Pattern Reviews contests are always a great source of inspiration for me. They push me to make things that I otherwise might not make. They force me to step outside my comfort zone and try new things rather than just making the same things over and over. So when I saw the Zoom outfit contest I knew that I wanted to enter.
So what is a Zoom outfit? - obviously it's anything that you would wear on a zoom call but that's really wide open to interpretation. There was plenty of discussion online about what photographs best, choose plain bright colours, V necklines etc - I read through it all and then thought - you know what - I don't really care. I'm going to go for what I want to see in a zoom call, and what I want is something with a lot of visual interest in the shoulder region - something that is eye catching and colourful.
My original thought was to use all my blue/teal french terry scraps patchworked together. I tried a number of different combinations - even just sewing all my little scraps together.....and ended up hating the resulting fabrics. OK scratch Idea #1.
Onto Idea #2 - I made this stained glass window quilt for one of my friends' weddings and really love the contrast between the black and the bright batik fabrics - maybe I could make a shirt using this technique.
I sketched out something like I was imagining and then got to work. I used my woven moulage, lowered the underarms by 22 mm and extended the lower point out by 5 mm then added an additional 1/2" down the outside seam (sorry about the mixing of units - that's how I work these days).
I rotated the majority of the armhole dart to the side seam at bust level, then started drawing in my black lines. I cut my pattern along each of the lines to give myself basic pattern pieces without any seam allowances.
Fabric: I wanted to use one of my batik fabrics. The base fabric is tie dyed in blue greens and purples and then over the top are stamped grids of gold metallic patterns - It's a beautiful fabric.
For the black I found an offcut of a really light weight wool - since it was so lightweight I interfaced the entire fabric with black iron on interfacing before cutting anything out.
I cut out all my pieces for my front, sewed them together and pinned it on my dress form.....and hated it! well not quite I loved the top part around the shoulders and neckline, but hated the lower parts, so I ripped the bottom half off, pinned some more batik fabric on the dress form and then started using the black stripes to find a new arrangement of stripes and colour that I did like. I played around with many options - 1 is shown below, before deciding on my final layout.
Once I came up with an arrangement I liked (not the above one - though I wish now that I did go with that option), I started again with my pattern. This time, instead of cutting up my pattern I drew my lines on, then traced each separate piece off, allowing me to add seam allowances to each pattern piece as well.
Once I was happy with my front piece I did it all over again for the back, and then once again for the sleeves. It was a very slow process, taking me a couple of days to come up with just what I wanted.
Finishing details: I think this is the first time in forever that I sewn something with no real finishing techniques used inside - I just wasn't sure I liked it enough to spend any more time finishing it off all the little seams. But the edges did need to be finished. The sleeves were easy - I just added black ribbed cuffs. The bottom edge is just turned up 1/2" once and stitched - I tested out a black ribbed band but didn't like it. The neckline I had a bit of a problem with. My original plan was to have the black strips as my neck edge, but when I tried on the shirt it ended up being quite low cut and showed off quite a bit of cleavage. If there is one thing you don't want in a Zoom outfit it's lots of cleavage, so I ended up adding another couple of triangular batik pieces to fill the area in a bit, I then cut seconds of these pieces, interfaced them, and cut seconds of the back black bands, sewed them to the neckline and turned it inside, then top stitched in the ditch to hold the facings down. Looks neat from the outside.
So final results - I like it, I'm just not sure I love it. Ahh well it's always good to try something new. It's probably a bit too lightweight for winter, but will be good when I want a light weight long sleeve top in Summer. Only time will tell if it ever actually gets worn.
On the plus side it does make a statement in a zoom setting.
The outline effect is really striking. Cool idea!
ReplyDeleteWow, very imaginative. Great job sticking with it, looks like the end result was worth it. I really love that fabric.
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