This is post will be a round up, From continuing failure to success.

In my last post I was still working with the Burda shirt. I was and continue to be quite pleased with the pyjamas but my attempt at making a day shirt out of the pattern was completely unsuccessful, so unsuccessful its never been worn and is now in my mum’s fabric stash, so I moved on to another pattern.

Mark 3, and 4 - the Sedona Shirt by designer stitch

This was a Sew My Style pattern for 2019 and I made two full attempts and one that was never finished before it was taken to pieces to make mum a slip and bra toile. The Sedona shirt/dress pattern is an indy pattern which cups with cup sizes so there should have been less altering necessary to make the pattern fit if I started with a DD bodice.

The first version was unwearable, while the finished garment measurements of the size 1DD said that there should have been sufficient ease in the diameter of the shirt it was spread to leave me with a too large back and not enough ease in the front of the chest, although this wasn’t obvious from this version. I was however hopeful, it looked slightly more like a wearable shirt than my attempts at the Burda pattern.

In the second attempt I added a 2.5cm bust adjustment. This meant I could fasten the shirt but it was very tight and the over large back was beginning to become obvious as I’d added enough to the front that the side seams weren’t straining forward quite as badly.

On my final unfinished attempt, I added an additional 1.5cm of ease, at which point it was still tight across the bust and not sitting right but the back was swimming on me as the 10cm of back ease became apparent. I threw a tantrum and refused to finish it. I sent both the completed toiles to a friend who finds them very well fitted and have since made her two more shirts from the same pattern but that was the end of the line for me and the Sedona shirt.

Mark 5, 6, 7, ad nauseam - Ottobre girls shirts

Simultaneously to failing to make shirts using adult patterns I had been making jumpers from Ottobre kids patterns successful with minimal pattern alteration and I normally buy ready to wear kids clothes. The magazines we owned at the time contained a girls blouse pattern called Roses and Dots which I didn’t much like from the pattern image but we needed to make a tenth birthday present for cheap and made up out of a far simpler stash fabric I could see potential.

So I made a trial version using a cheap light weight cotton poly from my local haberdashery. With just a large FBA this pattern fit far better than any of my attempts with a adult patterns. I made the size 158 taking my 78-79cm underbust measurement and then made a 10cm FBA to accommodate my 97cm full bust measurement. (Modelled by my mum because I make her do this.)

Having got to this point I promptly went wild with power and actually cut in to fabrics I’m attached to and couldn’t replace.

An order of more Ottobre magazines got me another fun shortsleeved pattern and boys shirt with the style of long sleeves I want. My first long sleeved shirt was not a total success. For the first time in my life I needed to lengthen something, while my torso is verging on too short for 158, I have longer arms and legs. My arms are slightly bent in the photo to take advantage of the ease in the sleeve width and keep the cuffs from trying to sit painfully high up my arm. However that was an easy fix and I now have shirt patterns to make tons of. I lived in the three shortsleeved shirts all summer and desperately want to make enough long sleeved shirts to similarly size in them all winter.