A new silhouette

Hello all! The fabric for my latest Minerva make has had many incarnations in my head, and you get to see the version that made it all the way to the finish line. I've been working on my princess seam bodice block and combining it with a pencil skirt to make a dress pattern. The original next step was to swing out the skirt pieces to make a full skirt for this dress, but I was curious to try out this new silhouette to me so I left the new dress blocks as they were. You can read all about the making process on the Minerva Crafts blog here.

Thanks very much for reading, to Minerva Crafts for providing the materials for this project and to Grace for taking the pictures!
Lauren xx

Checked Shirt

Hello all!  My third and final year of uni has started in full force ( I'm 3 weeks into making for the first show of the season) but this is one of the things I made to wear on my trip to Amsterdam before summer holidays had finished.

My wardrobe plan for Amsterdam was all about the layers. Jeans, plus a tank top, then a shirt, jumper and coat to be added or taken off when appropriate. This worked really well. The fabric I think is some kind of cotton blend that I bought in Birmingham with Ben last winter. The original plan was to make it into a dress but it's going to be worn a thousand times more as a shirt.

I used the men's shirt pattern that I drafted for uni last year and that I used for the white linen shirt I made a few months ago. This time I made the yoke a little longer and added seam allowance to the collar so it's much more in proportion. The only thing I'd change now is to widen the cuffs a bit.

I paid particular attention to the pattern matching across the centre front, side seams and sleeve seams. Miraculously the collar actually matches the yoke, with no particular planning. The only change I'd make at the cutting out stage would be to centre the check at the pleat on the back piece. It looks a little off here.

I did the proper plackets this time, and I'm slowly getting to grips with the technique. It really helps to have a ready to wear shirt in front of me so I can see what I'm aiming for. The placket could do with being a bit shorter, and so could the sleeve.

My biggest mistake with this shirt was to flatfell the seams on the left hand side of the shirt on the outside and the seams on the right hand side on the inside! At this point in the game it was too late to change it, and probably only people who sew will notice, but I know that I could have had a neater finish had both the sleeve seams been flatfelled on the inside. The hem didn't particularly like being folded over twice and topstitched and I wish that I had bias bound it.

Despite all of this, I love this shirt and will never take it off.

Thanks very much for reading and to Bethan for taking the photos!

Lauren xx