Tilly and the Buttons Frankie T-Shirt

After a bit of waffling over whether to or not I recently bought Tilly Walnes new book Stretch.  I felt like I didn’t really need an introduction to sewing with knits, I’m already pretty competent in that area, but some of the patterns looked up my alley so I went ahead and got it.  My first project was going to be the Joni dress, a fit and flare affair with a twist in the upper front bodice, but it suddenly got really warm here and I decided that a dress with sleeves was not what I wanted so I went for the Frankie baseball T-shirt instead.

I first went about trying out the pattern in some slightly horrible red fabric that I wouldn’t be sad to lose if the size was wrong.  Unfortunately it turned out fine and now I feel compelled to actually wear it on occasion even though I don’t like it!  I have no problem with the way it looks but the fabric is really shiny and think and feels sweaty and weird.  When Stu was hanging it up to dry he commented how surprisingly heavy it was for a t-shirt, it’s really very odd.

Frankie no.2, however, is much nicer.  I chose this yellow fabric, which is described on The Textile Centre website as a sports jersey because I’m in a bit of a yellow phase at the moment.  It’s lovely and soft, smooth on the outside with a loopy texture on the inside a bit like sweatshirting but not warm at all.

I had little trouble with the construction of these tops.  I pretty much glanced at the instructions, noted the order of construction and went for it.  I’m sure the directions are brilliants and very detailed but I had no need to wade through them so I didn’t really read them.  The only issue I had is that the neckline on the yellow one is a bit puckered but that mostly happened because I did my topstitching a little further from the neckband than I normally do and I will unpick it and do it more carefully at some point when I can be bothered.  It’ll do for now.  The raglan sleeves were really easy to stick in and even the curved hem didn’t give me any trouble so I’d say that this is a really easy project that can be completed in an afternoon.  I can see me making a few of these, I think it would be especially nice under something like the Pippi pinafore I made a few weeks ago due to the slightly fitted shape.

All in all this is a nice little wardrobe builder of the type I’m sorely in need of and a few of these will certainly help towards my goal of sewing some more seperates.  Hopefully the rest of the patterns in the book will be as useful as this one but I’m already pleased I bought it.

Tilly & the Buttons Megan

It has been hot hot hot here the last few days and I haven't been able to do much except wilt on the sofa and occasionally curse because I have to work and that means going outside!  Before the heatwave hit though I finished this Megan dress from Tilly Walnes Love at First Stitch book.

I'm going to be upfront and say that I'm very much in two minds about how much I like this dress and I think that like my last Tilly make, Coco, it's going to take a few wears before I'm truly decided.  In principle this pattern was the one that sold me on the book.  It's meant for beginners and I really don't need a pattern for a headscarf or a gathered skirt but I really liked the look of Megan.  The high waist seemed like a really good idea, particularly as I bought the book a few months after having Felicity and had a few lumps and bumps to skim over.  In reality, however, the skirt continues to be slim around the waist before curving out before the hips so not necessarily the greatest tummy hider after all.  Less of a high waist and more of a high waist seam.  To be fair I did make a size smaller than my measurements suggested so it may be that if I had used the suggested amount of ease it would look different.  I'm fine with it as it is though, Felicity is 2 1/2 now so I'm not feeling the need to hide as much as I did back then!

My real issue with the dress though is the sleeves.  Are they too sticky uppy?  They feel a little costumey to me but maybe it's because I don't have anything else really like it in my wardrobe.  Perhaps in a slightly lighter fabric the effect would be less pronounced. I think that the fact that I tried this on for the first time and looked in the mirror with the sun shining behind me so I looked like a silhouette rather than a person just exaggerated the evil queen shoulder effect!  In reality I think they're ok except when I lift my arms and then they do look a bit weird.

Construction on this one was fairly straightforward as you would expect form a learn to sew book.  The layout of the book is a little annoying to me as someone who already sews because the directions are broken up with boxes and panels offering in depth explanations of techniques.  Obviously this is super helpful to the target audience but led to me having to flip around to identify the actual order of construction style directions.  Of course this is not really a criticism just something which was a bit of a pain for me.

The fabric again is 100% cotton with a slightly ridiculous letter and stamps print on it.  I keep changing my mind about how much I love this fabric which may be part of the reason I'm still undecided on the dress as a whole.  Cassie loves it though and I have plenty left, so expect to see a little letters dress for her before too long.

However, for all my complaining there is plenty to love about this dress.  The shape is really nice, it is very comfortable both for work and home.  It offers pretty good coverage if you, just as an example, got really sunburnt in your Belladone dress and need to hide a bright red diamond on your back!  Because the skirt is slim this uses a modest amount of fabric and has left me plenty out of 2m to make a child's dress.  I'll definitely be giving this one another go in a slightly lighter cotton at some point, just to really see how I feel about those sleeves!