Sewing

Inspired Melilot

21st Jun 202121st Jun 2021 yorkiemouseLeave a comment

Hello all! After a week of scampering around the Lake District, I’m back to chat about my shirt of dreams. Soft double-gauze, long sleeves, good fit – tick, tick, tick. Since starting to sew, I’ve made quite a few shirt dresses and two short-sleeved shirts….mainly because I get to spend time sifting through my button collection. However, a long-sleeved shirt was still waiting in the wings until recently.

This shirt is borne from two very different inspiration sources. TheStitchEdit made a lovely white shirt which she showcased on Instagram and got me thinking. After seeing Alice-May’s make, I had “shirt envy” and really wanted a long-sleeved, plain shirt. Her added detail of a contrast yoke was also an appealing feature.

My second, completely different, inspiration was Cameron Tucker in Modern Family! Slightly unusual, but stick with me. Cam’s signature style is a colourful shirt and they almost always have contrasting inner cuffs and collar. I had already bought my main fabric (more on that soon) when I was watching old episodes of Modern Family and a flash of inspiration hit me. What if I combined the two ideas?! Ooh now you’re talking.

Fabric hunting

I knew that I wanted to make another Deer and Doe Melilot because I wear my swimmers and rainbow ones a lot, and I’m happy with the fit.

I also knew that I didn’t want a pure white shirt. I’m very pale for about 11 months of the year and white doesn’t do me any favours. I spent quite a bit of time window (browser) shopping and kept coming back to Atelier Brunette’s double gauze in the powder colourway. It’s a very soft pink and has embroidered gold dots peppered around it.

I tend to take a sharp inhale with Atelier Brunette fabric as it’s got quite a high price point but it washes well, which helps justify the price. I’ve bought other designers’ expensive fabric that hasn’t washed well at all, which is really frustrating. Possibly due to the higher price, I tend to hold on to every scrap of Atelier Brunette remnants. As a result, I still had some leftovers from my Almada robe in the perfect complimentary pink. Whilst I wanted contrasts in my shirt, I didn’t want them to be too bold, partly because I was scared about colour running into the powder pink in the wash!

Construction and style choices

As well as my previous Melilot fitting adjustments, I shortened the long sleeve by 1″. To achieve my desired effect, I cut the inner collar stand, cuff facings and one collar piece in contrast fabric.

I never wear a shirt buttoned to the top so I pin my first button placement at the fullest point of my bust, then put one above that point and evenly space ones below. The eagle-eyed reader will also notice that I rarely do up the bottom button!

Another little detail that I love is the ‘label’. The fabric had little gold embroidered bows in the selvage so I used two of those to create a label to attach to the back of my shirt.

Despite making a few shirts, I still struggle with collars so watched my trusty video whilst constructing this tricky bit. The other fiddly bit was my first (and second) sleeve placket. Mine are far from perfect but I’m very proud of them. I found the placket construction quite clever but had to read the instructions several times and watch a few videos online. I often find Deer and Doe instructions lacking when it comes to the fiddly bits but YouTube has never failed me.

Final thoughts

I’m really pleased with my shirt. As it’s cotton and a light colour, it’s proving to be good for the summer and I suspect it will carry into winter (may need a vest!). It’s not too high maintenance on the ironing front either! Thanks for reading :o)

Made 9?

9th Dec 2020 yorkiemouseLeave a comment

Hello all. I decided that as it’s mid-December, my #makenine2020 is probably as complete as it’s going to get this year. I still have a bit of Christmas sewing to do so I don’t think I’ll manage much more “me sewing”. I’ve been really grateful for Make Nine this year as it provided a plan that I could stick to in a year when all plans were cancelled. For myself, and many people, the power of sewing this year is probably the topic of another blog post….or thesis.

Cast your mind back…..

For Make Nine 2020, I decided to raid my stash (and write a blog about how I was getting along). My fabric selection looked like this:

I am pleased to say that I managed 88.8% (recurring) of the nine. At the start of the challenge, I loved all of the fabrics so it was a case of choosing patterns wisely, rather than making something just to tick another one off my list.

Reflecting on my makes as a set, there are quite a few repeat patterns, which is a good sign as it usually means that I get a lot of wear out of them.

Swimming Imogen and Jitterbugs

Look at all those short sleeves! These three got a lot of wear over the summer months, and none are a “one-time” make. Introducing Melilot, Myosotis and Fleet:

This Melilot shirt is really light to wear and I also made an Ogden cami for sleeping in. I had fun choosing the buttons for this, which is always a nice activity to put me in a good mood before having to tackle buttonholes!

After initial reservations, waist ties made Myosotis my ‘dress of the year’, with three made in quick succession and they rarely made it back into the wardrobe for long with our glorious summer weather.

The Nina Lee Fleet top is a summer staple for me and makes a metre of fabric go a long way. I also used remnants from the Jitterbug cotton for the facing and pocket detail on my green Yanta overalls, so I really used every last scrap of that metre.

Gauze and Rainbows

Double gauze was new to me when I made my first Myosotis, but I love sewing with it and it’s so comfy to wear. The secret bonus is not needing to iron it before cutting! This turned out to be a lucky event with the teal fabric because the gold dots do not like heat. The iron strips off the gold and you’re left with a little white dot which isn’t nearly as sparkly.

I made my Rainbow Melilot early in the year without knowing the significance rainbows would have during the UK’s lockdown. For those of you not in the UK, children (and adults) displayed rainbows in windows to show support for our key workers on the front line during the pandemic.

Strawberry Meadows and Liquid Gold

I’m fairly sure that the Gold Kew was the last outfit I wore with make-up in 2020! We went to a lovely wedding without realising it would be the last time we got “dressed up” for the rest of the year. I had some fitting issues with this one due to the slippery fabric, but it felt lovely to wear.

The same is true of my Adrift dress. Fast forward 5 months and elasticated waists and flip flops were the attire for summer working from home! It took some courage to cut into this fabric as it was the most expensive in my Nine (possibly in my stash) but I’m really happy that I took the plunge.

That just leaves number 9! I really wanted to make the Untitled Thoughts Amelie dress from this fabric but I still haven’t tackled the adjustments that I need to do. I’m now considering making some summer Carolyn pjs as I think I’ll get more wear out of them. That’s a decision for 2021 though.

Thanks for reading. Writing this post has been emotional – looking back through rainbows, summer walks and a hell of a lot of “ostrich sewing” (aka head in sand). It’s made me even more grateful for sewing, sewists and the indie businesses helping us create :o)

MakeNine2020 · Sewing

Sweet Clover

28th Feb 202029th Feb 2020 yorkiemouseLeave a comment

Melilot pattern

For a while now, I’ve wanted to make a shirt that fits me. Shop-bought shirts tend to be ill-fitting in various places on me but that’s far less of a problem when you can sew!

After reading lots of reviews about the 4000 or so shirt patterns, I settled on the Melilot by Deer & Doe. One of the main attractions was the dropped shoulders, which meant I wouldn’t have to deal with setting sleeves! I wanted a short sleeved shirt and preferred the rounded collar so settled on a combination of the two versions.

I didn’t do French at school so my knowledge of the language is limited to ballet terminology. On searching for “Melilot” online, I discovered that it translates to “sweet clover”, which I think is lovely. This led me down a rabbit-hole of realising that a lot of Deer & Doe patterns are named after flowers and plants – pub quiz, here I come!

Fabric

I had two fabrics in my stash that I wanted to make shirts from. As is often the case, I had wallowed in indecision for a while about both of these fabrics but decided both would pair well with a shirt. Both are on my 2020 Make Nine list as well so that ticks off three to date.

The first is a fantastic cotton-viscose from Lamazi Fabrics that I bought mainly because of the funky pattern – “At the Beach Swimmers”. I spent a lot of time in the pool as a child and still swim now so it felt like an appropriate ‘novelty’ pattern.

The second is a Lady McElroy cotton lawn called “Rainbow Clouds” that I got from Sew Hayley Jane’s outlet shop. It’s so jazzy and makes me smile whenever I look at it.

Fitting

Based on my measurements, I cut a 38 at the neck and shoulders, grading to a 40 on the bust and waist, then a 42 at the hip. I thought that I would need to do a broad-back adjustment because I’ve had to with other Deer & Doe patterns, but I didn’t – hurrah! I did need to shorten the bodice by 1″ but that’s a fairly standard adjustment for me.

Collar and stand

What a palaver! I think it’s fair to say that Deer & Doe instructions are notoriously ‘concise’. I didn’t understand them at all so set about researching. I read a lot of useful blogs and discovered that there are multiple ways to sew a collar and stand…which added a layer of confusion. Eventually I found this YouTube video which made so much sense to me – I’m a visual learner according to some sort of corporate test I took years ago, so videos are great.

After watching the video about 5 times, I started the collar and stand on my ‘Swimmers’ shirt and ended up being pretty pleased with the result. The process on my ‘Rainbow’ shirt was still tricky but I think making them in quick succession helped cement the steps in my brain (and hands).

Finishing touches

Is it just me or does choosing buttons cancel out the impending horror of having to sew buttonholes? I couldn’t decide between white and pink so I appealed to the sewists (and non-sewing friends) of Instagram to help me choose. Pink won and I’m happy it did.

Two buttonhole game-changers that I’ve discovered lately are my gauge – no more tedious maths, trying to figure out what 37cm divided by 6 is – and the fact that my machine SEWS BUTTONS ON FOR ME. Both of these have drastically reduced button-related swearing.

I really love my Sweet Clover shirts and even made friends with the collar/stand.

And finally…

I managed to squeeze an Ogden Cami out of the Swimmers remnants for a pyjama top. I even used the selvage as a label because it’s hard to tell which is the back with this pattern.

Thanks for reading :o)