Me Made May week 1

It's been a successful week and I have found it easy so far!

1st May - Square necked Alma blouse and cornflower blue Kelly skirt
2nd May - Purple Red Velvet with collar
3rd May - Denim Pavlova skirt, rose print Kimono tee (unblogged) and Carmine jacket
4th May - Nautical Emery dress
5th May - Blue Marl Renfrew tee
6th May - Charcoal grey Tiramisu
7th May - Navy wool Anna (whoops, something's gone wrong with that post - will fix it!) and Hetty cardigan

In addition I have repaired the zip on my Flora and stitched the wrap part down, so one item is gone from the mending pile. 

I have put my back out so no movement on the knickers front as taping PDFs and cutting on the floor really aren't happening until it's feeling better!

Minerva Blogger Network - The Last-Minute-Save Top

Here’s my latest make for the Minerva Blogger Network.

The fabric is a gorgeously smooth and silky cotton lawn which looks like Liberty.  I fell in love with the purple and teal print as soon as I saw it, but what to make?  I settled on the Grainline Scout Woven Tee as I thought the simple shape would work well with the floral print.  However the more observant amongst you will notice that this is clearly not a Scout Tee.

I started with a muslin for the Scout so as not to waste the lovely fabric and it was pretty much a disaster.  The directions are clear and the pattern goes together perfectly, but I had totally overlooked the fact that this loose fitting style does not work at all on my body shape.  I need a waist!  No idea why I thought it might.  But even a belt wasn’t going to work.

So back to the drawing board.  

I made a Sewaholic Alma a while back and always meant to make another and this seemed like great fabric for it.  The pattern is great – the instructions are really clear and the pattern is well-drafted.  I knew it fitted fairly well although this was in my pre-FBA days so I re-traced the pattern and adjusted it.  I added 2.5” to the body length plus another 1” above the bust darts to get them in the right place.  I cut with slightly larger seam allowances since I wanted a looser fit then my previous version and this worked well – the fit is pretty spot on.

After sewing up the body and attaching the facings, it looked a bit frumpy.  The neckline is quite high, which I had never noticed on my collared version.  But in this floral fabric it wasn’t working for me.  After a fair bit of pondering I decided on a square neckline.  I cut off the facings and marked the right level for the front neckline.  I drew a line perpendicular to the centre front at this level and drew lines down from the neckline to cross it, added seam allowances and cut it out.  To make the new facing for the front, I traced the neckline onto interfacing and used that to cut out the facing.  I sewed it on as per the instructions, but before understitching the facing down, I clipped right into the corners to make sure it would lie flat.  An extra line of very small stitches around the corners (I used the shortest length on my machine) reinforces them.

Oops, 'scuse creases - I had been wearing it all day!

I used the short sleeves and love the way these are finished with bias binding – it looks great.

I recommend this fabric – Laura made some beautiful kids PJs from it recently, which shows how versatile it is.  It’s a lovely fabric and a great price.

If you want to make your own version of my square necked Alma (or a Scout tee!) you can buy a kit from Minerva here with 2m of this lovely fabric, plus matching thread.  This length of fabric is more than enough for either pattern.  If you decide on the Alma you’ll need to order a 12” invisible zip separately since that wasn’t in my original plan.

What do you think?  Did I save it from the naughty fabric corner?

Finished - Alma Blouse

This was my first Sewaholic pattern and I have say, I really love it!  I'm pretty late to the Alma party and have been seeing lovely versions popping up all over the blogosphere - in particular Karen's and Jane's.

For this version I totally stalked Marie's lovely peter pan collar version - I really liked the way she used the print for the body with a plain collar as it really makes the collar stand out.

I picked up the fabric for the body in the John Lewis sale - It's a cute cotton floral print.  The lady behind me in the queue nabbed the rest to make a shirt dress for her daughter and I think it would make a great

shirt dress!  The blue cotton for the collar was a remnant from my stash.

The instructions are really clear (thanks Tasia!) and the fit was great straight out of the envelope (apart from my usual length adjustments which are easy enough by now).  The only thing I am less keen on is the slightly odd sleeve length - I am still toying with shortening them after seeing Jane's version.

I do love how versatile this pattern is - I have a sheer chiffony print to make the long sleeved version, I think with the scoop neck and I am toying with a cap sleeved version from a beautiful cotton silk remnant I recently bought (but I think that may need underlining so I am nervous!).

I've worn it loads already so I am calling it a definite win!