Saturday, August 16, 2025

Sew Catchup 2 - Size Matters

 

#2 in my catchup posts

Online fabric shopping.  It is becoming the norm these days what with physical fabric stores closing.  I like the convenience and variety of fabrics online stores offer. And my knowledge of fabric type and weight results in a good choice if this info is provided the fabric description.   But my biggest pet peeve is when the online store does not provide information about the scale of a print or a repeat. This happened recently but I made the best of it. I loved the fabric below. The print was unique. The navy and white is a favorite combination, and the fiber also a favorite - silk.  This was the only picture on the site and there was no info on the scale of the print in the description.  But come on, how big could the print be? I was picturing one of those small-scale prints where your sewing buddy gets close and says "Oh, those are faces, how cute."  No.  OMG. The faces were huge. Life size or perhaps bigger.  Sewing buddy has to step way back to see the whole image. 

 This fabric sat in my stash for a year.  Finally, I decided to use it with a sewing pattern that had seams lines that would "cut up" the print.  I pulled out the Sewing Workshop Siena & Cortona Shirts pattern, which I have made before. The Siena has some unique seaming that result in a boxy, loose-fitting top with short sleeves.


I changed the placket, from sewn on to cut on, so I could match the print in the center front. I also cropped the top by 3 inches.  I love how it turned out.  Unfortunately, the pattern is no longer available on The Sewing Workshop website. Perhaps they are digitizing and remarketing it as they have been doing to some of their other patterns recently. 

In your Face - Siena Top


9 comments:

  1. Great save for a lovely piece of silk. I need to go look at orphans in my stash and get to making pieces into garments again. Thank you for the inspiration. Chris in FL

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  2. Ohhhh, sí son grandes, enormes.... pero quedan muy bien en tu camisa. BESICOS.

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  3. How completely wonderful. It's so fresh and the way you've used the print is not overwhelming. It's PERFECT!

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  4. Wow, you really did a great job with this fabric. What a lovely shirt.

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  5. Definitely lemonade from a lemon moment!

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  6. The Sienna is one of my all-time favorite patterns -- there must be at least six variations of it hanging in my closet right now. AND I just altered it for a maternity shirt-dress by adding inches to all the side seams and front, and lengthening the front middle by 12" (the rest of the panels are only nine inches longer).

    I liked having the button bands to stabilize the now-bias edges of the front panels.

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    1. What a clever idea to modify the Siena into a maternity shirt dress. Hmm. I have a very pregnant DIL who is having problems finding cute maternity clothes.

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    2. Darling Daughter in the same boat. Sometime in the past 35 years, "maternity" patterns went the way of all flesh. The vintage ones I've managed to scavenge are all in a too-small size range for a curvy gal. Best of luck to you, and to DIL!

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