Here are the results of my PSD. The tank is B3383 in a cotton sateen. It called for purchased bias binding at the neck and arms, and I had already done the neck when it struck me that it would look much better with self-fabric binding. I cut bias binding for the arms, but was too lazy to redo the neck.
This is a very easy pattern. I cut it too large to begin with and had to redo the seams, and I added the step of cutting the bias strips, but it still took under two hours to finish completely.
It is not going to become a favorite pattern of mine, though. With no shaping at all, it tends toward the unibosom effect on me, and might be a better choice for someone with a more boyish figure. It will, however, be a great layering piece for the summer, as cool as a T-shirt but a little dressier.
This is piece # 5 of my SWAP Part II.
You can see it on the right with pieces 1 and 2.
The shirt is a wearable muslin. I have a lovely piece of linen and had thought of making a camp shirt to wear over the tank or under the jacket or just by itself. This is S7231, and it turned out fine and I am in fact wearing it today. However, I cannot deny that it is boxy, and will be just as boxy if I make it in linen.
It looks fine with the solid color pieces of the SWAP, and I am proud of myself for having made all those buttonholes. I think that I have the hang of it, and will no longer have to reject patterns on the grounds that they have buttons.
My sons assure me that this fabric is goofy, and they may be right. It is a Mary Engelbreit fabric, part of a quilting cotton group from many years ago, and I am not going to claim that it is chic. Still, if you can’t wear goofy camp shirts in the summer, when can you?
I recognize the weakness of that argument, I assure you.
After the sewing, I got together via Instant Messaging with #2 daughter and we finished up our story contest entry.
The Mt. Horeb Mustard Museum (I am not making this up) has an annual writing contest. last year it was a mystery, and #2 daughter and I were third runners up. This year it is a romance. I don;t read many romance novels, but I have read enough to think that I know the rules of the genre.
Essentially, there must be a hero and a heroine, and there must be some circumstance that keeps them apart. The whole book is the laying out of the circumstance and the overcoming of the obstacle.
Our hero and heroine are kept apart largely through being too busy and preoccupied by things like biofuel technology and gangsters to get around to falling in love.
That may not be a good enough working out of the formula to get us a place in the winners’ circle. However, we do have all kinds of cool details, including the mysterious journal of a 19th century mustard farmer, a necklace that everyone thinks is just costume jewelry, and a cave.
Now I have to clean it up, print it out, fill out the forms, and get it in the mail. I hate doing that kind of stuff, but the deadline is too close for me to wait any longer. Hi ho, hi ho.
Hey, lovely pieces!
RYC: I have already traced my geneaology to a Richard Head in England at the same time, before I had ever heard of this Richard Head. But I don’t know if it is the SAME Richard Head. And, as I am finding out, there were a LOT of them. I can actually go back a generation or two further, to a John Head who was High Steward to King Edward VI. There are records of this. And something I learned recently, the name is derived from Heved, and Hoved, which is Danish, and I married a Dane. Funny, huh?
The problem is, there is this missing link, which other people claim to have found, but I haven’t been able to validate. It’s a likely one, but I have no records to verify it. And that is much further down the line — my gggggrandfather, also a Richard Head, but in VA. Anyway, I’ll try not to go on about it here, but it is so frustrating to see people making a claim without anything but oral history and probability to back it up, because I want to accept it but can’t know for certain. But what can we do when the Yankees burned all the courthouses and city halls? Damn Yankees.
And who cares if the fabric is goofy? Goof it up, I say. That’s what I do. Enjoy it.
Could you add a few darts to the linen version to give you some shaping?
The clothes are splendid — goofy fabric or not; good for you for finishing them. And congratulations on finishing the mustard contest entry! Now we wait…..
First, I LOVE the camp shirt. I think ME fabric is great for a fun shirt like that one. I’d wear it. It would be a good “shirt jacket” overtop of another shirt, too (e.g., a t-shirt or solid colour tank top). I do that quite a bit with fun shirts. I giggled at your description of the romance novel the two of you are writing. It sounds great! You might be one of the first to write about biodiesel in a romance novel.
Wow – 2 shirts in one day? EXCELLENT! I’m intimidated by collars and such. I did make those Hugh Hefner satin pajamas for Henry for Halloween, but the collar ended up being a bit wonky.
Sounds like my romantic life.