I’ve Been Sewing

I haven’t done any garment sewing in ages, but all my luscious hand-dyed fabrics have had me thinking about using some in this way. This is the fabric that started it all. Isn’t it gorgeous?

Although I’ve been dying to use it, I wasn’t sure how to use it in combination with other large scale fabrics. But, I had smaller pieces that I thought I could use with it if the project was smaller in scale. Thus, the idea of a simple shirt came to mind. SIMPLE because I wanted to preserve the pattern of the fabric without a lot of seams or darts.

For the pattern I decided to mimic a ready-made shirt that fits me well (and is past its prime.) How’s this for simple? Only 4 pieces total: a simple T shape with a horizontal seam front and back. I thought it could work.

I used the shirt to create muslin patterns. (I didn’t take the shirt apart.)

Here’s the pattern for the front. I made the bottom portion bigger, just as it is in the inspiration shirt. The extra fullness is eased in when the two parts are sewn together. (Yes, I’m short and wide, as the pattern shows.)

And here’s the back.

I basted the muslin pattern together and was happy with the fit. On to fabric selection!

My plan was to use the prettiest part of the fabric as the top of the front. After that, I knew I’d need to patch other pieces together.

The photo above shows my auditioning of fabrics. The top piece is cut to size, but the others are folded as I pondered the best puzzle of pieces. (This ended up being the winner.)

On the back, I had to fiddle, rotate, and speculate before finding the best way to use my remaining fabric to its fullest. I was pretty happy with this layout.

And here it is finished! I love it!

And the back.

This was a fun project and I’m very happy with the results. I think there will be more pieced tops in my future!

Ellen Lindner