It was a great workshop and it was fab being taught by Tilly herself!
I made a few mistakes on this make which in hindsight were due to inexperience in sewing clothes to fit my exact measurements. The bust darts are too high, the length of the bodice is a tad too short and the sleeve cuffs are too small.
I adore the silhouette of the Mathilde blouse but whenever I wear it I feel uncomfortable.
A combination of the fabric not having enough drape and the sleeve bands being too tight conspired to poor Mathilde languishing in the wardrobe all the time. Hence the need for some intensive sleeve surgery!
Here is the Mathilde in it's original state earlier today:
The next job was to unpick those French seams!
I had two potential sleeve donor patterns in mind for the re-sleeve.
My favourite Grainline Scout Woven tee or the new-to-me Colette Laurel sleeve.
As you can see from the photos above; on the left the Grainline sleeve has too shallow a head to be a good fit for the Mathilde, whereas the Colette Laurel sleeve has a high head making it a pretty good match. This is the one I used in the end.
Here is the finished Mathilde with new shorter sleeves!
Onto the Colette Laurel top. This little cutie has been cut out and ready to be sewn together since July 2013 when I bought this haul of fabric (which is almost all gone) from Samuel Taylors in Leeds
I am pretty happy with the fit of the Laurel and think I will be making more as it is a relatively simple sew. Although it's hard to tell on the photos below but perhaps on my next version I will reduce the curve from waist to hip because I think I can get an even better fit. What do you think?
Nice revamp of your Mathilde... I can't believe we met two years ago to sew at Tilly's workshop. Time for a reunion? In our Mathilde's?!
ReplyDeleteI know the time has flown by! I would definitely be up for a re-union. Perhaps this summer?
DeleteLove the re-styled Mathilde. I made a similar error with sleeve choice, but I just hacked them off shorter on the original - this is not a good look!
ReplyDeleteHa - I did that to begin with then realised it was going to be a bigger job than that!
DeleteIt definitely is not a good look with short 'full' sleeves!
Ha, that was fast! Great that you altered the sleeves, I hope you and the blouse can become friends again, I really like the fabric. The Laurel top also turned out great, in my eyes it fits you very well :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Katharina x I'm going to try another Laurel and see how it goes x
DeleteWow, well done with all that unpicking, french seams and all! Hope you get lots of wear out of it now. The Laurel looks great :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Alex. It wasn't too bad once I got in the zone x
DeleteGreat job, those short sleeves look great. Your laurel is great too.
ReplyDeleteThanks Louise x
DeleteI love the first top! Hope it gets more wear after "surgery". And your Laurel looks like it fits really well. If you reduce the curve, you should do it only slightly. It looks like it barely sticks out near your hip.
ReplyDeleteI agree Claire - the Laurel doesn't need much changing only a tweak!
Delete