A Winning Team

Hello & meet my new two favourite pieces in my wardrobe! Can you tell how much I love this outfit from the photos? I just love the combination of textures, colours and silhouettes. Let’s have a look at those fantastic team members, shall we?

pattern: Carme Blouse by Pauline Alice Patterns
fabric: cotton lawn from local shop
amount: 1,5 m
other materials: 10 buttons, interfacing optional
cost: Zero as fabric and buttons both were gifted to me. (+8€ for the pattern)
duration: It took me almost two full days.

First, there’s the versatile, but high-maintenance Carme Blouse. I’ve had this pattern in my stash for ages and knew by the look of it that this wouldn’t be a quick and easy make. It a PDF/paper pattern by Pauline Alice Patterns, who have a small but growing gorgeous range of patterns in their shop. I sewed this pattern without making any fitting alterations, so it’s basically straight from the envelope!

After so many years of sewing my own clothes you should think I could more or less tackle any technique, right? Well, say hello to pin tucks. Let’s just say there’s still oh-so many things to learn. Man, these pin tucks were some real suckers, especially constructing them with such a lightweight fabric. Luckily the print is crazy enough to hide the uneven pleats! Otherwise you could see that I struggled on the left front yoke and had it figured out reaching the far right side of the yoke. My tip: instead of following the pattern markings for the pin tucks, measure them out one by one as you go. This way you’ll get evenly spaced pleats. In the beginning I tried to follow the pattern markings – but if you’re off by just a millimetre the inaccuracy becomes very noticeable after a couple of pleats and it’s increasingly difficult to correct.

I used this luscious cotton lawn, which was a gift from the Mr for our wedding anniversary. He bought it at a local fabric shop, so I can’t give you any more info than that it’s fa-bu-lous. It might be a bit too noisy for such details as pin tucks, but it was an experiment and I love how it turned out. Together with some simple skinny jeans it’s not too crazy, right?

The pattern comes with really cool sleeve taps and a button-down front, which make the blouse quite versatile. I like to wear the top unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up. It looks a lot more casual and the white back of the fabric gives a nice contrast. The cute buttons were a gift from my sister which she bought on a trip to Korea.

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Let’s check out team member number two!

pattern: Mia Jeans by Sew Over It (Capsule Wardrobe ebook, £20)
fabric: stretch denim from Alfatex.de (12,90€/m)
amount: 1,5 m
other materials: 12,5 cm long zip, one jeans button, fusible interfacing
cost: ~ 20€ (the ebook was courtesy of Sew Over It)
duration: ~ 3 hours

It’s the very low-maintenance Mia Jeans! It’s my fourth pair of Mia Jeans, a pattern by Sew Over It. It’s made from a stretch denim fabric and the only main alteration I did (and which I do with all my Mias) is that I lengthened them to full-length instead of ankle-length.

The top-stitching at the waistband got a bit out of hand. There are days when I love me some top-stitching and this was one of them. I think it looks really nice and it also gives a bit more structure to the waistband. The best part about making jeans is that I get to try new decorative stitches on the pockets every time. My sewing machine has loads of different ones which I sadly never really need or use, so I make an extra effort of putting them on all the pairs of jeans I make.

I used blush pink thread for the top-stitching and overlocked seams. You can’t really see it in the pictures, but it looks really nice up close.

The easy fitting and quick construction is what I love about the Mia Jeans. As the cut is quite simple, the fitting options are limited. I always use stretch fabrics and try to really stabilise the waistband so it doesn’t start gaping after a couple of wears. As it’s a quite high-waisted pair of  jeans it’s flattering as long as you haven’t had a big lunch. But I don’t mind, life’s too short to suck in your tummy!

jeans & blouse: handmade | shoes: second-hand Clarks | watch & jewellery: Skagen

I tried to wear this outfit as often as seemed appropriate recently without appearing like I have nothing else in my closet. I will definitely make a few more Carme Blouses, I’m sure! I might skip the pin tucks here and there and do a hack without them. I just really like the sleeve taps and button front.

As for the Mia Jeans – of course there will be more. My first pair was just about to come apart after two years of constant wear when I finished this one. So this is a constant cycle of sewing, wearing and burying the dead.

It’s crazy what a successfully handmade outfit does to your confidence. I’ve written about sometimes disliking myself in pictures in my last blog post. Well, not this time! Thumbs up to sewing boosting self-esteem, I guess.

xx

Charlie

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Happy sewing!
♥

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