Tag Archives: Placket

Blue Patterned Melilot Blouse

Today I’m posting the last of the things I made in October……in December. I’m a little backed up, what can I say?

This is the Deer and Doe Melilot Shirt made from some mystery slippery fabric I got from Rolls and Rems at Holloway Road. It’s the first Deer and Doe pattern I’ve made and after the brief panic when I thought the instructions only came in French (they don’t, fyi, there is a French booklet and an English one!), the shirt came together pretty well, aside from my terrible fabric choice.

This is some mystery almost-certainly-synthetic slippery horror. It was not easy to cut out accurately and it doesn’t iron at all, it just curls up. I’m frankly amazed the shirt turned out as okay as it did!

You can see above it looks a bit wrinkled, but there’s not much I can do about that given than the iron just makes it worse!

You can’t really see it but there is a pocket! It’s on my left (the right of the photo). I didn’t pattern match it – that would have been impossible! – but the fabric is so busy it disappears in the photos.

I made the size 38 and didn’t make any fitting changes – this is why I like making quite loose-fitting things! I actually think the fit across the back is okay (if you ignore the fact that the fabric looks terrible!). I really like how it sits lower at the back than the front, I think it’s a nice design detail that makes the shirt look a bit more interesting.

I made view A which has long sleeves, a rounded collar and it’s supposed to have hidden buttons. I say supposed to because I clearly did something wrong in the construction because I ended up with the bit that should have folded back over where the buttons would be next to the other part of the button band, so it looks like I’ve got a double button band. I didn’t realise until I’d sewed the entire things together, though. And weirdly the collar seemed to fit okay considering the body of the shirt was longer than it should have been! I just did the button holes down the middle of the 2 bands and it looks okay – no-one has commented on it anyway! (If they did I would just say it was deliberate ;))

I think my favourite thing about this pattern is the adorable collar. I just really like the shape of it and I feel like it’s quite flattering on me too, which is a bonus! I think I’ll try the version with the grandad-style collar too (and the short sleeves) to see if it looks as nice.

I found the instructions pretty clear, though there were a couple of times I found myself googling to see if there was a sewalong (which there isn’t, sob!). I think I mainly psyched myself out about the sleeve plackets because I’d read other blog posts that said the instructions weren’t clear. But actually once I’d worked out which placket went on which sleeve (it wasn’t clear to me which was the back of the sleeve in the diagrams), the instructions were perfectly clear. I think I’ve done this before – notably with the welt pockets on my Freemantle Coat – where I read all the instructions and think ‘what?!’ but then when I actually do the steps, the instructions make sense and it all comes together.

I definitely want to make this again but in a more cooperative fabric! I think this is a good work shirt – it looks equally nice tucked into a skirt (in these photos my navy drill Simplicity 2451) as it does over skinny trousers. I also kind of want to copy the cream sleek one in the pattern photos – and do the button band right so the buttons are actually hidden! In other news I have quite a bit more of this fabric. I’m thinking a skirt lining possibly? Any other suggestions for a pain-in-the-arse-but-pretty-fabric?

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Blue Spotty Archer Button Up

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I made a shirt! With a collar and cuffs and sleeve plackets and a yoke and pockets and everything! Can you tell I’m pleased with myself!?

This is, of course, the Grainline Archer Button Up Shirt. I bought the pattern a while back from Raystitch and the fabric at (are you getting sick of this yet) Rolls and Rems. It’s a nice soft cotton, and it’s spotty, though you can’t really tell! I bought it in this shade and in navy blue. I intended it for something else when I first bought it (I can’t remember what that was now), but then I thought it would be perfect for my first Archer.

I can definitely see more Archers in my future! It’s still fairly casual to wear a button down with skinny jeans, but it can easily be dressed up to look a bit smarter for work. I don’t own a plain white shirt, so I think a white one will be next. And then maybe some in plaid for weekends – I (uncharacteristically) popped into New Look today and they had a bunch of quite nice plaid and stripey shirts, so I now feel inspired to make about 10!

I had never sewn any of the special things that make a shirt a shirt – namely the collar, cuffs and sleeve plackets. All I can say is thank god for the sewalong! I’m sure the next time I make this the instructions included with the pattern will be sufficient, but some of the parts definitely needed more explanation the first time.

I made the straight size 4 and am pretty happy with the fit. It’s a bit gapey at the back, as everything is, so I think I may finally actually tackle a swayback adjustment the next time I make it to try to make it pool a bit less than this one does, though it doesn’t bother me particularly. But part of the point of making your own clothes is to make ones that fit you perfectly, so I should really fit it a bit.

I wonder if the pockets are a little big on me – what do you think? I wonder if making them a little less long might make them look more in proportion?

This was meant to be a close-up of the details on the back and my amazingly neat top-stitching, but The Boyfriend didn’t really under stand. But at least here you can see that the fabric is spotty! It also does look a bit wide on me across the shoulders at the back, boo!

The only other change I might make would be to slightly shorten the sleeves as they are a little long on me. I think I’ll wear them rolled up most of the time – I tend to wear all my sleeves rolled up most of the time – but it would be nice for them to be a little shorter for wearing under jumpers.

Apparently this is the way to demonstrate that the sleeves are too long…….

Also, I thought you might enjoy this outtake photo – it’s fairly subtle but I definitely look a bit drunk or something!

Have you made the Archer? If not, are you tempted to give it a go? I found I really enjoyed working steadily through all the new techniques and details like top-stitching. I tried to enjoy the process of making it instead of racing for the finish line, as I sometimes do (and then I get frustrated because things always take longer to make than I think!). I made this in little chunks over 3 different weekends, having cut it out the weekend before I started it, which is pretty slow for me. Do you enjoy the process or focus on the finished product?

My First Banksia

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Sorry I’ve been a bit quiet this last week – I was away last weekend, hanging out with my best friends, then last week at work was too busy for me to have the energy to write any posts – I organise events for a bookshop and last week there were 9 events! Also I’d finished my Banksia a little while ago but hadn’t had a chance to take any photos. Any way, enough with apologies and onto my new favourite top!

As I mentioned a while ago, I bought Megan Nielsen’s Banksia Top a little while ago and I almost immediately got to work on it. I cut out the xs as it was still a bit big for my bust measurement – but since it’s not meant to be fitted, I figured it wouldn’t matter. And I love it!

The fabric is some lovely, soft pink stripey cotton I got from one of the shops in Goldhawk Road – I forget which one. It’s the same one where I bought the cake fabric for my friend’s apron and the price was meant to be £7.99 per metre but he did it at £5.99 per metre because I had bought some other things – lovely man!

I tried my hardest to match the stripes on the side seams and it almost worked:

I also french seamed all of the seams, including the sleeve seams. I’d never done that before so used the French All Your Seams tutorial on Grainline Studio’s blog. It looks so pretty on the inside, it makes me stupidly happy!

I like the look of the bias binding that neatens the collar too – clever pattern drafting:

As you can see in that photo, I cheated and used poppers instead of buttons. I hate, hate, hate, sewing button holes and wanted the top finished and didn’t want to mess it up with the fabric getting chewed up with the button holes going wrong. I sewed some buttons on the top to make it look like it was fastened with buttons – cheater!

I love the over-sized collar but boy did it take ages to clip all the notches before turning it the right way round!

The pattern was pretty easy to assemble – the collar was easy to sew in. The only complicated bit is the placket – I used method 2 for putting it in and there was one point where I got a bit confused, but Megan Nielsen has a sew-along on her website and with some more photos, it became clear how to do it.