Diary of a Chain Stitcher

As usual, I’m playing catch up and still sharing some of my favourite summer sewing projects! I also don’t have much to share in the way of winter appropriate sewing as my sewing time has been occupied with sewing baby clothes ready for the rapidly approaching arrival of my niece. I'm also about to tackle a big coat project which I think may take me some time...I'm excited to get my teeth stuck into a long and complex project though.

It was love at first sight when this bold linen gingham appeared in the new arrivals section of The Fabric Store website. As I've mentioned before I very rarely click 'Add to Cart' without a specific project in mind but I did with this. I loved the dramatic scale of the check and freshness of the white and golden yellow combo, all on a base of glorious slubby textured linen. I felt like head to toe large scale yellow gingham might be a little out of my comfort zone and had visions of a summery little crop top so restrained myself to an order of one metre (a choice I'm now slightly regretting as I love it so much).

This top would have been my contribution to The Refashioners 2020 which has unfortunately but understandably been cancelled this year. I had already completed my project and wanted to share it with you all as (despite not being the most dramatic refashion ever) it really pushed me outside my sewing comfort zone and I'm hoping it might inspire some of you to give it a try too!

I can't remember which image I saw that inspired this top. I possibly spied it on Pinterest or while I was scrolling through Instagram . All I can remember is that I couldn't find a sewing pattern for it! Again I'd limited my options by wanting to make it last minute before holiday so it had to be a PDF download but it sort of surprised me as I felt sure I'd seen many boxy little button up tops with v-necks around. Anyway, admitting defeat I turned to my pattern stash to see what I could use as a starting point. The closest to the vision in my head was the Kalle Shirt & Shirtdress  from Closet Case Patterns . I've made a maxi length version of this before which incidentally I also wore a lot on holiday and got a lot of compliments on! This time around I started with the cropped length of the pattern and I cut the size 8 as before. I'm sort of between the 6 and 8 on my top half and could probably stand to go down to the smaller size but I'm happy ...

The Ogden Cami from True Bias is a stalwart of many a handmade wardrobe and as well as making it up in multiple colours, prints and fabrics there is plenty of mileage to be had out of the design with some simple pattern hacking too. What I did to this version was super simple and quick but transforms the look of the top. When you've got as many versions of this pattern in your wardrobe as I do making some of them look at least a little different to the others is a must! After my successful and straightforward hack of adding a faux button placket to the Ogden Cami last time I decided to get a little bit more creative and change the neckline this time. This was actually possibly even more simple than the button placket to do but makes more of a dramatic difference! The high square neckline on camisoles seems to be quite popular in RTW at the moment and gives off a bit of a nineties vibe. I think it is quite an elegant shape, especially paired with the slightly flared bodice...

This month's project for the Mood Sewing Network was all about sewing a holiday wardrobe. With a couple of trips planned I had my eye out for summer prints which I'd still be able to get some wear out of at home in London. This Tropically Printed Denim jumped right out at me and I was ordering it without a second thought. Unfortunately it's now sold out in both colour ways which I'm not surprised about. It was one of those instances when you see the fabric and instantly know what you want to make it into. In this case high waisted, tropical shorts for wandering about Cannes in. Mood do have a whole host of other tropical prints on their site at the moment though; I'm a particular fan of this cotton . When the fabric arrived it was just what I was hoping for, the fabric descriptions on the Mood Fabrics website very rarely disappoint. A pretty lightweight denim, almost verging on a chambray, with a smooth and fairly crisp hand. I absolutely love the scale o...