I knew there had to be a reason not to close my poor old blog and this is it. I've given it a new name and a quick revamp and am going to use it to post my garment sewing exploits.
On 14th April this year I finally plucked up courage to have a go at sewing a garment and that garment was Shirt No1 by the brilliant Sonya Philip at 100 Acts of Sewing. I bought my pattern from Beyond Measure, the only UK stockist of Sonya's wonderful, simple yet fun and very wearable patterns.
I then went on a two month spree of making all the Shirt No.1s until on 16th June I felt brave enough to try my first ever pattern hack, making the shirt pattern into a simple gathered waist dress.
I'm now going to do a run through of how I did it.
Using a pattern hack I found on Pinterest by Elise and my original tracing of the Shirt No.1 pattern, that I've now used for 13 versions of the top (!), I made up a very quick toile out of a scrap of curtain lining.
This bodice was six inches shorter (measured up from the hem along the fold line) than the original pattern tracing seen below, I took it in 1.5" at each side seam as per Elise's hack, did a slightly deeper scooped front neck and omitted the curved hem.
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| My Original tracing of the Shirt No.1 Pattern |
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| Curtain lining bodice toile |
Thinking this was perfectly okay in terms of length, and width because I'd already taken it in a lot, I went ahead and made up a version in a leftover piece of chambray, adding a simple gathered skirt using Elise's suggested measurements but with 2" added to the length.
However, it was soon obvious that the top was far too wide, too long and the skirt was too short for me. I'm still going to wear this to garden or do housework in but it's not going out in public!
So, back to the drawing board and I took another half inch off each side seam of the toile and pinned it up by 2" to see how it looked. It already looked much better, even if it was a bit of curtain lining worn inside out!
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| Side seam adjustment on bodice toile |
Version 3 turned out to be far more successful. An actual wearable toile. Also very popular on Instagram, getting more likes than anything I've posted on there in over five years!
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| Version 3 - my first wearable toile of this hack |
I've since worn this out in public, while on holiday in Cornwall, and no-one laughed or pointed!
It was also incredibly cool and comfortable on a very warm and sunny day.
So, in case you've found all that tricky to follow, here's exactly what I did:
The Bodice
Eight inches shorter than original Shirt No.1 pattern, measured up from hem and along fold line, bottom hem cut straight across, omitting the curved hem of the original.
Bodice side seams taken in by 2" from original Shirt No.1 pattern.
Scooped neck based off a shop bought summer top that I like.
Cut two pieces 36" wide and 27" long. (I made a pattern piece 18" x 27" and placed it to the fold of the fabric). N.B. for me that is 1.5x my hip measurement which, having big hips, gives me just enough gather without too much fullness across my widest part - if you have smaller or bigger hips it may be worth just mulitplying your hip measurement by 1.5 to get a similar look to my dress.
Add in-seam pockets if wanted - I used a pocket from a tutorial by Sonya Philip for the Pants No1 pattern on Creative Bug and placed them 5.5" down from the top edge of the skirt
Sew pockets and side seams.
Do two rows of gathering stitches along the top edge of the front and the back of the skirt. I did the front gathering completely separately to the back which made it much easier to actually gather evenly once I was attaching it to the bodice.
Additional info:
I used half inch seams throughout as per the pattern instructions.
The bottom hem is done in exactly the same way as the Shirt No.1 hem, although I may do a deeper hem next time to give it a bit more weight.
Just in case it helps, I'm 5ft 3" and a UK size 16 top and 20 bottom..... and I cannot believe I just said that out loud on the internet!
Hope you enjoyed reading that and I hope it was useful. Here's Version 4 that I sewed up last night, using another Ikea linen curtain from the Scrapstore!
love Moogs xxx