No t-shirt for me after all . . .

The That Girl t-shirts were sold out, so my order was cancelled.  Oh well . . .

On the bright side, I’ve watched disc 1 of season 4 and hopefully disc 2 is on the way.

I’ve only done the tiniest bit of sewing–I made some mouse pincushions.  I have some gifts to make, but I’ve had a little virus and have felt too icky to sew bigger projects.  I’m better today, but I had pressing work and now I’m too tired to see, let alone sew.   I’m off to bed, good-night!

Speaking of That Girl

I found this shirt at amazon.com.   It will be a great hiking/camping shirt. For me, that is:  I can’t envision Ann camping or hiking, I have to say.  Would her hair have that fabulous flip after 3 days in the woods?  Would she put on her eyelashes?  What would she wear?  I also saw at amazon, that Season 4 has just been released on DVD–yay!  It’s now in my Neflix queue . . .  One of the episodes in season 4 is called “Ugh, Wilderness” so perhaps I will find out how Ann makes out in the woods . . .

Also, today I wore my wavy stripe blouse (see my previous post) and got two compliments about how slim and trim I looked.  So I will be wearing that blouse every week from now on.  If only I could wear it every day! 

Groovy, baby . . .

I just finished this blouse and am in love with it. . . The vertical wavy lines are very slimming.   The buttons don’t exactly match (they are black and cream and the blouse has black, two shades of gray, and white) but they are vintage 60’s from Sawyer Brook and they are called “Ann Marie”, which is the name of Marlo Thomas’ character on That Girl.   I am such a fan of That Girl and have watched the first three seasons on DVD from Netflix–and drooled over her wardrobe  . . .  But I digress . . . Anyway, here is the blouse:

And here you can better see the “Ann Marie” buttons:

This is the same pattern from the June 08 BWOF that I used for the flower power blouse and the bicycle dress.  I don’t think I’ll use it again this summer, but maybe next one.

 

Hmmmmm:

I can’t really tell you if this project is a success or not.  I’ll wear it, but I doubt I’ll make it again.   There are many other styles that are more flattering to my figure.  Here it is:

and here it is on me:

I did get this top to work for me as much as this style will ever work for me.  I will wear it and I love the cowl:

Here are the pleats at the front, although they are difficult to see with the print:

The top as pictured is shortened 10 inches from the pattern.  I originally shortened it 7 inches which put it below my hip area (unhemmed) and that would have been a nice length if I had thin enough legs to wear skinny jeans.  But, I’m a hippy pear so I decided a shorter length would be more flattering on me. 

Now for my issues:  This top had way too much ease in it, at least for my taste.  I looked 20 pounds heavier than I am, and the sleeves were too low, the bust area was so wide that when I raised my arms I had mini batwings under my arms.   The model in the magazine is wearing a vest over her tunic so it’s hard to tell how much ease there is, and she has on a wide belt which also hides the ease.  When I basted the side seams I found out that this top has a ton of ease–way too much.  Part of this may be my fabric, which is a stretchy rayon lycra jersey.  I should have been suspicious when I tissue-fit the pattern and the sleeve fit around my bicep: I almost always have to make a wide bicep adjustment.  I decided to sew the sleeve in flat, instead of setting them in, which made fitting easier.  I had to take in from the bottom of the sleeves all the way to the hip .  The hip ease is good, at least for my ample hips).  It took me about 5 bastings to get a decent fit, taking out 4-6 inches of ease.    There is still plenty of ease for the pleats to drape, but it fits better in the sleeves/armpit/bust area and there is at least a hint that I have a waist. 

As I said before, I won’t be making this again, but if I did, I’d start with a smaller size and ease out to my regular size at the hips.  And I should have made a muslin. . .  But I will wear this top with some straight legged black jeans and try to figure out what to wear until the loose tunic fashion is over and done with. 

The eternal quest . . .

There are many disciplined dressmakers out there who pick a pattern and then go in search of fabric for it, find it, sew it up, and thus never accumulate a stash.  Alas, I am not one of those lucky people.  I have fabric in boxes, fabric in drawers, fabric in cupboards.  And, even though I am on a restricted fabric diet,  even dieters have to eat something– or buy an occasional yardage of fabric.    So I haven’t really reduced my stash by much even with dieting.  Which leads me to the eternal quest to find a pattern to use with a length of my stashed fabric.   I have a lovely mod-ish rayon lycra jersey print that I bought 1.5 yards of, thinking that I’d make a basic t-shirt from it.  Then, when I saw it and loved the 60’s feel of it, I thought I’d make it into a version of a Knipmode top with a scarf peice that goes around the neck and through the top itself–only I’d add 3/4 sleeves for fall weather.  Well, 1.5 yards wasn’t enough, so I thought I’d make it into a BWOF top from last fall that has a neck tie and full sleeves that are gathered into elastic at the wrist–not enough fabric again (long, full sleeves are real fabric hogs).  I was beginning to think I would be stuck making a basic t-shirt when my August BWOF arrived and I saw this . . .

 

Here’s the technical drawing: 

I shortened it from a tunic/dress length to top length and cut it out last night.   Can’t wait to get started–nothing like sewing a knit for almost instant gratification–at least compared to all those blouses and the shirtdress I have been sewing.