If you’ve been reading this blog for a very long time, you might recognise The Moon and the Hare. One of the first posts I wrote was about a t-shirt alteration featuring this print. I actually bought the t-shirt back in 2000 or 2001, the first time my paths crossed with the clog dancers. They [...]
Category Archive for 'tops'
This is just a little sneaky peek at something I’m working on at the moment. It’s a costume for Aldbrickham Clog & Step Dancers. I play recorder and concertina for them, and I’m helping out a friend who needs a new blouse. We wear roughly Edwardian costumes, based on the working clothes worn in the countryside until [...]
Simple Shirts
Posted in inspiration, sewing, tops on May 19th, 2011
I’ve been looking for “interesting” shirt patterns, thinking that I could make lots of plain white shirts with fancy details, and then dress them up with jewellery or waistcoats or (cool) bow ties. The pictures above are about half-and-half patterns that I own already, and ones I’d like to buy. Except that I’ve bought dozens [...]
This is Vogue 1290. The copyright date on the pattern envelope is 1993 (can you tell?), but I probably bought it in 1997 when I was given a new sewing machine as my graduation present. The pattern is for a shirt, jacket, dress, coat-dress and trousers. It’s been in my possession for around 14 years [...]
Back in March I managed to find a lovely TM Lewin women’s shirt for a bargain price in TK Maxx. We were going to see Mr B the Gentleman Rhymer, so I thought it would be a good idea to make a gentlemanly sort of an outfit for the occasion. The bow tie is Kwik [...]
A step ahead
Posted in inspiration, sewing, shopping, tops, Uncategorized on Mar 11th, 2011
I walked past my local branch of Hobbs yesterday, and spotted this lovely pink dress in the window. Then I came home and looked in my wardrobe at my pink party dress, which has a very similar keyhole-and-knot detail on the back. Now I don’t need to covet the Hobbs dress, and have thereby saved [...]
I know I’ve already made one little jacket in this fabric, but when I looked at the whole outfit together on the dressform I wasn’t sure. S, I had a little browse on the internet, dashed down to the fabric shop, bought another pattern and made another jacket. As you do. This one’s Butterick 4731. [...]
This is Simplicity 2478, view C. I made it exactly as per the pattern (for once!) and then embellished it with the very last tiny pieces of my broderie anglais trim and a pretty red frog fastener. What can I say? It went together really easily! It helps if you have prior experience of sewing [...]
I made this waistcoat so long ago that I’d almost forgotten about it! The pattern, as for the shirt underneath it, is Simplicity 4923. Although this was already the shorter view, most women’s patterns are too long in the body for me, so I decided to shorten it even further. Men’s patterns are even longer, [...]
This is Butterick 5260, a variant on View A. I only had a very small piece of fabric, so I ended up shortening both the top and the sleeves. It was supposed to be a short dress, but it’s a long top now! I also did away with the little piece of elastic gathering at [...]