Thursday, March 1, 2012

It started with a tooled leather bag

La Mia Boutique pattern number 733, 2011




Now you may be wondering why it occurred to me to start making cowgirl shirts. When I bought my tooled leather bag I did a google search to find out about their pedigree and discovered they were part of the western genre. Now tell me, my north American sewing friends, does it seem strange to you to see someone on the other side of the world in a temperate climate wearing a cowgirl shirt? Do I look ridiculous to you? I'm just curious.

The whole look:



The culprit:



At any rate, I love this look. It's so fun and so comfortable! My goodness me, why isn't the world in western shirts?

I am using "the complete photo guide to perfect fitting" to refine the fit. After making this shirt, I contoured the waist and hip in a little more, made a high round back alteration and narrowed the shoulder, raised the underarm curve on the side piece and raised the front neckline, so now I have to make it again to see the effects of those adjustments.

In the book she makes multiple muslins to get that perfect fit - I prefer to make wearable muslins because I need the sewing practice, I like to have something to show for my efforts and I can't bear to throw away fabric. I can see the sense of multiple muslins I just can't quite bring myself to do it.

svBev, please send me your address - my email address is in my profile and I'll send you the Jilly Jean - I can't wait to see how you tame it into fitting submission.

Kbenco, the La Mia Boutique was my "subscription of shame" - a whole year's worth of magazines and so far, only a few muslins to show for it...