Morgan Boyfriend Jeans

I just had my first go at the Morgan Boyfriend Jeans by Closet Case Patterns.

Okay, so maybe not "boyfriend" in this fabric. 

This fabric is a cotton that I bought from Potter & Co.  I'm not sure exactly how to describe it.  It is a little like a brocade, with raised texture, but also a little like corduroy, with very thin wales.  

I didn't make a muslin.  Fitting changes that I made on the run included letting out the hips a little (possibly need to let out a little more), flat pubis adjustment and scooping out the back crotch in an attempt to reduce the under-the-bum wrinkles I always get.  I can see that if the legs were skinnier, I would need to do knock-kneed and extended calves adjustments, but it doesn't bother me so much in this leg width and in this fabric.  I didn't do the button fly, just a regular zip fly.

The shirt I am wearing is an unblogged make from last year.  It is the Named Geneva raglan tee, made up in a viscose I bought from the Morgan and Mark's fabric sale last year. 

These photos were taken at the park near my house, where I have been walking most evenings for the last couple of weeks.

Chambray shirt-dress

I made a shirt-dress for the PR contest, starting with the Closet Case Patterns Kalle, out of a stashed chambray fabric I bought from a fabric shop that no longer exists.  Here is the guts of my PR review:

Recently I realised that cut on sleeves in wovens don't really work for me. I end up just ripping the armholes as I am getting about my daily business. I modified this pattern to make it sleeveless. I raised the armholes and took the armhole shaping from one of my self-drafted patterns and added a bust dart. 

I have a pear shaped figure, and decided that a flared dress would be more flattering than a straight one, so I flared the side seams from size 10 to size 18. The armhole I used was from a flared top. Because of the flared shape, I thought the curves of the hemline were a bit too severe, so I made them more gentle. (I actually love the original hem curves, which were the reason I bought the pattern, and I have copied them onto another pattern, but this time around I thought more gentle curves were better suited to the garment.

I made a muslin of the dress bodice to test my armhole and bust dart, and although I didn't sew a collar into the muslin, I could see that the neckline was not sitting well. Mostly the front neck was too high. Rather than correct it and play around with another muslin, I used a neckline from the Stylearc Angela woven blouse. Then instead of trying to measure and workout which of the Kalle collar bands and collar fit my new neckline, I just used the band and collar from the Angela as well. The Kalle has the shoulder seam at the top of the shoulder, which is unusual in a yoked shirt. Typically, the yoke extends to the front a bit, I think because this is a high wear section of the shirt. I move the shoulder seam forward, to match the Angela blouse, which made it easier to use the notches on the collar band.

I added an extra button to the placket because I decided to use multi-coloured buttons and wanted to fit one extra colour on the placket.

I like the idea for using a bias binding to finish the hem, and I have used this on other dresses, but when I was looking up the collar instructions on Craftsy, I found the section on sewing a curved hem, and so followed Janet Pray's directions for that too. It helped that my hem curves were more gentle than the original pattern.

In summary
Kalle - starting bodice, placket and pockets
Stylearc Angela - yoke, collar band, collar
Self drafted - armhole, bust dart, hem