Hawaiian Shirt

(This is the project I was excited about in my last post...)

So, when we were in Hawaii, of course I had to indulge in my fabric addiction and visit a fabric store. Iestyn went along, and while we were there, he actually picked out some fabric for himself(!) He asked me to make him a Hawaiian shirt out of this very busy fabric:
Naturally I said yes, although I hadn't ever actually made that sort of shirt before. I found Simplicity 5581, which had pretty good reviews on patternreview.com and gave it a whirl. I've actually had it cut out for quite a while - I just hadn't gotten to the sewing together part. (I tend to go on periodic cutting sprees, and it takes a while to get it all sewn together.) I'm really happy with how it turned out:
and so is he. :) However, I have to say that I don't think I could have followed these directions if I hadn't already sewn collars and sleeves. The collar instructions were just confusing. (Although to be honest, most of the collar instructions I've ever seen have been fairly confusing. But the ones in my Vogue jacket are clearer than these.) And then they actually had you do the sleeves flat, rather than as a regular set in sleeve. While I think this is probably simpler than the other method, they didn't actually give any instructions on how to ease the fabric together. If I hadn't done it before, I think my sleeves would have been a puckery mess! I do think the pattern pieces were pretty good, and it's a nice fit, so I'd use the pattern again myself, but I definitely wouldn't recommend it to a garment sewing newbie!

Oh, and I also finally put together a tank top for myself that I cut out ages ago. I found this beautiful knit well over a year ago at Gail K Fabrics, but I'd never been able to figure out how to use it. It's lovely, but it's also completely see through, and I never could find any equally soft lining fabric. I finally gave up and got some not especially soft/nice knit lining so that I could at least use it! I modified a New Look tank pattern (a lot. Clearly not the tank top pattern for me.)
I'm not completely in love with how it turned out - I think I messed up the straps a bit because I was having to pin it on myself - but it's certainly wearable. And I finally used my lovely knit!

I've also just about finished a couple of fast outfits for the girls. I found some super cute pre-smocked Tinkerbell fabric at Joann's, so I made them tunic tops from that and some of my favorite Burda bike shorts to match. (I love that pattern. SO EASY. I don't follow their instructions for assembly, but I swear they only take like 10-15 minutes to put together. And as a bonus, they're A's favorite style of shorts.)

I think this means that I'm about ready for a new cutting spree - I only have one project currently cut out! It's a dress for me, which means lots of fiddling with the bodice, so I'm kind of procrastinating on it at the moment. As always I have lots of patterns I want to try, though, so I just have to decide which ones I want to try next!