Black & White and spotted all over!

More sewing for me, and more spots!  The Monthly Stitch contributors had chosen Monosewn, black & white only as their theme for July.  I thought this was going to be a cake walk to be honest, I had so many fabrics to chose from I was quite literally swimming in the stuff!  The biggest problem was chosing what to make!

Out of the pile I narrowed the choice to a white cotton with black spots and a black viscose jersey, with black spots!  Pattern choices were a self drafted Carme-style blouse for the cotton and an asymmetrical tee similar to No4 in Drape Drape 2.  I faffed around & made up my mind & changed it again numerous times over the month, starting other projects just to keep me going.

In the end I settled for the cotton simply because I had other suitable fabric to use for the toile.  That’s the problem with toiling with jersey.  If you don’t use the exact same fibre content etc as your final fabric you’ll never get the same result.

I’ve pinned a number of photos of the types of blouses I like onto my Wardrobe Architect board on Pinterest, many of which are similar in style to Pauline Alice’s Carme.  My liking for spots is also pretty apparent.  Now I do have the Carme pattern but – the sizing doesn’t work for me.

Features of the Carme I like:

• The front placket and neru collar.  The instructions supplied with the original pattern are pretty darned good.
• Narrow cuffs
• Roll back sleeves with tab to hold them up with.

The only thing I’m not that keen on for me is the tucked bib.  I think it’s too much detail on the top for me.  Although I wonder if it’ll look better if it had pin tucks instead of the 1cm tucks that come on the Carme.  No matter, this version has no bib.

It has the placket, the neru collar, the narrow cuffs & gathered sleeves & the tabs to hold the sleeves up.  It also has a little detail all of my own.  I added some bias detail to the Carme I made before & was definitely going to to be adding something to this one.

I dug a length of 16mm wide black grossgrain out of my ribbon stash to use on the cuffs and front placket.  At first I thought I’d edge the placket on both sides with the ribbon, but I’m quite glad there wasn’t enough, I like having it just on the left so it is only seen when the placket is unbuttoned.

This such a comfy shirt!I can see myself wearing it at least once a week so maybe I’d better make another to give this one a rest!  I love it with the sleeves rolled up.  With Summer nearly over (sssshhhhh!!) the length is perfect for those days when a breeze gets up & you need more coverage.

The construction of the shirt was pretty simple, I followed the instructions for the placket from the Carme & then everything else was straightforward.  The seams are all French, hem double turned & machined.  This is a shirt that can be run up in a day, an afternoon even!

I call that a success story!  Now, I have 5 days until we head off to Cornwall for sun, sea and sand (in that order…)  I still need a couple of tops, so maybe I’ll make another of these, or maybe I’ll get my skates on and make that Drape Drape tee!  Panic? Me? Never…  :s