Adding hardware details

This outfit emerged from a need for quick gratification sewing, whilst I am struggling with sleeve fitting in my craftsy class.  Sewing is my number one hobby, but it is not all joy and bubbles.  Fitting slopers (or anything really) drags me down.

First up, burdastyle 6633, a tunic.  I know that I said I was not going to buy any new patterns, but I picked up a few at a sale price of $4.50 last week. Tracing paper costs almost as much.

I made view B.  My sleeves are longer, but that is only because I cut on the the line for View A and then found that I did not have enough of my contrast fabric for cuffs.  The sleeves are actually surprisingly narrow for this style of tunic, and sometimes I can feel the fabric straining through the upper arm as I go about my daily business.  I thought that burda patterns fit me alright in the shoulder, but you can see in the photo below that my forward, square shoulder is busting to get out of there.  The slightly dropped shoulder line probably doesn't help.

The only change I made to the pattern was to add grommets and lacing.  Now that I have bought the extra dies for my snap press, I need to use them whenever I can!  A reviewer over at Patternreview found that the neck opening on this tunic was a bit low (any surprise, burda??), and I would have found it too low as well, if I did not add the lacing.  You can see that the neck opening is lower than the bust darts, which I think would lead to gaping on most people.

The tunic has a curved hem.  Does anyone else struggle with curved hems?  I know that curved hems are flattering, but I do find them tricky to sew neatly.  For this tunic, I used the same method that you would use for a narrow hem if you did not have a narrow hemming foot....one row of stitching, fold up and press, second row of stitching, fold up and press, third row of stitching.

The shorts are mostly my own pattern.  I started with my favourite Patrones elastic waisted pants pattern and made the following changes;

- shortened length

- removed height from the front and back rise and added a separate waistband

- added front slant pockets

- added back jetted pockets

- added a cuff

- added side tabs

- took the side seams in 15 mm after making this up, because of the heavier fabric.

In the past, I have thought of elastic waisted shorts mostly as pyjamams.  Then two years ago I bought a few pairs of elastic waisted shorts online, which I loved.  They had lots of extra details, including cuffs, pockets, ties etc.  Last year, I ordered more from the same shop, and for some reason, none of them fit.  They were too big in all sorts of weird ways.  This year, I thought it was time to just make up my pattern for what I wanted.

I copied the cuff detail from a pair of puma shorts I was given as a hand-me-down.  It gives a much crisper cuff than the method I have previously used (and learnt from pattern sheet instructions).  You can see in the photos below that I turned up a double hem, and then flipped the hem to the outside to form the cuff.  I top-stitched the cuff, but the original pair I copied did not have top-stitching.  If I had known that I was going to add the tab, I would have sewn it into the hem before I top-stitched it, but the tab was a last minute add-on and I didn't want to unpick the top-stitching.  You might expect that this method of making the cuff would lead to wear on the bottom edge, but the shorts I copied are hand-me-down and I have been wearing them myself for several years now and they have not worn out on this line.

This is my first time sewing jetted pockets.  Not so neat in the denim, but okay.

  The insides are neat, but you can see I was not using pattern pieces for the pockets as they have ended up different lengths.

I'm pleased I have this shorts pattern now.  The next shorts pattern I want to try is one I rubbed off some RTW Roxy shorts maybe six years ago, but never sewed up.  I found my rub-off when I was looking for something else just recently.  So many things to sew...