I want much more than this provincial life

Let’s be honest here: pattern hacking is not my strongest sewing skill. Given enough time and the amount of stubbornness I’m willing to throw at a project, I can sometimes make it work, like the three-muslin wedding dress bodice. Sometimes I get lucky and things turn out as planned right away, like the TARDIS skirt (aside from my occasionally wonky reverse applique.) But most of the time, I end up with something patched-together and not very pretty, like the last major Franken-shirt I attempted. And then I just wonder where my math went wrong (somewhere around the 6th grade, probably) and envy Heather‘s mad hacking skills.

This project is somewhere between the two extremes. I think I may have had better luck with it because it’s a knit and those are generally more forgiving.

In true mad scientist fashion, I mashed together three patterns, from three different companies. The collar and the general shape of the front came from New Look 6922, the sleeves were a narrowed-out-of-necessity version of Simplicity 2852, and the back/reshaping of the front and sleeve caps/cuffs came from my Sewaholic Renfrew. I knew I wanted a slim fit for the top, because the only reason I made this shirt at all was for my Belle costume for DragonCon, and I needed it to fit smoothly under my Monetta-Tiramisu mashup from June.

This wasn’t without its drafting issues, for sure. I picked the New Look pattern for the general shape of the collar, because I had no idea how to get something that looked like the shape of what’s on her shirt. And I did things like hold the pattern pieces up to myself and measure and everything, but it still ended up being a much lower-cut neckline than I intended. I also ended up having to rip off one of the cuffs and resize it, because it wasn’t nearly as fitted as I wanted. I think I ended up cutting about 2″ off of it.

You can see the sleeves a little better here, as well as the general shape of the collar. I was originally thinking of making this a cardigan, but when I realized the collar was way too long, I just sewed it down the center front instead to give it a little more shaping. Draping it over myself didn’t help here, either. Like I said. My franken-patterning needs work.

You can probably also see that greyish dot on the collar… I ended up sewing two sets of hooks and eyes on there to close it up some so that the collar comes together where I want it to for costume purposes.

I did bust an entire piece of fabric for this one! I had a tube of rib knit that was pretty useless for t-shirt making, because I’d have to dye tiny little pieces to match whatever shirts I was making, and who wants to do that? So I just managed to squeeze the whole thing out of it. The fabric was free anyway, in the category of things that people gave my mom that she couldn’t use for quilts, so no loss on my end except to the yardage tally on my stash. I’ll take it.

And here’s the costume so far! I still need to make a half-apron and a hair bow, but the two major components of this outfit are done, at least. I think this one will be a pretty comfortable one to wear all day, too, given that it’s all knit.

And of course I had to do a pose with a book, given that I was in a library and it is Belle.

So I think the costume end is shaping up nicely, though unlike the dress, I’m not sure I’m ever going to wear this shirt outside of this weekend. It just doesn’t feel like me, you know? Maybe if I dye it or something. I don’t know…what do you think?