours and the shape of the top. My mom also seemed to like it and I still have enough leftover to make a shirt for myself. Now I just need to get around to actually doing it…

Dinosaur Shirt and Scarves

Summer Graduation 2020 feels like a lifetime ago in some ways and the blink of an eye in others. During the set-up for that ceremony, we were still able to go out and enjoy the market with its fish and its fabric stalls. While waiting for my colleagues to buy their fish, I perused the fabric stall and soon found the fabric that I just NEEDED to buy. People, it had dinosaurs and helicopters on it and was a jersey, the perfect new t-shirt!

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  Dinosaurs, helicopters, surf boards, planes and sharks, what’s not to love?!

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  Scarf!

While at that market, one of my colleagues remarked that she would be interested in a scarf with the dinosaurs, so at the end of 2020 I set out to making this dream (and/or throw away comment) come true. The scarves, I made two, are just simple infinity scarves, very quick and easy to sew and done within the day. So why did it take me so long to write up this post, you may ask? Well, her birthday was end of January so I waited to gift it until then and second, I’m lazy.

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  Front

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  Back

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  Side seam

Next to the scarves, I also made a t-shirt. This one was made with my tried and true Free Fun Summer Tee pattern (exhibits A and B). I tried to match the stripes along the side seams and that seems to have turned out pretty well. The hems do curl up a little, but that’s probably got something to with some stitching errors I made. All in all, I’ve just got a tiny bit of this fabric left and finished three projects in a day. Success!

Poppers on Plaid

At some point a while ago, I impulsively went to the fabric market in Utrecht. I’d woken up really early and got myself on a train by 7:25. The fabric market in Rotterdam was not up and running yet at 9 when I got there, so I decided to trek on for another hour and go to Utrecht. Met my parents there and had a good time with them. I also got a number of fabrics to play around with. Two of those were destined to be together, one blue plaid with brown stripes and a brown fabric.

 

I started with the blue plaid and made a shirt out of it. The pattern was the same as for Red Birds and Foxes, Simplicity Naaimode 9, model 59 (aka Simplicity 2255). I downsized the pattern to a size 34-36(ish) and changed the back darts. Once it was sewed up, it was decidedly too long, so I cut off about 5 cm. It closes using snaps (or poppers). Since I bought myself a snap-setting-tool, I’ve been trying to put snaps onto everything. There is little more satisfying then undoing poppers like the hulk when undressing.

For the next iteration (and there will be a next iteration), I’ll make sure to make the armholes smaller. For this version they are a little too big, in a sense restricting a little movement. The side seams on the pattern are not equal, and I might fix that on the pattern for next time. I do still enjoy wearing it, so all’s well.

Spiders and Dinosaurs

I made even more shirts from the free fun summer tee pattern. These ones were cut from jersey fitted sheets. I got a blue one and a white one. The pattern has shoulder seams that are far towards the front. Since the white fabric wasn’t very long, I only managed to get two fronts out of it. I then determined what the shape of the shoulder piece needed to be and cut that out of the blue.

Once the actual sewing was finished, I couldn’t figure out which side was the front. Then I had the bright idea to add some embroidery to the front. So I looked through my pinterest boards for some inspiration. I’d already decided to do a lace-collar-spider thing, but on blue, so that wasn’t an option. So, dinosaurs it was. I pinterested a lot and couldn’t find something that I totally liked, but I used this as my inspiration to draw something myself. It’s a little sitting dinosaur that is looking up to the sky. This shirt has been worn quite a lot so far. It’s very cute.

I also cut the complete shirt from the blue fabric. Then I went in search of the perfect lace to fake a spiderweb. I found some in Amsterdam that I bought, but then I went to a local shop for something else and thought that I might just take a look. There I found the perfect lace. This lace was sewn partly around the neckline and then covered by the neckline binding.

Throughout an episode of Blown Away (Netflix show about glassblowing), the lace was handsewn down. At the end of the lace, a bit of embroidery was added to mimic a spider. I think this one is very fun. It’s also been worn regularly already.

Fun Summer Tees

I’ve been throwing out a number of t-shirts due to stains etc, and therefore decided I needed some more tops. I’d also discovered an interesting free shirt pattern on pinterest that I wanted to try out. So a match made in heaven, right? (Actually, it was.)

The pattern I used was the ‘fun summer tee’ pattern by iCandy handmade. It only came in one size, M, so I grabbed some weird jersey stuff that I think I may have made something out before, but I cannot remember what. I cut out the pattern as it was and sewed it up. I liked the pattern, but it needed some adjustment to make it a perfect top for me. It was a little big, I didn’t sew the armhole shut enough and it was too long. It’s since been gifted to a friend.

So in the same afternoon, I started a new version. This one used leftover fabric from the flower-power-pantsuit and some black mesh that was destined for some form of sportswear.

I decreased the width of the shirt by a few centimeters and decreased the length too. Since the flowers were a limited width, I only cut the middle of the front out of that. The sides and back were cut from the mesh. Sewed together and added a neckband from a strip of the flower stuff. The corners are mitered which is a much better finish.

It’s been worn a lot, I really like it. It doesn’t go with my thin skorts so I will need to remedy that in the future.

Larp Shirt for Real Life

The larp shirt was finished and wearing it was quite agreeable, so I decided to make another version to wear in other situations. I used the bird fabric that I’d also used for multiple circle scarves. Since that fabric is extremely shifty, I used quite a lot of spray starch to get the pieces to cooperate. In contrast to the larp version, I did French seams throughout, which was a lot easier since this fabric was much thinner and did not fray as badly. I did not put elastic in the sleeves as of yet. I may decide that it needs it, but I first put it in the wash before trying to wear it out.

The ‘string’ used for the neckline is stitched down at the front, such that it can never undo accidentally. Apart from that, no modifications were made. I am debating that it might have been nice to add some more shaping and/or bust darts in potential future versions. I will have to see how this one wears before deciding.

Short Sleeves for Larp

The weather forecast predicted degrees hovering just below 30 Celsius with no let up in sight. So on Wednesday evening, I went through the pattern magazines stash and found Simplicity 16 – Model 49-52, a blouse with a drawstring top. Traced the pieces, cut out the fabric (leftovers from the long sleeve top) and sewed the thing together.

I used French seams throughout most of it. The fabric frays so badly that this is needed. However, at some points doing that would have made seams so thick that it would not have been comfortable. The sleeve hems are not sown double and the facing is some black bias tape. All in all, the shirt worked quite well which is why there is now a second iteration.. Come back later to check that out.

Dragon Shirt

For my birthday this year, I got a meter of stretch dragon fabric from my friend. It languished in the stash until the day before yesterday when I pulled it out to make a shirt. It was always destined to be a shirt because, one: dragons, two: limited fabric and three: stretch. I had located a new to me sewing pattern called the Supersnel Shirt (here). Only two (or three depending on how you count) pattern pieces and 8 pages.

It fit together well and I cut the size S from my dragons. The first attempt at binding was a disaster since the binding was way to short (and/or my shirt did not have enough stretch). Even after lengthening, the centre front still pulls slightly. However, the binding attachment method is very nice. I broke the twin needle I was finishing all the hems with so I had to wait until morning to finish all the hems and the neckline. It was still a fairly quick make. Next to the lengthening of the binding, I also added a small pocket to break up the dragons a little. Not sure if it works, but I liked adding the detail.

I need to wear it for a day before I can decide whether I need to grade to an M on the hips for the next iteration, it does feel fairly tight over there. Again that may be that the fabric has slightly less stretch than the pattern would like. I do think the dragons are totally cute.

Birdy Waterfall

After the origami cats shirt, I also cut out the pattern from some blue with blue and white birds fabric. This was a very fluid fabric that shifted even more than the cats print. The walking foot was truly essential in this project and it worked very well.

Since I figured out the order of construction during origami cats, this one came together easily with the only hurdle being the shedding of the fabric that made the French seams more difficult. It seems to be a little tighter than the other one, but it also flows very nicely so I hope that it will be good to wear. This one was also spray starched to a plank in order to get it to cooperate, so it will wait for service just a little longer. I do like the print and I hope it will be nice to wear.

Origami Cats

I have a number of thin fabrics that were originally bought to make into circle scarves and shirts. I seem to have so many scarves at the moment that that is no longer necessary. However, there is no such thing as too many shirts. I finally grabbed one of my numerous ‘white print on dark blue background’ fabrics and cut into it. This one was the origami cats print. (I also have birds, more birds, triangles, cyclists and possibly more – too much stash)

The original dress for the wedding had a waterfall neckline based on the Eva dress pattern from Your Style Rocks (I made the dress before for a graduation). Since I evil-cornered the original dress, but I liked the neckline, I decided to re-make the pattern into a shirt. I cut it out from the origami cats print, it’s only two pieces so that was pretty quick. I had some order of construction issues, but figured it out in the end. I finished it in an evening. I still need to wear it, but I wanted to wash it first as I spray-starched it quite excessively during construction to limit the shiftiness. I think it will work out well.

And here is the finished shirt. I like the cats and I hope the shirt will behave as well as the cyclist shirt.