Twinkle Sews Take Manhattan

This month, Pattern Review are having a pattern stash competition.  The winner is the person who sews the most patterns from their stash, but I decided to use this competition just to sew up one pattern in my stash that has been sitting there for a long while, and that I will regret not ever getting around to sewing (sadly, I have a lot of patterns in that category to choose from).

I bought the Twinkle Sews book in 2009.  I did make a handful of garments at the time, but not all the ones I wanted to make.  I bought the fabric for the Take Manhattan tunic on a trip to Tessuti not long after I bought the book, and they have been sitting paired together for the past 8 years.

Finally, today, that project has been realised.

The main fabric is a very light, floaty fabric.  I never knew the exact composition, but I believe it is a melange of natural and synthetic fibres.  it is slightly sheer.  It is warm for its weight, and a tiny bit scratchy, so I think that there is some wool in the mix.

I didn't make any fitting changes to the pattern.  I need to add some more room across the back if I sew this again.  It looks okay here, but the fabric has no give, and I can feel it pulling in the back when I move my arms in front.

The design is described as an overblouse.  I did put it on over a brown t-shirt, over black jeans, but the whole ensemble then had a a bit of a Friar Tuck vibe about it.

Because the fabric was a little scratchy, I decided to make the cowl lining in a different fabric.  The silk crepe de chine that I used to line the bodice wasn't a close enough colour match, so one night I spent hours hunting through my fabrics for a better choice.  It took me a while.  Usually I have something in mind before I go digging, but this time I was coming up blank.  I started with my remnants, then trawled through the piles of new fabrics and finally I pulled out my box of "the good stuff".  I don't usually like to cut into a new length of fabric for one piece like this, but I had no project in mind for this particular fabric, and as a family member delightfully pointed out, I won't get it all sewn before I die.  I may as well use it now.  This charcoal black silk has a gold thread running through that matched well with my main fabric.  I got this contrast fabric from EmmaOneSock, and I believe it was labelled as a Calvin Klein fabric.

For many of Wenlan Chia's designs, the delight is in the details.  This tunic has a lined bodice.  The inner neck edge of the cowl is finished with a bias strip.  Here you can see the buttonholes for the drawstring.  My drawstring is a little shorted than the pattern because I wanted to use the selvedge and this is what I had in a single strip.

The top of the kangaroo pocket is finished with rivets.  The pocket has top-stitching down the centre so that it doesn't gape open.

My rivet stems were purchased to go through denim, and I was worried about them hanging in space at the back of this fine fabric, so I stuck in a couple of pieces of batting behind the rivet.  This sits between the bodice and the lining.

I thought I would save myself the trouble of sewing a neat narrow hem in crepe de chine lining, and finished the edge with a strip of lace instead.

Possibly, I sewed the lace on the wrong side of the lining.  I sewed the lining with french seams, but used my overlocker on the main fabric because it frayed so much.  The main hem is a blind hem.  I used a not narrow, not wide double hem on the sleeves, which I forgot to photograph.  

This was an exercise in slow sewing for me.  I don't get the time to sew all I want, and I don't get through as much as I want in that time.  I need to be mindful not to get frustrated at the lack of progress, but to enjoy each of the steps (though I will never enjoy taping together all those pdf pages).  Sewing is my hobby, but it is not always a relaxing hobby, and I need it to be.

The projects that I have made from "Twinkle Sews" have been some of my favourites.  You can see them all by clicking on the "Twinkle" label.  I still have my eye on a couple more of the designs in the book.