Too much green for Oscar :)
Only a few more days until St. Patty's Day, the second one I'm going to be celebrating here in the US. We got invited to a party and of course my first thought was: "OMG, what am I gonna wear??" followed by "I don't have anything". (These are probably the two most common thoughts of women after they got invited to... well, pretty much anything) Since I haven't made any clothing in months this turned out to be a really good opportunity for me to finally sew something that is not a bag or a wallet.
I found a really nice green and black striped jersey fabric, a rayon/polyester mix, at a local fabric store. The idea for my outfit was to make a simple short sleeved shirt with the jersey fabric, wear some of my short pants with it as well as some green leggings. That should be enough green to not get pinched ;)
I looked through my sewing magazine collection for a nice pattern and found one in Burda Style 3/2010 which didn't look to complicated. Well turns out I had not quite enough fabric (I bought like 6 inches too little…urgh!) but so the shirt would have to be a bit shorter.
The first step was to make the very decorative pleats at the front part. Therefore I had to baste along the marked lines first, to be able to gather the fabric. After gathering I folded and stitched the darts.
Then the instructions tell you to stitch both the shoulder and the side seams. The front piece looked really wide from the beginning and after stitching it together with the back part, I tried it on and didn't like it at all. Yes, this shirt is supposed to be loose-fit but this way it just looked weird on me. I decided to make it a bit tighter by cutting off approximately 5 cm (2") from the front part. Since I used my serger machine I simply cut the seam open again. There is no use in trying to open a serger seam with a seam ripper. A lot of work with poor results ;-) After reducing the width and sewing both parts together again the shirt already fit much better!
The first step was to make the very decorative pleats at the front part. Therefore I had to baste along the marked lines first, to be able to gather the fabric. After gathering I folded and stitched the darts.
Then the instructions tell you to stitch both the shoulder and the side seams. The front piece looked really wide from the beginning and after stitching it together with the back part, I tried it on and didn't like it at all. Yes, this shirt is supposed to be loose-fit but this way it just looked weird on me. I decided to make it a bit tighter by cutting off approximately 5 cm (2") from the front part. Since I used my serger machine I simply cut the seam open again. There is no use in trying to open a serger seam with a seam ripper. A lot of work with poor results ;-) After reducing the width and sewing both parts together again the shirt already fit much better!
 The gathered dart at the left shoulder/sleeve part. |  This is never going to fit me. |  And there goes the first side seam. I had to cut it open almost all the way to the sleeve |
What...??? Very decorative burn hole in my fabric.
The next step was stitching the sleeves. Those had to be gathered as well and then trimmed with a cuff. This part was a little annoying because jersey fabric is not the easiest one to make sleeve cuffs with. The fabric has to be folded in half with the wrong sides together and ironed, so that you have a crease at the middle. This has never happened to me before but I seriously managed to iron a hole into my cuff fabric!! Unbelievable.. I quickly decided that ironing is for losers and I would manage to get the cuff straight onto the sleeve without all that, which luckily worked out pretty well.
Next I folded down the seam allowance around the neck area and stitched it with a twin needle. I did the same with the hem and now my shirt was actually done.. at least according to my Burda pattern, but… the neckline was just way too wide for me ;-) I had to change that as well and used a piece of elastic ribbon which I slid into the seam allowance of the front part. This way the fabric gathers and the neckline gets a little tighter which is totally the better way to go! I finally folded another pleat at the right side and handstitched a leaf button onto it.
Yesterday I finally managed to drag myself to the mall and buy some green tights. Since their only purpose is to be worn on St. Patty's day I couldn't care less about the rather bad quality :) The shirt however is really comfortable and I'm sure I'm going to wear it a lot during the summer!
Yesterday I finally managed to drag myself to the mall and buy some green tights. Since their only purpose is to be worn on St. Patty's day I couldn't care less about the rather bad quality :) The shirt however is really comfortable and I'm sure I'm going to wear it a lot during the summer!
 The shirt is finally finished! The gathering at the neckline is made with a piece of elastic ribbon. |  My outfit for St. Patty's Day. I look a bit like Peter Pan. But that's probably not the worst :-) |  It's not a shamrock but the colors of this cute leaf button match the shirt just perfectly! |
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