Dressy to Casual: A Challenge

Sarah Veblen is one of my very favorite teachers.  She recently began offering a series of challenges designed to spark creativity in garment making.  The first such challenge asked the participant to find inspiration in one of the photos in Sarah's Dressy Dresses Gallery and use that inspiration to create a casual garment.

I thought this sounded like a great way to jump start some garment sewing for myself so I decided to sign up.  What could be more quintessentially casual than a t-shirt?

The inspiration for this casual tee came from pictures 1-7 of Sarah’s gallery.  Additional inspiration came from one of Sarah’s garments that I loved from the first Knits Class I took with her that used a sheer lace with a knit fabric.

I worked with two chocolate brown fashion fabrics, one an embroidered point d’esprit stretch lace that I bought at Metro Fabrics in NYC and a bamboo knit purchased from Vogue Fabrics.  I added the additional personal challenge to only use items that were already in my stash for this project.

I began with a tried-and-true tee shirt pattern with a bust dart and drew in a style line for the “yoke” portion on the front and back.  I decided on a long sleeve and cut them on the cross grain so I could take advantage of the lace fabric’s selvage for the hem.  After much consideration I decided to underline the yoke portion with a flesh colored 4-way stretch knit.  I thought this would add some stability to the very fragile fabric, simplify construction and allow me to wear a conventional bra with the top.  At first I wanted to leave the sleeves unlined but in the end warmth won out over allure.

I feared that the top would be boring without a little something extra so I opted for some piping along the yoke seam made from stretch panne velvet.  I constructed the piping with cording which I later removed once the piping was applied.  In the end I hand tacked the piping from the inside to keep it flat against the garment.  I also used the same stretch velvet to bind the neckline.

I’m pleased with the final result, am happy that the challenge gave my creativity a little kick start and got me sewing for myself again.  I am looking forward to the next one and I really hope some of you out there will join me.

Monkey Tee

This is the day I would normally post a garment picture.  I am not sure that this really qualifies as a "garment" but I am away at a sewing retreat and am missing my little guys back at home so, in a moment of wistfulness, I decided to post this picture of my brown-eyed boy.

This applique monkey design comes from Sew Many Designs who has "sew many" cute things, including a lot of designs for boys.  When I was making this shirt I decided to stitch it onto a background panel instead of the actual t-shirt so it could be removed and stitched to another larger shirt should I want to.  This worked well and also eliminated all of the fiddly parts about embroidering onto knits.  Give it a try.

Today and tomorrow I am living in luxury (alone!) at the George Washington Hotel in Winchester, VA where almost 40 of my favorite sewing friends have gathered for a winter retreat, sponsored by the Northern Virginia Chapter of the American Sewing Guild.  Before my children were born I was a regular attendee of these retreats, though back then I was sleeping on a bunk bed and eating cafeteria food at a 4H Camp.  This year the powers that be decided to move the retreat to somewhere a bit more upscale (that wouldn't have been hard) and picked this lovely, renovated hotel in downtown Winchester.  I am basking in the (deafening) silence of my stately room and will soon go join others in the Ballroom to sew to my heart's content.  I've brought with me a number of UFO's (unfinished objects) as well as a new dress to work on.  If I had had the presence of mind to pack my camera card reader I could have uploaded a new garment hot off the press.  But you will just have to wait until next week for that.