Purple Stripes Boxy T-Shirt

I'm a firm believer that the most basic makes are often the best. Whilst I love planning and executing bigger projects, t-shirts remain one of my favourite things to make. Not only can they be made from less than a metre of fabric, they're also perfect for showcasing more interesting prints and designs. T-shirts are also really quick to make and it's nice to make something and know that it's destined to receive a lot of wear. I really love jersey fabrics and often find myself levitating towards them in fabric shops - probably why I seem to be constantly making t-shirts!

When a garment is really simple I find that the shape of it becomes much more important and the proportions have to be just right. In this case I wanted to make myself a cropped boxy top which is a style I really love. After a bit of back and forth I think I may have finally got the proportions of the pattern just right! I used a ready to wear top to determine the width and length of the bodice something that I find often really helps to make the top look professional and not handmade if I'm not using a pattern. Having now drafted a pattern for this top I'm hoping to replicate again and again!

Another one of my favourite things about basic makes are statement details. As evidenced here and here, I'm a big fan of basic tops with a twist. I've noticed quite a few tops with contrast neckbands cropping up and I mentally added it to the list of details I wanted to try out. This make proved the perfect opportunity and I added a contrast neckband with the charcoal rib I had leftover from this dress. The fabric I used definitely has a touch of grey in it (although in real life it's primarily lilac) so I think it goes nicely with the grey neckband.
The jersey I used on this top is gorgeous, it's medium weight so holds it's shape really nicely and feels lovely to wear. I love stripes but it can sometimes be hard to find them in colours other than blue/black and white so I was really pleased to find this purple one with narrower stripes. I bought this fabric when I went to the Knitting & Stitching Show at Olympia so it's nice to have a reminder of that day everytime I wear this top!

I'm really pleased to have another basic but very wearable top to wear and I think this one is one of my absolute favourites! For something so simple it's really nice for details to work so effectively. The t-shirts are unlikely to stop here and I'm looking forward to making a couple more using this pattern.

Sewing for others: Floral Blouse

I've always enjoyed making things for other people and as my sewing has improved this has expanded to sewing for others outside of my family, something that I'm always happy to do. One of the main issues around sewing for a hobby is that I have ended up with quite a lot of clothes! On top of this, buying fabric isn't cheap. Sewing for other people is the perfect way to continue to sew without ending up with too many clothes or having to spend even more money on fabric. It also allows me to try sewing different styles of clothing that I might not make for myself. 

One of my mum's friends gave me a top of hers which she wanted to be replicated along with some fabric to do so. It was a fairly standard blouse which was easy enough to copy and I always enjoy the process of copying a RTW garment into a handmade one. It's actualy extremely similar to this top that I made my mum a couple of years ago (which she still loves!) so I was familiar with transferring the darts onto a pattern, which was probably the hardest part of the pattern drafting process. The original top did have a button placket down the back but I omitted this as it wasn't actually needed to put the top on and off. To make up for the lack of detail on the back I added a centre back seam that I topstitched either side of, although in hindsight the fabric is busy enough not to need it.

I tend to almost always sew facings on woven garments as I prefer the cleaner finish. However, with the interest of copying the top that I had been given I made some bias binding for this blouse to do a bias-neckline and I'm surprised at how much I like it! I think that my adversion to bias is when the neckline is bias bound as it often results in an uneven and somewhat bumpy neckline. In this case the binding is sewn right-sides together and then turned under and topstitched so that you can't see any of it on the right side of the garment which I like a lot more that sandwiching the neckline between the bias binding. I'm really pleased with how neat it looks too, especially on the inside!

I'm very happy with how this top has turned out and hopefully the recipient will be pleased too! One of the main differences in my sewing when it comes to others is spending a bit longer focusing on smaller details such as ensuring that the topstitching is completely straight. The pressure of sewing for someone else often leads to a slightly cleaner finish which is something I always try to incorporate into my own sewing too even though it's tempting to cut corners if no-one else knows!

An update on The Soothing Quilt EPP

A couple of months ago I introduced my latest English paper piecing project which I've named The Soothing Quilt. I wanted to give a quick update on it's progress mainly so that I have a backlog of photos and thoughts taken along the way which I think will be nice to look back through once the quilt is finished. Since June I've made quite a bit of progress on the quilt and the main thing I can't believe is how much the colour scheme is already changing! As I mentioned, the intention is for there to be a diagonal colour gradient, beginning and ending with purples while progressing through blues, greens, yellows, reds and pinks. 

I really love how the fabric collection draws the colours together with the three consistent designs. I feel genuinely excited when a new colour is introduced to the quilt! My aim is for the colour change to be gradual meaning that there are spots of green in the blue area and vice-versa. It's one of those patterns where my eyes are continually drawn to a new block with a fabric combination that I hadn't realised I'd added and choosing a favourite block is particulary difficult!

Unlike dressmaking where much of the project involves planning, drafting and cutting, the majority of EPP is spent actually sewing. While the glueing of paper to fabric can get a bit tedious, cutting out the fabrics for the next row is something that I really enjoy doing. I'm expanding it as a square to make sure that it can still be turned into a quilt even if I run out of fabric so cutting fabric is a batch process that increases as the quilt gets bigger and more blocks are needed. Having just cut out the fabric for the next row (where red will be introduced for the first time!) I have quite a bit of glueing ahead of me but I'm looking forward to sewing together some new blocks and seeing what the quilt looks like as it continues to change.