A sewing blog about building a functional, cohesive handmade wardrobe, one garment at a time.

Monday, May 27, 2019

Chambray Traveler Shirt

Simplicity 2246 sewing pattern review.

I sewed Simplicity 2246/Lisette Traveler last in 2014. It was actually one of my very first sewing blog posts.  I wore both versions constantly until I got pregnant later that year and couldn't fit into them anymore.  I packed them away into a bin of "skinny clothes," and there they sat until a couple of months ago, when I had finally lost enough weight to integrate them back into my wardrobe.  Once again, they are my favorite shirts to wear, so I decided it was time to make a new one.

Monday, May 20, 2019

Striped Plantain Tee Dresses


I've been eyeing up the uber-popular McCalls 6886 pattern lately.  If we lived in the States, I would have picked it up at a Joann's sale by now. As I've been too spoiled by the $1 sales to pay mail-order prices for Big 4 patterns, I decided to use my Plantain t-shirt pattern to make the dress.

Monday, May 6, 2019

The altered wardrobe

So I have been whining here and there about how nothing from my handmade wardrobe fits anymore, and how alterations haven't worked out the way I want them to.  I think maybe I was indulging in some bad-attitude moments, because lately I've been very motivated to alter existing pieces to fit, with a good deal of success.

I did, at first, think I would just start sewing new clothes. But then I realized that I was going to have to redraft and/or refit every single pattern just as if I were starting over.  That knocked the sewjo right out of me.  I had built up such a reassuring repertoire of TNT patterns before I lost weight, that I had many options to choose from when I was hit with the urge to sew something fast and well-fitting.

Not anymore.

So I've been hitting the sewing machine with a few old makes that I wanted to salvage.  Today I want to share my newly altered Josephine tops. These were made in 2017 from a Made By Rae pattern that I modified a bit. They've gotten a lot of use in the summers.  But with my changing shape, the tops had not only become too wide, but the armholes were too low and they now seemed much too long.

This top was made from a long-hoarded Kaffe Fasset rayon challis.  It was actually my second go at this pattern in the fabric; the first one suffered a horrible washing-machine death. Here's a photo of the second version when I sewed it about two years ago:

Before (original blog post).