To end the old backlog, I’ve come to show you my awesome shell.
In March, about a week before Spring Break, I was on Facebook well past my bedtime, and I saw that Cake Patterns was looking for testers for some of their new tops. I jumped at the chance, especially because I knew I’d have some built in sewing time. I jumped on board with their Miter Shell.
Of course, then the envelope with the pattern arrived and I sat there staring at it.
Firstly, I was facing the fact that my perfect week off had to include a Chemical Oceanography take home midterm, as well as a math program in Matlab that I had been already putting off for a week.
So of course, after putting off all of these things until the end of the week, I spent the Friday before school started back up not doing homework, but instead working on this new pattern.
I made the Espresso leggings a few years ago, and it was lovely. I’m not a leggings person… at least not unless their a pajama replacement. Or a replacement for tights in winter. But I still wear these leggings, and as soon as the inspiration strikes, I’ll take the pattern out again.
This means I was already familiar with the type of pattern, with the sizing and the connecting the dots loveliness.
I connected the appropriate dots, pulled out my roll of IKEA drawing paper that I use for patterns, and I traced and cut to my heart’s delight.
First I made it up in this orange mystery athletic wear knit that I had just received in a mystery fabric bundle thing. To be honest, the stuff had very little recovery, I used a stitch that was waaaaaay to small, and I found the back “laces” too large, so along with the lack of recovery, they were sagging (and they felt even more saggy). Also, with the square neckline, and my arguably large bra cup size, and therefore high “cut” of a bra, there was an inch of bra showing at the corners.
At that point, I kinda hated my creation. In a Frankenstein sort of way. Let’s start with the fact that it was bright neon orange. I’m not a bright orange kind of person. So I had very little interest in making this draft work, especially fiddling with it all day. (Also my day probably started at 11am. So all day may be misleading).
I went back to my homework until Sunday.
After spending all that time musing, in between chem and math, I realized that the only thing that I really needed to do to fix this was raise the neckline. I did that a little bit in the drafting, but mostly by taking up the shoulder seams. After that I shortened the neckline and arm binding to match, and cut the fabric. (I cut this one, the top of my Nettie dress, and my Nettie top all at once, so I knew for a fact that I didn’t have enough for the back weave, since I was eeking out everything I could just to get all three). I still needed something for the back weave, so I pulled out my collection of vintage notions, and found these lovely seam binding laces in the perfect colors. Of course, I didn’t have enough of either color, but I did have enough for a cool looking pattern!
This is such a comfy shirt. In reality, the weave rarely sees the light of day, mostly due to my cardigan obsession no matter what the outside temperature, but I think its such a nice touch. In the future, I might take in the back a smidge, to reduce the draping a bit. It’s nice when I’m not standing straight, which if I truly face it is most of the time, but it looks so loose in pictures. And the shoulders are quite wide on my uber narrow ones, so I might skinny those up too. Who knows, though. I might forget!
I’ve been waiting to share this with you for over three months, but I can now share that all of the Tidepool Collection, including this one, the Miter Shell, is up for sale on SewingCake.com. I’m definitely getting the Endeavor Trousers soon.
**I’d like to reiterate that all of these opinions are based on the testing copy, and I am unable to make remarks on the final product. But I’m sure its fabulous!