#SummerOfBasics Ruri Sweatpants – Elegance in sweatshirting?

I have my doubts around sweatpants, joggers, tracksuit bottoms or whatever people call this item of clothing. Essentially I fear wearing something that looks awful; a garment seen on builders that reveal too much cleavage or a teenager loitering on a street corner (no offence intended to builders or teenagers – I know some very nice examples of both!) But I hold a degree of prejudice for this garment and I needed to find a pattern that would eliminate my fears. Is it possible to make “elegant” sweatpants? Or at least ones that look like you decided you’d made an intention to wear, rather than just picked them up off the floor for the umpteenth day in a row. (See, the negativity towards sweatpants just keeps on running off my fingertips!)

After a search on the internet for suitable patterns, I decided to go with the Ruri sweatpants. Just look at the photo of the model (below); they are sweatpants in disguise surely? Admittedly, the high-heeled boots do make the model’s ensemble rather more sophisticated than some trainers would. However, I have hopes that these will fit the bill. They are slim fitting, have some roomy pockets and I love the snap closure feature on the hem. Furthermore, I can actually see myself making additional iterations of this pattern, perhaps in a woven fabric or in velvet, which would be a plus. I hate to buy a pattern that I think I’ll only use once.

I didn’t start sewing these until August. The reason being that I took a trip to London on 30^th July and I wanted to buy the fabric there. I’m quite limited locally with fabric shops. There are a few, but I knew that cotton sweatshirting was not going to be stocked in any of them or at least with lots of choice. Anyway, despite a long meeting in central London, which took up way more time that I imagined it would, I still managed to head up to Islington and enter the tempting emporium that is Ray Stitch. Unlike my local shops, which are small and once you’ve eliminated the non-dressmaking fabrics, like the felt or upholstery-thickness bolts, there is a very limited selection, I was somewhat overwhelmed by the goodies. Fortunately, I hadn’t gone in with a carte blanche purchase attitude and I stuck to my guns and bought my sweatshirting. (I also bought some jersey fabric, but again that was an intentional purchase. I hope to use that very soon.)

My sweatshirting is in navy blue, in keeping with my grey/navy blue basics theme for my #SummerOfBasics outfit. I also purchased some silver-coloured snaps. I found some 4.5cm width elastic in my stash and I was ready to go.

The Named Clothing instructions for the Ruri are very good, with clear line-drawings; such a joy after the wasteland of Burda instructions. I quickly put together the pockets and tacked together the crotch and trousers seams. At this point I tried them on and found that they were rather roomy at the front, so I re-cut the fronts of trousers making them narrower and so the crotch seam was less curved too. Once I was happy I sewed everything up and constructed the waistband.

The waistband caused me quite a few problems and I had a couple of attempts making it smaller each time. The fabric pieces must have been quite a bit smaller than the suggested pattern measurements for my waist size. I had tried the waistband on before sewing the top-stitching. So, I think that when I sewed in the elastic, there was some stretching out, which caused the elasticated back portion of the waistband to lengthen. Never mind, I got there in the end. I notice that Sie macht had had the same problem when she sewed the waistband. And then, I had an enormous drama sewing the waistband to the trousers. It resembled an enormous tug of war with the overlocker. Trying to hold the elastic unstretched while getting umpteen layers of fabric through the machine. I broke two needles in the process and had to visit the haberdashery to replace them! I would say that when I make this pattern again I will make sure that the seam allowance on the upper waistband is wider perhaps 1.5 – 2.0 cm so that I have little chance of the elastic creeping into my seam. It might prevent the needle breakage.

Then, there were the snaps. I was so worried about the holes that I needed to make in the fabric to insert the snappers, I even sewed around the holes to strengthen them. I was also anxious that I was going to insert the snaps wrongly, but it the end I managed. But I suppose they gave me as many jitters as buttonholes do….I think it must be the “putting holes in fabric” that worries me so much.

I decided to model the sweatpants initially in a similar fashion to the Named model. I think that they actually look smart, which is unbelievable. I’m not entirely sure I would naturally team this shirt and boots with these sweatpants, so it was good to see this combination.

I’m off now to model the full yoga, so I’ll post more photos later….

 

 

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Skill Ratings and Beginners Projects

I spent a little time recently thinking back to when I first started sewing clothes in earnest. What sort of advice would I give my beginner self? I googled “beginner sewing projects” and “beginner sewing patterns”, and I realised that my thoughts around what projects I should have tackled at the beginning didn’t really coincide with the advice on the internet. I thought this was interesting and worthy of a blog post. I hope my ramblings are useful.

On the Colette blog, when it was still updated regularly a while back, I remember reading this post on skill building. Certainly, Colette aren’t the only company to use skill or difficulty ratings for their patterns, there are many others that do so. However, I thought I’d use a couple of their patterns to illustrate my thoughts because they tend to share their processes with their customers well and have written about how they rate their patterns in this skill ratings post.

The Amber dress is labelled, like many of their seamwork patterns as a beginner pattern. Their Aster shirt is labelled as intermediate. Clearly, there are more potentially fiddly details, like buttonholes, in making the Aster shirt. Sewing clothes, though is not just about sewing techniques. Sewing clothes requires considering fit. Looking at those two Colette patterns again, I’m wondering whether getting that Amber dress bodice to fit snuggly is any easier, than getting good-looking buttonholes on the Aster shirt? The Aster shirt has a more relaxed fit, will this make it an easier garment?

It made me realise that difficulty ratings are usually based solely on the techniques involved in making a garment. I have found getting decent fit to be so tricky, particularly when I started sewing clothes. In fact, I could probably insert an invisible zip or sew a buttonhole without any instructions at all these days, but have much more to learn about fit. Not only that, if I should happen to make clothes for someone else with a body shape distinctly different from my own, I’d need to completely revisit what I have learned so far.

So bearing this in mind, I’ve put together a list of early makes which had fit problems and those that were successes. And I’ve looked into how fit considerations were so important for the outcome.

1. Wrap dress

Overall Assessment:

This wrap dress (Butterick 5898) was one of the first items that I made and I have long considered it less than satisfactory. The fit in the bodice is terrible and from the off I have considered it a fit disaster. I have worn it but with an extra t-shirt layer underneath to fill out the bodice and improve the fit.

What went wrong?

I was so fixated on making a garment that didn’t include closures, because I thought that they would be “difficult”. Consequently, I chose a dress that had no zips or buttonholes, but I didn’t take into account how difficult it would be to get the fit right on the wrap bodice. I don’t wear dresses much so it was probably a style mistake too.

What would I do differently?

I just wouldn’t make this dress now. Looking at the bodice, a little tinkering would not suffice to get a better fit. I would have to completely redo the bodice, these are the changes I would have to make:

• Changing the length of the cross-over which is too long.  I have a short body, and shortening the bodice would necessitate a re-model of the cross-over and its facing (by changing its angle) so that the tie falls at waist height and across the body far enough to meet the left-hand tie in the correct place.
• Changing the front bodice as this appears to be too large with the exception of the bust measurement. The bust darts fall at the correct place.
• Changing the arm holes so that they do not gape.

All in all, I have reckoned that I would be better off drafting my own wrap dress instead of trying to modify this pattern. I was so disgusted by this garment I got rid of this pattern! Never again!

2. Sorbetto top

Overall Assessment:

The fit on this Sorbetto top isn’t too bad. It’s always been wearable, but then I have revisited this top and made adjustments. The subsequent Sorbettos benefitted from these amendments.

What went wrong?

I listened too much to internet opinion. The Sorbetto is a popular “beginners” pattern and it’s free. Who doesn’t like to embark on a new hobby as cheaply as possible?

What would I do differently?

I have discovered that fitted tops are a difficult area for me, particular a top such as this which needs to be close-fitting. These are the changes I would have to make:

• Enlarge the armholes, so that they don’t cut awkwardly underneath the arm. I made this change to this top, last year to make the top a little more comfortable to wear.
• Enlarge the bust dart a little, this would make any gaping at the arm hole, resulting from it’s enlargement less likely.
• Widen the back at the centre back line, to accommodate my wide back.

I would be comfortable doing these pattern adjustments these days, but it has taken me a while to learn that these need to be made so that a fitted top is more comfortable. Knowing this, I probably shouldn’t have tackled this type of top in the early days. I would imagine that the Sorbetto would actually provide even more problems if you really did need to do a FBA (full bust adjustment) and didn’t know / appreciate that you needed to do one. Beginners don’t always realise that most patterns are drafted for B-cups. The recent Sorbetto top pattern has been drafted for a C-cup.

3. Goth Skirt

Overall Assessment:

The fit on this skirt isn’t terrible at all. In fact, I would say it is fine, but only after I added belt loops to the skirt. (This skirt was a free pattern from the Be My Goth website, now no longer available).

What went wrong?

This was the skirt that made me realise that I do need lots of ease in the waist. My waist seems to vary quite a bit during the course of a day. This skirt would literally fall down to my hips in the morning and sit on my belly after dinner!

What would I do differently?

I have a couple of ways for reliably handling this dilemma. The first is to build extra ease into the waist measurement to make sure it isn’t tight after dinner and then put belt loops on the skirt or trousers. A belt can be adjusted and make the skirt or trousers fit snuggly whatever the time of day.

Apart from belt loops I also find that wide yokes on my skirts and trousers are a good way to “mould” a garment more to my shape and I look for trousers and skirts with this design. I also find that graded (curved) yokes are generally better fitting and don’t gape at the back (more of a problem for trousers).

Here are a list of my early successes and why they fit so well. I’ve also included a pick of patterns that are similar to my “successful” make for reference.

1. Boho top

Overall Assessment:

I loved this top (Butterick 5357) from the moment I made it. I have made two versions of this top and I really must make some more.

Why was it a good choice of pattern?

The top is very loose-fitting and the “tighter” areas are fitted with elastic. I can imagine that just picking the size based on bust measurement and making up the garment with no alterations is a real possibility for this pattern.

Boho top

Patterns that use a loose silhouette:

Clockwise from the top left:

Mccalls M6843 – loose fitting trousers. I know a lot of beginner project lists recommend making pajama trousers, but not everyone wants to wear those. I like these trousers as they would make excellent summer trousers and have some cute pockets

Wiksten Kimono Jacket – a fairly new pattern, but seems to be a firm favourite on Instagram.

Butterick 6575 – The pattern I used is out of print, but here’s a similar loose fitting Butterick pattern

Why restrict yourself to woven fabrics? I was very intimidated by knit fabrics in the beginning, but are they so difficult? A stable knit fabric, in my opinion is just as easy as a woven.

From the left:

Inari Dress – This uses a firm jersey, such as ponte roma.

Hudson Pants – Joggers in a medium-weight jersey, such as sweatshirting or French terry.

 

2. Goth shirt

Overall Assessment:

Blouses and shirts were a no-go RTW area for me as those in the shops never fitted. I couldn’t have been more pleased when I finally made a this fitted shirt that …… well, actually fitted.

Why was it a good choice of pattern?

This shirt has princess seams and princess seams are your friend! Any design that incorporates them is a great choice for getting a shirt or dress to fit. You can always choose a size or two larger than that which will fit based on the bust/ waist / hip measurements and then tack the garment together. You can try the garment on and make tweaks to the seams so that it fits as snugly as you wish. Finally you can sew it up knowing that the adjustments you have made will work.

Patterns that use princess seams:

From the top:

Butterick B5526 – A great pattern with various shirt choices including a princess seamed variation

Style Arc Sussex cape dress – A dress with princess seams

3. Custom-drafted skirt

Overall Assessment:

This fits like a glove as it should! Interestingly, I found I had to diverge a little from the instructions to take into account my body shape, but it highlighted for me why it has been so difficult to find RTW clothes that fit.

Custom pencil skirt

Why was it a good choice of pattern?

Learning about pattern cutting, even in such a limited capacity has helped me appreciate considerations about fit that I wouldn’t otherwise have contemplated. Making a skirt from a custom sloper is probably the easiest garment to draft from scratch. There are many good tutorials on line and also Craftsy classes that can guide you through the process for trousers and bodice fitting.

Tutorials and classes about pattern cutting / drafting online:

Custom skirt sloper tutorial from So Sew Easy. This is the tutorial I used for this skirt.

A trouser fitting guide from Sew Over It

Leena’s bodice sloper

A search on Craftsy for all patternmaking courses

Of course, it takes time to build up your sewing skills, and making well-fitting garments in particular takes time. One of the most disheartening things as a newbie is making a garment that you don’t feel proud to wear. Who wants to wear a top you can’t move your arms in or a garment so loose that wardrobe malfunction is inevitable? I hope this post is useful for highlighting a few options for maximising fitting success or alternatively with the looser garments, making that illusive perfect fit not so necessary. As with other skills just taking small steps along the learning curve with each project can lead to real improvements in the success of your next project. Once you have a garment that fits well, it can always be a useful guide for when you try out a different pattern.

Happy sewing and learning to you all!

#SummerOfBasics Hug a hoodie

As everyone in the UK knows we have been basking in the most amazing summer weather this year. The only downside is that it has been difficult to really sew in this weather; sweaty fingers don’t hold pins, pressing between sewing steps is an ordeal and who wants to try on a snuggly hoodie when just the thought of putting on another layer makes you feel hot!

My sewing-time windows have been few this month, but unexpectedly my son went on a trip to the seaside with a friend and his family. I sent him off with sun-cream, a pack lunch and I parted with £20, way too much for an ice-cream and train fare, but all I had in my purse at the time. Master Steely is renowned for his spending habits and I doubted I would see a penny of my twenty pounds back.

But, now I had a whole day to myself for sewing and I sewed up a storm (well, I wished I could sew a few rainclouds, at least). I managed the majority of the sewing in a day. In fact, everything except the hood which was sewn on afterwards. I don’t think I’ve ever sewn in such a long stretch ever before. I always thought I was an incredibly slow at sewing, perhaps my usual 2- 4 weeks per garment is more a reflection on the intermittent nature of my sewing.

As for the twenty pounds….. I was surprised with Master Steely’s purchase – a boat! Yes, a two-seater inflatable dingy with paddles – I had to laugh! I actually think he did well to get a boat for twenty pounds and with all this great weather it has had a few outings.

A few notes on the construction:

The fabric is a Cosy Colours Sweatshirt fabric from Guthrie and Ghani. I’d previously made a sweatshirt in the teal colourway and was incredibly happy with this soft and cosy fabric. In keeping with the “Basics” theme, I’m sticking to my grey/navy blue colour scheme for my yoga outfit and this fabric is a grey marl with coloured flecks, including navy blue flecks.

The zip was an old zip saved from an ancient hoodie, which died a long time ago. I kept the zip as I really loved the star-shaped pull. I found some gold eyelets and a white cord for the hood. Sadly, these were all that were in the shop. I may try to find some navy cord at a later date to keep the grey / navy theme going, but so far no luck.

The pattern I used was the hooded jacket #119 from the January issue of Burda Style magazine. It’s a very relaxed fix and has all the features you’d expect from a hoodie – kangaroo pockets, a good-sized hood. It also has some unusual design elements such as the curved hem and the pleated sleeves. Since I wrote my Summer of Basics planning post, I have found some others who have made this particular sweatshirt – Dressmaking Debacles has made two, a grey one for herself and a beautiful mustard-coloured one for her daughter.  Coco’s loft has made this black version where she has stitched the sleeve pleats down and added a facing so that the zip tape doesn’t show. What great finishing touches!

The instructions with Burda, as always are brief, but I didn’t find too many difficulties with them. I did find certain things tricky such as making sure that the side seams were tidy with the edging aligned. I sewed them in place first on my machine and then used the overlocker. Getting the pockets lined up either side of the zip was tricky too. The method I used was to align the top and bottom of the pockets and when I found that the hem didn’t quite line up, I unpicked the hem of the side that appeared longer, trimmed it and reattached the binding. This seemed to work well.

 

The used the same fabric as the outside for inside the hood, but I think that perhaps using a jersey for the inside would have made the hood less bulky. Perhaps I’ll enjoy this extra thickness more in the winter. The hood, though is a good size as you can see:

I have only worn this hoodie for the purpose of photographing my endeavours. It feels very cosy (although with this heat, I’m not appreciating that!) It’s also sufficiently oversized and I believe my yoga movements will be accomplished with ease. The basement Yoga Studio that I go to is always cool in the winter so an extra layer will be handy.

Proud that I retraced my steps and resurrected this……

Normally I’m too fond of ploughing ahead and just making new things, but last year I managed to timetable a few adjustments to some of my me-made items. There are still many items to which I would like to make small (and not so small) adjustments and this week I managed to finish one of the more involved of these. I’m proud that I managed to find time for this and happy that I have this item properly in rotation now.

I made this top as a copy of a favourite RTW blouse in 2016. See below for the original RTW top.

My version was made from white dobby voile and has grey velvet and gathered gauzy trim on the yoke. I was pleased with the look of this blouse, but I discovered two problems when I wore it. Firstly, I hated the white gauzy trim that I chose on the yoke. It was spiky and irritating against my skin. Secondly, I found that my method for attaching the yoke to the body of the blouse, while neat, had somehow resulted in the front of the blouse being somewhat shorter than the back. In fact, the front was way too short and revealed my stomach (ugghh!) whenever I reached with my arms. Overall, these two factors meant that this poor top languished in a drawer unloved. I struggled to find many photos of me wearing this blouse over the last couple of years, but it did get worn in Me Made May last year:

I had a good think about how I could resurrect this top and given that I had very little fabric left over, the possibilities were quite limited. First of all, I removed the gauzy trim from the top. Next, I created two small “shoulder” pieces to be placed between the shoulder seam and joining the top of the blouse front. These are two layers thick and are top-stitched in place. The addition of these additional pieces gives a good inch of extra coverage at the lower front of the blouse. I also thought that the neck-hole was a little on the small size and I therefore cut away at the back of the blouse to create a slightly large neck hole. I suspected that the tightness of the collar was pulling the blouse towards the back slightly. Consequently, I needed to also make a new collar.

The adjustments don’t look very obvious at all. Looking at the before and after below is actually disappointing! Of course, in a way that was the intention. However, the work took a reasonable amount of time, so I’m proud that I stuck with this job.

I’m wearing the blouse today and I have none of the revealing belly issues that marred my wearing enjoyment previously! Admittedly, these trousers are not particularly high-waisted, but behold a raised arm! And no belly on display!

I think the blouse will work even better with my blue Wolfie jeans or my seventies jeans (sorry ridiculously hot again today so I’m not wearing either of those!)

There are plenty more items that could do with some changes. I still prefer to get on with brand new makes, but I did feel a sense of accomplishment with this re-vamp. Perhaps I can persuade myself to tackle another of my unloved garments…….

The Perfect Hot Weather Outfit

It’s been hot in the UK, stupidly hot! The weather is completely unprecedented. I can’t recall more than a few drops of rain in the last month and there is nothing but parched grass everywhere. We’ve gone to the beach every weekend, which is so unusual during a British summer.

My sewing has been tailing off because it is so difficult to manage more the barest minimum at the moment, but I have sewn one fantastic garment that I have worn loads. Last year, I started looking at the patterns in Drape drape 2 book and made this t-shirt from the No 4 one-piece scoop neck asymmetrical top pattern. I also bought some fabric with the intention of making a dress from the snappily entitled pattern “No 2 One piece side drape top”. The fabric is a stretchy viscose knit with lots of drape. It was purchased from Minerva Crafts and is made in Italy. The quality is excellent. Unfortunately, I never found time to create the dress before the end of the summer and it didn’t feel like a priority when Autumn approached. This year it was top of my list for summer makes.

I made the largest size from the pattern sheet, but I had to “narrow” the drape a little at the draped side of the pattern, since the width of my fabric was a little short of the required width.

I thought at first that perhaps I had intended to rotate the pattern 90 degrees on the fabric, but I don’t think that was my intention as the guide in the book stated 1.50m was needed and this was the width of my fabric. The pattern was actually wider than this for the largest size.

Having adjusted for this, by subtracting some of the drape I wondered if this would be noticeable on the finished garment, but I was pleasantly pleased that enough drape existed for the “desired look”. Please forgive the bra straps in the next two photos…..

The construction was very simple; just a side seam, finishing the neck and sleeve openings with self-bindings and hemming the bottom of the dress. I was a little unsure of the length, I’m quite short so the dress is almost down to my knees, unlike in most of the incarnations I’ve seen on line. In fact the book actually calls it a “top” which it certainly isn’t on me! I’ve decided that I’ll leave it at this length and see how I feel about the length after a few wears. It’s good to see myself in these photos to assess the length too.

Just for fun, I’m holding the “drape” out to the side in this photo, just to give you an idea of the weird pattern this dress is constructed from.

All in all, this dress has proved to be a blessing in the hot weather; very comfortable and also rather striking. It really works well as something to wear over a swimming costume on the way to the beach or the swimming pool. I think the fabric really makes the dress extra special.

#SummerOfBasics Yoga Socks

This is my first make for the #SummerofBasics challenge hosting by Fringe Association. I entered last year, but didn’t quite make my deadline. I realised that knitting (incompetently) in a hurry is not my forte so this year I’ve decided to make my knitted item first.

My “basics” this year are essentially a yoga outfit in a blue/ grey colour scheme. This outfit will include a sweatshirt hoodie, yoga pants (I’m English so perhaps I should say yoga trousers, is that a term people use?) and a pair of yoga socks.

I finished the yoga socks just before the hot weather struck. This is quite fortunate as knitting wool in hot weather is horrible and tricky. The socks I knitted are using a free pattern I found on Ravelry by Patons.

The pattern is quite simple pattern. It uses some ribbing, a pattern using knit and purl stitches and increasing and decreasing. I’m not a confident knitter and the last item I knitted was this hat. The hat was definitely more fancy to make, but this was a make from a Craftsy video which made me far more confident. Any doubts and I could just watch the video again.

In contrast I had just the knitting pattern for these yoga socks, but I found that I was able to understand this. Much that I enjoyed using the Craftsy video, it did make the whole knitting process very long-winded. I was thankful that this project was simple and I could just get on without reference to videos.

The yarn was a 75% wool yarn which came originally from a sock knitting kit in Lidl. I’d picked this kit up years ago with the aim of learning to knit. I’ve finally used it! There’s still some more of the yarn, perhaps I could make a pair of ordinary socks with it? I wish Lidl still sold this kit, as I really like the yarn and it was ridiculously cheap for 75% wool yarn. I would definitely recommend picking up these kits if you see them in the store.

Wool, needles and ready to go for #summerofbasics. Knitting some yoga socks for my yoga outfit.

A post shared by Nicola (@steelyseamstress) on Jun 21, 2018 at 11:42am PDT

There was one tricky aspect to the project and that was getting the tension even, when knitting in the round on four needles. One sock is slightly wider than the other, but I don’t think it is too noticeable.

#summerofbasics yoga socks are on their way. Some details: I'm using a Patons free #yogasocks pattern. I've suck exactly to the pattern and they seem to be turning out fine. Have been attempting to try them on as I knit!

A post shared by Nicola (@steelyseamstress) on Jun 21, 2018 at 11:50am PDT

I haven’t really used the socks yet at yoga, but I tried them on and they are comfortable and warm. Perfect for my feet, which seem like icicles most of the year. That said I took this photo today (or rather Mr Steely did, as I can’t take photos of my own feet at this angle!) and it is 30 degrees outside. Definitely not the weather to be wearing woollen socks!

My next garment will be the hoodie. I have already picked my pattern and ordered my fabric. I made a sweatshirt earlier in the year and enjoyed that sewing experience, so I can’t wait.

Hidden cats and blog envy

Blogging is not just about writing your own posts, but also about reading what everyone else in the blogosphere is doing. I love reading other people’s posts and never tire of seeing all the wonderful things others have made. But, I suffer from blog envy. Of course, I get jealous when I see a beautiful garment that someone has made and just wish it was in my wardrobe, that’s a given. However, I also get jealous of other people’s productivity. I know I shouldn’t. Deep down I know that I make enough clothes to prevent me walking around naked and most of the time I even dress in clothes that I like (my skills have improved to a level where I’m not embarrassed by my makes).

Even so, I’m jealous whenever I read something in a post along these lines…..”I’ve been wearing this garment for about three months and I’ve only just got round to writing about it….” Why does this make me jealous? Perhaps, it is that I’m not so productive that I “forget to blog about anything that I’ve made” or possibly it’s because I feel such a sense of achievement that I’ve managed to carve out a few hours to make something that I can’t wait to share it in a post!

So, it is a revelation this week that I am posting about a garment that I made last month and wore during Me Made May. It isn’t impressive, being just a t-shirt, but I had other posts to write so I didn’t rush to post about this one, for a change.

The most interesting thing about this t-shirt, is that it has cats! Yes, if you look closely all those swirly lines hide little cats – sitting, walking, prowling. How cool is that? I picked up the fabric at Sew Brum last year and it’s a Liberty cotton jersey. It’s beautiful and soft and it looks good with jeans.

I used K4028 again. Without the cowl and also without the sleeves (which is the View A option).

As predicted K4028 seems to behave itself more in cotton and I’m finally happy with using this pattern. I did notice though that without the cowl, it looks very similar to the Molly top from Sew Over It, which is quite a popular make.

My photographer didn’t wait for me to tuck the t-shirt in before snapping away…..

I can see myself making more tops like this, and it was so good to be using a pattern that I didn’t have to trace so I could just maximise my sewing time.

I like the photo below which was taken in Italy, where I’m wearing a different pair of jeans.