Flower Power!

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Butterick 6026, sewing

Another successful summery shirt from my TNT pattern, good old Butterick 6026.

No such thing as too much color, folks.

(BTW, any sort of pattern semi-matchiness in these pics is totally accidental, as I didn’t have enough fabric to even think of matching.)

This is going to be SO nice in the hot weather (which will be here soon–we had a high of 84 F earlier this week!)  I decided to use the sleeves on this one because I had enough fabric for them and I’ll actually get more use out of a blouse with sleeves; everything here in the desert is air-conditioned.  So this will keep me from getting too cold in the A/C and too hot when outside.

I had to work a bit to get that last sleeve out of the fabric, as you can see below; I had to sew on a little strip of fabric to have enough width.

The only issue I have with this shirt (other than sewing the wrong edge of the collar pieces together and having to cut new pieces) is that the upper back is a little bit narrow–it could use maybe an inch more ease for when I raise my arms.  Not a problem in the sleeveless version, but occasionally annoying in this one.

SO MANY TUCKS IN THIS.

24 TUCKS, PEOPLE.

STOP ME BEFORE I TUCK AGAIN.

But look at that picture just above one more time.

Notice anything weird?

It appears that I permanently ironed out the puckers in parts of this fabric when I pressed the tucks down.  The shirt was washed and dried before these pics were taken–I expected the puckers to come back during that process.

Since when can you iron out the puckers in seersucker fabric?  I thought that they were there to stay?

Whatever.  I still love it.

STH

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The Very Springiest of Spring Blouses

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Butterick 6026, Seattle ReCreative, sewing

I wish I were a better photographer, because this gorgeous shade of kelly green should be properly documented.

That one’s closer to the real color.

I really, really love this blouse–the color makes me so happy, the contrast fabric is so pretty, it feels really comfy, and it looks pretty decent, too!

I got the green “linen look” fabric at Seattle ReCreative and there was only about a yard of it.  I didn’t bother to do a burn test on it, but judging by the its sheen and drape, I would guess it’s a rayon blend, maybe rayon and polyester?  The contrast fabric is a quilting cotton.

Marking the fabric for all the tucks was a bit of a trial, since my marking pen didn’t show up on it and I didn’t want to use pencil on the right side.  I wound up doing tailor’s tacks and drawing my fold lines with chalk.

(Despite how it may appear–since I seem to always pick patterns with tucks of some sort or the other–marking fabric has to be my least favorite part of sewing.)

The fabric frays like CRAZY, but I thought French seams (my usual) might be a bit too bulky, so I decided to finish the seams with more bias strips of the contrast fabric.

The combination of the two fabrics was so gorgeous, having those lovely finished seams to look at felt like giving myself a secret little present.

I sewed these all by hand because I seriously don’t know how people machine sew on bias tape and have it come out looking good on both sides.  I guess I’m sloppier with measuring than I think I am, or something?  This is an eternal mystery to me.

My difficult relationship with collars continued on this project.  I was unpicking a thread nest that formed while I was top stitching the collar and managed to cut a hole in the fabric near the collar seam (sigh–I need new glasses).  I initially thought I’d have to start over with it, but then realized I could just turn the collar inside-out again and re-sew the seam a quarter inch away from the original seam line.  Luckily, this pattern has a pretty big collar and it came out looking fine.

I like the fit on this, though I know it’s a bit looser than the fashion right now.  A little looser fit is just more comfortable to wear and I really hate constricting clothing.

I decided to use the same pattern again for the Yellow Submarine blouse–but with sleeves this time–and I’m about half finished with that as I write this.  And, yes, I managed to mangle the collar on that one, too.

STH