Itch to Stitch Bainbridge

We are having a La Niña winter, which means warmer than usual where I am. In fact, I’m writing this post out on the sunny patio in a cotton blouse and jeans. But I made this fleece pullover anyway in case it does get colder, or we take a trip this spring. 

Bainbridge is a cute pullover because it combines fleece or a stable knit with a woven placket and bias bindings, so you can trim it up with any of your pretty woven prints. I used part of a dress that I never wore for my woven bits. It happened to be a fantastic coordinating color for my light weight fleece. The embossed design fleece had the brand name Rainbeau, and it is ultra soft as well as being warm. 

This design has bust darts, so the fit is a little more refined that most RTW of this style. The lower front is a separate pattern piece, which makes the placket easy to sew. Pockets are also easy to sew.

The pattern also calls for snaps, and I had just enough of my old Snap Source supply left to do up the front. Snap Source is no longer in business, so their snap setter tools are now in the trash. I wish that didn’t happen so often. 

Alterations: the bust dart needed to be lowered, and I needed extra room at the hip. In the instructions they cover how to blend sizes, but the procedure seemed really convoluted to me. I just slashed and spread the pattern lower front and back to gain the extra room. The thing to remember is that then the pocket needs to be redrawn so that the bottom edge matches the bottom edge of the lower front. They both end up being bound together with bias tape. 

Would I make this again? I don’t know. For some reason, after cutting this out, I wasn’t excited about working on the project. This is not the fault of the pattern; I think I just don’t like working with fleece. But I have a rule I’ve stuck with for a couple of decades now: I don’t get to start another garment, not even cut it out, until I finish what I’m working on. This has kept me free of UFO guilt, which is so easy to lapse into. Beginning something is fun and exciting. Finishing is tedious and hard. 

Anyway, I know I’ll be glad to have this top the next time we go to Big Bend in the winter. It’s super soft and snuggly. 

2025 Stats

It’s end of year navel gazing time. Let’s see what there is to be learned on this "Optimistic New Plans eve". First, the tally of the projects by wardrobe category:

Burda shirt dress with a sort of fitted waist

Dresses

1.     Shirt dress with fitted waist – Burda

2.     Shirt dress with gathered skirt – Burda

3.     Hope – Style Arc

Seychelles - loved this pattern

Tops

1.     Simple top – Burda

2.     Second simple top – Burda

3.     Third simple top – Burda

4.     Boat neck Tee – Burda

5.     Seychelles - Itch to Stitch

6.     Vikos  - Itch to Stitch  Made this twice. One was a rayon linen blend that fell apart after two washings. I don’t think I’m buying any more of that kind of blend. It drapes beautifully but doesn’t wear well and looks sloppy because it grows.

7.     Knit tank – New Look 6449

8.     About Town – Pattern Emporium.  Made twice

About Town - another pattern sure to be made again

Ottobre jacket

Jackets/Coats

1.     Swim cover up/bathrobe using Burda jacket pattern

2.     Jeans Jacket – Burda

3.     Bomber Jacket fail – Burda

4.     Short Trench – Ottobre

5.     Smitten – Pattern Emporium

Pants – I did make pants, although I don’t blog them because it is so hard to get a decent photo. Maybe when there’s a nice sunny day I’ll do a huge pants photo shoot and review the patterns all at once.

1.     Pleated trousers – Burda

2.     Kew barrel leg pants – Style Arc

3.     Easy Ageless Cool elastic waist cargo pants – Cutting Line Designs

Total = 21 pieces! 

Patterns:

Burda easily was my most-used pattern company, with 10 items. 

Itch To Stitch and Pattern Emporium tie for second place with 3 each. 

Style Arc - 2

1 each from Ottobre, Cutting Line Designs and New Look. 

The biggest surprise is that I made so few Style Arc – I would have guessed more! Pattern Emporium and Itch to Stitch were both new pattern companies for me this year, but I’m pleased with both of them and will be watching their styles.

I did buy patterns from Simplicity, Butterick, and McCalls, mostly to have paper copies of classic patterns on hand when it seemed like they might be going away. I didn’t make any this year. I also bought a couple of new Style Arc patterns that I haven’t made yet, but plan to.

Failed Project:

My biggest fail of the year was the Burda bomber jacket. I’m still convinced that there was a rare error in that pattern. I accept the occasional failure as something that just happens, but this one still bothers me because the fabric was so, so nice. I ordered more, so I still have some, but am not sure how to salvage the material in the jacket. A bag seems like the most obvious solution, but I’m not much of a bag maker. I’m not throwing it out, that’s for sure.

Fabric:

Speaking of fabric…I did buy a lot this last year. In 2024 I got a little unexpected cash and earmarked it for fabric purchases.The money is all used up now; I just made my last fabric order. This year I shopped mostly with Califabrics, with a few purchases from Fashion Fabrics Club. I would have ordered more from overseas, but the tariffs made the cost too unpredictable.

I fairly successfully limited my purchases to fabrics and colors that I actually wear, resisting the lure of pretty colors and prints that are lovely but don't work in my wardrobe. This is not the path for everyone, to be sure, but it’s left me happy with a stash of quality denims, other cottons, and linens in the colors black, white, natural, and a range of blues. There are some stripes and some fun woven-in textures that liven things up enough for me. I can feel good about my stash because it's going to be so useful. There are still some older pieces in colors and prints if I decide I want to use them.

Next Year:

Really, who knows? I would like to refine the fit of a few basics, mostly tops. I have pants patterns that fit. I've saved the vintage patterns from the 50s and 60s when I've found them in large sizes, and would like to make up at least one of them. Other than that, I'll try to think in terms of outfits rather than one-off items. That's ambitious enough!

 

 

 

 

Pattern Emporium Smitten

Here's Smitten, a simplified jeans-type jacket from Pattern Emporium. I liked their About Town popover top so well, I wanted to try another of their popular patterns. This one wasn't quite the success for me that About Town was, but I will wear it and learned a few things for future Pattern Emporium projects.

This was a "semi-precious" fabric, a cotton/linen from Japan, at least that's what the vendor said. I paid a lot for it and then regretted the purchase because afterwards I just couldn't see myself in it. After washing, it was scratchy. It has been in stash for a long time and I finally decided to just go ahead and use it for a tester because it gave me the guilts. Now that it's made up, I can see me wearing it over a simple dress in a narrow blue and white stripe in the summer when I'm feeling spunky.

I took a lot of time laying out the pattern pieces so that as many of the color splotches as possible ended up visible in the finished garment.  I also wanted to avoid yellow near my face, and took care to cut the yokes, center fronts, and center back from areas that had red splotches only.

Although it has plenty of body, the fabric was transparent enough that it would show the color of whatever was worn underneath. I underlined with a soft cotton batiste that took care of both the scratchiness and the see-through problem. It still didn't seem like a good idea to make the patch pockets or even just the pocket flaps because of the see-through issue, so they were left off.

Pattern changes - front pieces are included for a regular version and a full-busted version. I used the regular fronts, and chose the longer length (There is an ultra-cropped cutting line and the ones I've seen at that length are so cute - they're just not for me.) Added an extra 3/4 inch in length. I'm 5'8, but PE's cutting lines for their tall options are too long. I'm better off just adding a bit extra to the regular length.

The main lesson I learned is when sewing PE patterns, I should use the full bust option even though their instructions indicate that I don't need it. Yes, this jacket is wearable, but it is noticeably shorter in the front than the back, and the bottom band sticks out in the front, too. Allowing for the bust would take care of that - and that's something to note about the pattern. All those vertical seams are just for style; there's no shape built into them. I haven't compared the pattern pieces but I suspect that the full bust does have some shape added using those seams.

I didn't have enough red buttons in my button stash, so I used slightly smaller blue ones on the cuff. The pattern has square corners on the cuffs that I angled off. Square corners always seem to poke out and end up getting dragged in my soup...or whatever...

Just for fun, I used the color registration marks from the fabric selvedge as a little tab detail. I put one on the right front where a pocket would go, and another one at center back.

One other thing to mention - that top buttonhole gave me a lot of trouble. I had to rip it out twice, because no matter which way I fed my fabric into the machine, there was a thick seam that jammed the action of the buttonhole foot. I ironed it, hammered it, everything. If the yoke had been just a little deeper, there would have been enough room for the foot to avoid that thick seam. In the end, I had to do a zig-zag four-step buttonhole. Now that I think of it, the problem also could have been solved by using smaller buttons. 🤷 I like my bigger buttons.

I'm calling this my Crayola Jacket, and it will be fun to wear. It will be put away until springtime, and now I know what I needed to know about Smitten. 

Ottobre Woman Trench from 5/2007

Ottobre Woman was a favorite pattern source and I miss them. Maybe they'll come back some day. Here is a version of their short trench coat that was number 20 in the 5/2007 issue.

I've made this before, ten years ago in fact! The idea was to replicate the trench coat Miss Fisher wears in the TV mystery series. It was one of my most fun sewing projects ever, doing the detective work of uncovering the original's details in closeups, sleuthing out an appropriate pattern, sourcing the right fabric and all. Unfortunately, although I love the look of a duster, I hardly ever wore my trench and eventually repurposed the fabric for something else. The original write-up can be read on this blog's old location here: Miss Fisher Coat.

This coat came about because I ordered the cotton/linen canvas to copy a bomber jacket seen in a store window. When the fabric came, it was very nice but heavier than anticipated and would have made a bulky bomber. It seemed like a longer coat would be the answer, and the Ottobre pattern the way I had simplified it would work. I had eliminated all the straps and made the pattern single breasted. 

A little flat-pattern measuring insured that my old tracing would still fit. The coat is underlined with bemberg, the same stuff that used to be sold under the name Ambiance. I used the old line/underline technique learned from Shannon Gifford back in the day, so the inside is all clean finished. I have used that technique so much! It makes lining seem like less of a chore. Seams all edge stitched and topstitched so they look like flat fells.

The edges of the facings and hem were bound using a rayon tape. Doing a narrow fold on the edges would have been too bulky, not to mention difficult with heavy ravelly canvas. Horn buttons came from Wawak.

Unlike my previous version of this pattern, I anticipate wearing this one a lot. It is surprisingly warm and will fit over a sweater, just right for most of the cooler days. Where I live, it sometimes gets really cold, but most of the time this coat will be the perfect weight.

Looking at these photos I can see that the bottom button is pulling. That doesn't seem so obvious in real life but I bet a longer shank on that button will give it a bit more play and solve the problem. Easy fix.

Another jacket is nearly finished and will probably be completed in 2025. I do love jackets! 

About Town, again

When I made my first About Town (Pattern Emporium), I was so happy I wanted to make another right away. The fit was really nice for me, and it's the kind of pattern you can make again and again with all kinds of variations. The first one can be seen here and was made in an oxford cloth that wasn't exactly crisp, but had some body.

This one is made from a double cloth that is soft and cuddly, almost like a double gauze. It has fine indigo and eggshell stripes on one side, and solid indigo on the other. This time I used the facing option rather than the center seam.

Some other design changes: 

• omitted the cuffs, 
• cut the collar narrower just a bit - I think by 3/8" 
• added a back yoke, burrito-style, with the stripes going horizontally
• added a narrow band to the single pocket, also using the horizontal stripes 

showing the underside of the fabric

It seemed a bit of a shame not to utilize the double sided nature of this fabric more, but I didn't want a choppy look. I did take care with the facing so that the inside is all solid. It peeks out a bit around the neck opening. I also used the solid for the undercollar. I forgot to mention in the previous post that there is a separate pattern piece for the undercollar, which is a nice touch and really helps the undercollar to remain hidden when you turn it.

contrast band on pocket

back yoke

pledge of allegiance pose

The lined jacket I mentioned before is underway, a trench-like pattern from Ottobre. Transitional weather is here and this jacket will be perfect for layering, so I'm hoping to finish soon.

About Town - Pattern Emporium

It's not often that a new pattern release gets made at Casa Unzipped, but I happened to watch the Pattern Emporium video for their new About Town and was sold. The video cleverly shows how versatile the pattern is by styling it with a selection of other patterns in their line, and it went with so many other types of garments that I could see it fitting into my wardrobe really well. It was on introductory sale at the time and that didn't hurt, either.

Now that I'm aware of Pattern Emporium and have looked at some of their other videos, I see that showing their new releases paired up in different ways is typical for them. That just seems so smart, a great way to sell patterns. It worked on me, anyway, and I'm glad it did because I'm really happy with my results.

About Town is a boxy popover top with sleeve and length variations. It has a collar and the option of a two-piece front, with a seam down the middle, or front facing with no seam. It has a deep hem, and the short or long sleeves have a clean-finished cuff with optional decorative tab and button. It can also be made dress length. It seems to have been thoughtfully designed to give satisfying results.

The instructions are written for ultra-beginners. Every little step is photographed and described. This was frustrating for me because when I did want to check their recommended method for certain steps, I had to hunt through pages and pages to find the information I wanted. Their instructions for the collar are stellar; following them worked beautifully.

There are also extensive extensive instructions on picking your size. Working through them was tedious, but again, I'm happy with the fit. There are different fronts depending on your bust measurement (darted and undarted) and different heights. Although I could have gone with the undarted front, I chose to have the dart because I knew I'd look sloppy without it. 

Alterations for me - lowered the dart about 3/4" and lengthened the body about an inch (using the tall cutting lines would have been too long). I cut a 14 at the shoulder and blended all the way out to a 22 at the hemline. The sleeves needed to be widened 3/4" at the bicep.

I used the split-front option and two breast pockets because I wanted to do aaall the edgestitching and topstitching on my cotton chambray. I used a matching thread and right now the topstitching doesn't show much, but I think as the piece gets repeated washings the space between the two lines of stitching will bubble up slightly so there will be a little dimensionality going on.

cuff outside

cuff inside

It's a sharp-looking little top and I immediately made some pleated pants in lightweight black twill to go with it (pattern from Burda mag). The shortest length looks great with pants and skirts that have a little volume - that was one of my takeaways from the video.

It's easy and quick to make, so I'm working on another one right now as a palette cleanser after the laborious fit-as-you-go process I took with the pants. I really needed something easy and satisfying before starting the lined jacket that is next up. The only change to this next top is raising the neck opening a little.

It's great to have found a new pattern company and have more options. My Burda subscription came up for renewal and even though I really enjoy getting the magazine and Burda drafting, it's expensive, and I let it go. For the price of the annual subscription I can easily buy more single patterns as I can sew in a year, and there are always Burda envelope patterns. 

It's time to end these reflections and go feed the dogs! (or so they tell me)

Burda Plus shirtdress from 2006

This dress is from the Spring 2006 Burda Special issue, which was a plus-size magazine. I made it once before, way back when it first came out, and remembered liking its easy yet tailored fit. The bodice with vertical darts attaches to a skirt with four sections for a hint of fit and flare. Most of the other dresses I've made lately all have gathered skirts, so this was a nice change.

Only a small style change was needed. I sew a lot from Burda magazines, but almost always end up "dumbing down" their designs to suit my classic tastes. Many of their styles seem extreme to me with details that are just plain crazy. But they have solid drafting and I enjoy getting the magazines, so I stay alert for designs that have good bones. This dress features an absolutely huge collar stand and would probably look lovely on someone with a long graceful neck. I reduced the width of the stand by an inch and it is still oversized, but within my tolerance. I also opted to leave off the collar.

Line drawing to show the style

Tracing a pattern that doesn't have seam allowances makes it easy to alter while you trace. In this case I did shoulder alterations - 3/8" forward shoulder and 1/2" narrow shoulder. Some flat pattern measuring indicated that I would need a much larger size for the skirt than the bodice. That skirt has an A-line shape, but it's a narrow A. To fit the larger skirt to the bodice, I added darts that would line up with the darts on top.

It's not actually floor length. The dress form is a lot shorter than I am.

The fabric is a linen tencel blend that is woven like a lightweight denim. Because of that, and because I just felt like doing some slow sewing with extra nice finishing, I decided to do flat felled seams and have clean finishing throughout.

collar topstitching

Interfacing came from my scrap pile. I've never had much success when I've tried to repurpose old makes that didn't get worn much or that I outgrew, so they go into a pile.  I really prefer sew-in interfacings and have bemoaned how hard it is to find them. Duh! I've got a great big pile of interfacing, every weight imaginable. A compatible piece of linen was just right.

Sleeve and skirt hem finished with a double row of topstitching.
It doesn't show well in the photo but with a bit of washing
and wearing, it should become more pronounced.

Everything was going beautifully until it was time to sew the side seams on the skirt. I did a pin basting and tried it on...and wished that it had more ease. Unfortunately, that was the end of my dream of completely finished seams, because I was going to have to sew them at a mere quarter inch to get an extra 2" of ease all around. (Glad that I had allowed 5/8") After stitching, serging the seam allowances together, pressing to one side  and then edgestitching, I'm confident that they are strong enough to wear well.

This dress will be good for fall and winter wear, with its longer sleeves and long midi length that will hide the tops of my knee high compression socks! Thumbs up.