My Red Threads

For some inexplicable reason I have been sewing a lot of red garments lately.  Remember my Polka dot tankini?  Red.  Back in May I whipped out a pair of red twill Jalie 2908 shorts.  I know...Jalie 2908 is the jeans pattern that I have made 4 times already.  Well, the shorts make it 5 times.  Since making them, I have lost a little weight and they are now loose.  I will continue to wear them and bask in my weight loss.  :)

For Father's Day, I made my husband 2 new Hawaiian shirts (to be blogged about sometime in the future).  When ordering his fabric from Hawaiianfabric.com I ordered myself some fabric too with the intention of making myself a Hawaiian shirt.  Last week's swim meet had a "Red" theme, so I took that opportunity to sew up my Red Hawaiian Shirt.

Big thanks to my 7yo photographer!

 

 

 I used New Look 6197 which has both a men's and a woman's version of the classic Hawaiian (aka casual) shirt. 

 

 

The woman's version has a shirt-tail hem and bust darts.  I made a size 14 which had a finished bust measurement of 43" and did a 1" FBA. Thank goodness I did...it would have been too tight otherwise.   I learned my lesson from this top:  remember to ignore the ease across the back when considering whether or not it will fit over your chest.

My major complaint was that there was too much ease at the sleeve cap.  I could tell right from the pattern piece and followed this tutorial to remove the excess.    Unfortunately I chickened out and didn't remove the entire 1" of extra ease, so I wound up having to do the basting stitches and ease the sleeve into the armhole.  I will be brave and bold next time and remove it all :)  FYI: The men's version doesn't have nearly that much ease.

My final observation: shirt-tail hems are not the easiest thing to hem.  Seriously.  I'm going to straighten it out next time.

So while there is still some red fabric in my stash, next up is blue...Stay tuned :)