Birthday Present for Grandma.

With my Mum living on the other side of the world, it's really hard to do presents for all those special occasions, but I love making things for people I love so since Mum's birthday is coming up I decided it was time to start working on a present for her.

As it's coming into winter in the southern hemisphere I wanted to make something warm, but a bit decadent so I decided on a nice silk jersey shirt, something that you can wear every day, but that's a little bit special.  I found a beautiful piece of silk jersey with an ombre from dark blue to white with splashes of other colours and a leafy print that I thought would work well for Mum so I bought that and prewashed it and then promptly forgot all about it.  A couple of weeks later I realised that time was getting away from me and that I had to make this shirt up soon.

Of course because I was in a rush I couldn't find a pattern I liked.  Kristy from Lower you Presser foot had just done a cowl necked top that I loved but that was a McCalls pattern and I didn't have time to get to a store and buy a pattern - I wanted something I could use now!  of course I couldn't find anything similar in pdf patterns.  Then I started thinking about the patterns that I do have on hand and thought about the Paprika Patterns Jasper sweater.  That had a very similar cowl to what I was looking for.  I looked up all the reviews on pattern review and the thinner materials were looking a bit like what I wanted.  I decided that I would try to modify that pattern to get what I wanted.

I started with a piece of cotton jersey from stash as a muslin before cutting into my good silk.  I cut out the size 7 that I had originally used, left off the bands at the sleeves and bottom (but added 1" extra length to the bottom) and the pocket, and added 2" to the height of the cowl portion.  I then took and extra 1/2" off each of the 4 seams around the body and the sleeve seams to get a better fit.  It ended up exactly like I had hoped.

Now to start with the real material.  Once again however I stuffed up and forgot that the silk jersey had less stretch than my muslin.  I was planning on french seaming everything and got to the point where all the seams were finished their first pass and I tried it on.  Two issues were obvious.  First - it was fitting just nicely, but I still had to take in 4 more seams - and second, my placement of the front piece on the material was unfortunate.  The material I was using has random splotches of colour all over it - unfortunately I'd cut the front piece so there was just one splotch right in the middle and it was brown.  It looked like I'd spilled something down the front of the shirt.  At that point I gave up and went to bed.

The next morning I decided that the splotch was something that I couldn't live with, thankfully I'd bought extra fabric so there was just enough to re cut the front piece so I did that.  I then went back and for each seam I did the first pass at 1/8", turned and did a second pass at 1/4" to give myself just a bit more room.  This worked beautifully.  Unfortunately the sleeves were already finished at the full seam allowance so I couldn't go back and change them, so the sleeves are just a touch too tight around the biceps for me.  The good news is my Mum is smaller than I am so hopefully it'll fit her nicely.

Since this is going to be a present I wanted to finish it really nicely, so the inside of the collar was turned under and stitched in place by hand and the sleeves and bottom band were also finished by hand.

I love the way this turned out and will definitely be making another one for me next winter.  It's warm and snuggly and just all together yummy!

I think the only thing I might change is to add just a touch more length, 1 more inch should do it, it's just looking a touch short here!

And finally here is a picture of Mum actually wearing it. It seems to fit OK from what I can see.  Anyway Happy Birthday Mum!