Tag: shirts

To shop, or not to shop


Image © Zara

Yesterday I went shopping, and did not buy this silk blouse with hot air balloons and air ships all over it from Zara. I also did not buy two tops with skulls on them from H&M, and a pair of Thundercats Converse from Schuh.

I did buy four pairs of stripy over-the-knee socks, and a bright yellow skirt.

Yellow wool skirt

It’s calf length, 75% wool 25% nylon, fully lined, with pockets in the side seams. Smells a little bit of mothballs now I’ve ironed it (yes, believe it or not I did iron it before I took this picture – clearly not hard enough!), but that’s nothing that a little wash won’t fix. And it shows that somebody’s bothered to look after it. The label says “Yessica” which, if memory serves, is 1980s C&A. It cost a grand total of £6, from the Sue Ryder shop.

I have a sneaky suspicion that this skirt will sit in my wardrobe (along with the tweedy one I bought in May) and be relegated to “vaguely Steampunk dressing-up”. Which would be sad, as it’s a really lovely skirt, great quality, and with details that I really like.

So, why buy the skirt that won’t get worn, and not the blouse that will?

I’ve been trying very hard not to buy mass-produced things from chain stores this year. The biggest exception has been my ever-increasing collection of TM Lewin shirts, but I think I’ve got enough now to last me a good few years. (She says, having just looked at the website and seen a purple flowery one, and a blue one with birds… both reduced from £85 to £20… argh!)

So whilst the hot air balloon blouse is lovely, and silk, and would in fact look great with this yellow skirt… and the skull tops from H&M were just generally awesome (I’m still a sucker for anything with skulls on it)… and the Thundercats Converse were hilarious… they’re all mass-produced, fast fashion, and designed to be disposable. And I don’t want that from my clothes any more.

I’d always thought I wasn’t one to worry about what other people thought of my clothes (see: yellow coat, silly prints, bow ties, gold boots, pink hair, Being A Goth), but I think part of my reluctance to wear skirts like this and my tweedy one is the fear that people might look at me funny. I had a teacher at middle school (anyone remember Mrs Trubshaw?) who was widely ridiculed for wearing unusual clothes, including an a-line skirt with a forest design appliqued round the hem, which a) I would now kill for, and b) was probably actually quite fashionable in the mid 1980s. As kids, we were absolutely horrible to her, and I’m basically afraid of being treated the same way. Which is silly really, because if I coped with people shouting at me in the street when my hair was pink, I’m sure I can deal with a few sideways glances at a yellow skirt.

Perhaps one of my resolutions for 2013 should be to stop falling back into the comfortable trap of jeans and t-shirts, and start putting more effort into wearing the clothes that I really love.

How many is too many?

TM Lewin Shirts

Oh dear, I might have had a little shopping accident, during which I broke my resolution to Stop Buying More Things. I went into TK Maxx to look for some foam mats for blocking my knitting, but they didn’t have them. (Curse of TK Maxx – if you leave something behind, you’ll never see it again.) What they did have was quite a large selection of TM Lewin shirts. So I bought three. (Top right, middle left, bottom centre.) They cost £12.99 each – something of a bargain compared to the RRP, which is usually around £70. I can’t afford to pay £70 for a shirt, but I can usually afford £12.99, so thank you TK Maxx.

Interestingly, although I browse the TM Lewin website quite regularly, and visit the local store whenever I pass it, I almost never see these patterned shirts. That’s the main reason I jumped on these as soon as I saw them. I often see plain or striped shirts that I leave behind because the colours don’t grab me, but I can’t resist an unusual print.

I am now renewing my No Clothes Shopping resolution (which also had a little accident in the fabric shop at the weekend, but that’s another post) by adding to it Don’t Go Into TK Maxx. If I don’t go there in the first place, I can’t see the lovely shirts and be tempted to buy them.

Perhaps my next project needs to be knitting up a few waistcoats or tank tops to go with them. No shopping required for that – I have stash yarn in a multitude of colours (okay, black and various shades of pink) that would go with most of these shirts perfectly.

Simple Shirts

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 of patterns for perfectly lovely shirts over the years, and then never made any because my sewing machine hates making buttonholes. I’ve had it looked at, but it works perfectly for Sue at the sewing machine shop. Every time. Stupid thing.

I’ve made precisely four of the shirt patterns that I own, and that includes a pirate shirt and an original 1970s pattern. I altered every single one of them to either replace the buttons with poppers, or to leave the buttons off altogether, but I don’t want to do that with everything I make!

Then there’s the part where I actually own quite a number of shirts already, and I never wear them. They’re always at the bottom of the wardrobe in the ironing pile, so I tend to just throw on a t-shirt instead.

Clearly someone needs to invent a magical button-free, crease-free shirt.

Oh, wait.

That’s a t-shirt.

Ah.

Summer Shirt

Rosy Days Shirt

Remember when I told you that McCalls 5433 was going to be my perfect summer wardrobe? Well, here’s my first summer shirt!

The fabric is a lightweight quilting cotton – a vintage piece by Rose & Hubble. The print is called “Rosy Days”, and it looks a bit like an old-fashioned quilt. Inside the circles are flowers, hearts and posies in pretty little baskets.

Rosy Days Shirt

The buttons are little blue plastic ones with a flower in the centre. I have no idea how old they are or where they came from – I unearthed them from one of my many inherited button tins!

The buttons aren’t functional – the shirt actually fastens with poppers. (This is because the buttonhole functionality on my sewing machine completely refuses to make nice buttonholes.)

The instructions were great, and the shirt went together very nicely. However, unless you’re a fan of hand finishing, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this pattern to a beginner. There are a lot of small details that make a big difference in the sewing of a shirt, and some of them can be a little bit fiddly.

I’ve really enjoyed making and wearing this shirt though, so it definitely counts as a success!

New summer wardrobe.

As well as taking over the world with tunics, I also want to make a couple of new additions to my summer wardrobe.

This shirt is McCalls 5433, and it’s a Palmer Pletsch design.

I was a bit startled to discover that the instructions ran to seven pages, and was worried that the shirt would turn out to be unnecessarily complicated. As it turns out, the first two pages are a very useful guide to tissue fitting. It also gives the details for several common alterations, such as how to make a full bust adjustment, and how to accommodate a high back or rounded shoulder. I didn’t know that Palmer Pletsch produced a range of sewing books and DVDs, but they look really useful!

I’ll be making the longest shirt, with the longest sleeves. In a lightweight lawn this should hopefully be the perfect summer cover-up.

Pintucks and pleats.

I’ve been away from the blog recently on account of a Dreaded Lurgy, so I haven’t had a great deal to show you. Fortunately I have managed to drag myself out of my sick bed *cough* for long enough to make this:

Pintucks and pleats

which is eventually going to be the front of a shirt, in organic cotton lawn.

I’ve been looking through a number of books about historical clothing, specifically men’s shirts. I’m making one from the simplest shapes possible (basically four big rectangles and a collar!), and using pleats and pintucks to create the fit and style that I’m after.

I have lots of different plans for variations on this simple shirt, and I’m hoping to find the time to make several incarnations over the next couple of months.

I’d probably better make a start by getting on with this one…