Unrequited Love

Don’t you just drool over the elegant simplicity of plain linen garments? I was totally seduced by this symphony in linen:

So I thought, rather than all that busy printing, stencilling and painting, why not make a plain linen shirt for a change? I liked the style of this one, from the same website of a Hobart designer, calling itself ‘the maker’.

Not having a lazy $350 lying around, I got out some mustard linen and my Tessuti Jac Shirt pattern. This is my go-to, but I always lengthen it by 5cm at the line provided for this purpose in the pattern. This time, with my eyes firmly on the my inspiration, I went a bit more extreme and lengthened by 8cm. I also put more swing in the back by putting the back pattern piece at an angle to the fold, touching the fold at the collar end but about 5-10cm away from the fold at the bottom hem.

The traditional method is to slash and spread the pattern piece, but this has always worked just fine for me.

Again following the lead of my inspiration shirt I also widened the neck circumference by 12cm and lengthened the collar stand by the same amount to fit the new circumference. Leaving out the actual shirt collar piece, this makes a nice grandpa collar which now sits much further away from the neck, although possibly not quite as wide as the original. I not only like the look, but find it more comfortable when the collar doesn’t rub against my neck.

So here we are, showing off by trying to imitate the professional poses of my inspo, probably not all that successfully. 🙂

And back to the usual same old same old poses…

See the side vent and the swing at the back? I like that. Without the extra width it is much more flat, like the front. It also does not work lengthened if it is not widened at the same time. Ask me how I know.

Sadly I cannot manage to maintain that freshly ironed look sported by the models.

All photos were taken after a day’s wear. Just look at the back.

The photos don’t show the wrinkles well on the front, but look at the sleeves.

Even after treating the linen for a couple of weeks with soda ash, it still does not wear nearly as well as linen where I have used dye or screen printing ink. Apart from the additional chemicals, it is probably the prints/painting that distract the eye and make garments appear so much less wrinkled that a plain fabric.

So I don’t think this shirt/jacket will make it out of the ironing basket all that often. What a shame. As much as I love gorgeous plain linen, it does not love me back. Sniff!

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Not Quite Zero Waste

Inspired by the Birgitta Helmersson zero waste dress featured on the Sew Tessuti blog, I thought I could easily do something similar.

I thought all that volume needed a very thin fabric, but otherwise it looked great. The only thing that made me hesitate was the V neck finished with a straight cut band, which according to the blog does not sit flat.

I thought I would ditch the band and just add extra at centre front of the bodice for the button holes and buttons. This meant no V neck, but I prefer a round neck anyway, plus this would leave my options open to add a shirt collar at the last minute if I wanted to.

Instead of the plain rectangles for the bodice and sleeves of the original zero waste dress, I decided to use the Tessuti Athina bodice and cut on dolman-type sleeves. No longer zero waste but still close.

Now here is a philosophical conundrum: is it more ethical to make a garment that is cut to achieve zero waste, therefore basically made from rectangles. Or can you shape parts of it a little more, generating some waste. The amount of fabric you use is the same for both, only in the zero waste dress the extra fabric, which you would otherwise cut off, remains part of the garment.

I sound as if I want to rubbish zero waste, but not at all. When I read that hobby sewists waste about 30% of their fabric I absolutely cringe. So zero waste is an admirable concept and totally to be encouraged.

But unfortunately my whole zero waste intention with this project fell apart at the first fitting. While the dress looked much like in the Tessuti blog picture from the front, — big, but stylish. —, it was HUGE looking side-on. And definitely not in a good way.

Imagine this on short, stout me.

Of course I always knew that at 161cm tall, much shorter than the model, I would need to adapt the proportions to my stature. But I thought the Athina bodice looked not quite as wide as the one pictured in the original and would be ok. Silly me. It took up the full width of the fabric, so was far too wide to look good with that very voluminous skirt.

So in stages, testing each time how it looked, I ended up taking a full 32cm out of the circumference of the bodice. That’s a lot and sadly the end of any claim to zero waste.

But I returned to the zero waste concept with the skirt, which is two rectangles the entire widths of the fabric. I worried about whether the skirt would be huge too, being 2x the 150cm, a full 3m in circumference, an awful lot of fabric. I had pleated it into the bodice, not gathered it, and made a fabric fold over the join, which thankfully prevented the skirt from puffing out at the top. And because the cotton I had chosen is whisper thin and therefore also quite drapey, the overall volume of the skirt looks ok. A normal weight cotton would have been too much.

My conclusion after finishing this project is that the zero waste concept works, but only for the tall if you use 150cm wide fabric. You don’t have to be skinny, methinks, a plus sized person could make this work very nicely. But not a petite plus.

If you are a short person like me and want zero waste, you need fabric 110 or 120cm wide, depending on your bust measurement plus ease. This allows for a bodice of a more modest width without ending up with waste, and the skirt will be less voluminous too, which is all to the good. You could then use a lightweight cotton or linen.

So here is my offering of a dress that could have been zero waste, had I chosen a fabric that was only 120cm wide instead of the 150cm of my recycled Ikea curtain. I am not 100% happy with the neckline, but both a v neck and a grandpa shirt collar would dilute the zero waste concept further. As it happens I have enough of the curtain left over to indulge whatever I decide in the end, but for now I am going to wear it as is.

Pants instead of slip

Simulating V neck to see what it would look like

More sewing details on PatternReview. Linked to MMM.