Bruyére the Paisley

Hello dearies! Today I have a fun shirt to share with you. And as the weather was so nice, I got to return to taking pictures outside! Yay!

The pattern is The Bruyére by Deer and Doe. I've sewn this pattern twice before (see here and here) and I have so many fabrics in my stash that make me think "Ooooh, you would make a nice Bruyére shirt" every time I pick them up. So I think it's safe to say that I will use this pattern many times in the future.

For this version I used size 42 and applied the same changes as I did to my last version and also altered the shape of the front waist dart. The fit is a lot better now and I think I'm not going to make any other changes in the future. It's very easy to go too far with fitting and end up with something that's too fitted and has no room for movement.

The fabric is a vintage cotton I scored from an online auction and I am really bummed I don't have any more of it. It's really soft and feels really nice against the skin. I mean wearing this shirt feels like wearing pajamas. Which is awesome. Who doesn't like to look sharp and wear pajamas at the same time?

I knew I wanted to use press buttons instead of regular buttons right when I started working on this shirt because let's be honest. I am far too lazy to open and close this many buttons every time I wear a shirt. The only question was what kind. I originally chose three options: silver, black and these pearls. Before laying them out on the fabric I was least fond of the pearls and thought black would be the way to go but after I laid them out on the button band, the black kind of disappeared in the print and made the shirt look unfinished. And I knew I had to pick the pears as they looked awesome on the fabric.

At first I thought about french seaming the shirt but decided against it and use my beloved serger to finish the seams in order to prevent any bulky seams. 

So that's it. My latest addition to my button front shirt collection. Can you tell I'm addicted to this pattern?

Bruyére the Zebra

Hi peeps! I've been trying to think of an introduction for this post for the last 30 minutes without coming up with anything to say. So I guess let's get right to the thing I wanted to share with you.

It's my second Bruyére (see the first here). I made it from a silky rayon with tiny adorable zebras. I mean what's not to love about a fabric that feels nice and has animals on it. C'mon. I cut out size 42 again, but I made the alterations I needed to the sleeve(took in 1cm from each side so 2cm in total), took in the front waistband by 1,6cm, shortened the shoulder by 1cm. I didn't change the dart shape under the bust because I didn't sew the darts. I was scared that the darts would have too much pressure on them and the fabric wouldn't be able to cope with it. So all the darts are pleats(yay for skipping steps)

This time I went the extra mile and french seamed all the seams. I think with a fabric like this french seams look much nicer. I mean I paid 24€/m for it. Better not mistreat the fabric. 

For some reason the cuffs bend in a weird angle and are almost curved, not sure why. And as you can see, I went for the snap buttons this time. Much easier and faster. Especially if you have one of those tool kits for applying the snaps which makes the whole process MUCH easier.

Erm. I might have cut the collar in the wrong direction. Now I have breakdancing zebras on the collar. I wish I had more of this fabric so I could re-cut the collar, but sadly I don't. Let's pretend it's intentional. It'll be our little secret.

Like I said last time, I really like the shape and look of this shirt. And even though the pattern is categorized under "Advanced" I think it's not that hard to make even if you might label yourself as a Beginner or somewhere between the two. There are all those handy-dandy schematics to illustrate the steps and hold your hand through the process.

Bruyére the First

Hello to all of your beautiful faces! Spring has officially sprung and I can't wait for when I can shove that coat deep into the depths of my closet, hide my boots somewhere I can't see them and bask myself in the sweet-sweet warmth of the sun. Maybe, just maybe, I can even get a tan again this year! That would be two years in a row! And I know that everyone asked "What tan?" when I said that I had the best tan I had had in my life last year but that's the glory of being pale. You tan, feel super proud of your tan and you could still be mistaken for a swan. Anywhooooooo. That's not what I wanted to share with you today, but whatever. Not deleting that sooooo... Meeh. Here's the real post.

This is my "wearable" muslin for the Bruyére shirt by Deer and Doe. When it came out last fall, I was instantly loving the look of it. A simple buttonfront shirt with pleats and that is long enough to cover your bum so you can wear it with tights? Don't mind if I do. I didn't feel like making a real muslin so I decided to use a fabric I wouldn't feel sad about if the shirt ended up being a huge fitting fail or if the fit was kind of off and it got demoted into a "at home" shirt. So I took a piece of dark blue polyester fabric and a bit of bright blue to make the shirt look more alive.

After consulting my measurements and size chart, I traced and cut out size 42 and made no modifications to the pattern pieces. I followed the instructions exactly like they were written and thought they were relatively clear. I did jump between the English and French instructions because the English instruction had all the measurements in inches and I feel a lot more comfortable with cm but now I've written the corresponding cm measurements to the English envelope with my own little shaky hand so no going back and forth between the two in the future.

I decided to serge all the seams instead of french seaming because ain't nobody got time fo dat, if it's a wearable muslin. And let me tell you, I am happy I did not put that much effort into this thing. Because whatever is going on with the dark blue fabric, it makes my skin itch. So far only organic wool yarns have made my skin itch like that but that fabric does not have any wool in it. It is flat out polyester and feels like yuck on my skin. I've tried to suffer through a day in this shirt but unless I put a longsleeve under it, I will want to scrape my skin off with a sandpaper.

Okay. So about the fit. The waist is a bit too big under the bust, so I'm going to have to take in the front waistband and play around with the shape of the bust dart. The shoulder was a bit too long, so for the next version I'm going to have to shorten the shoulder by 1cm. The sleeve is also a bit too wide. You can clearly see that the sleeve is Fifty Shades of Baggy around my arms and it also had a bit too much ease at the armhole. So it didn't really ease into the armhole and really wanted to have tiny gathers. And a fabric that is a bitch like this one, it really shows. So if you are making your first Bruyére, I recommend you make sure the sleeve eases in well and you might have to take off some of the excess ease. I also recommend considering using snap buttons instead of regular buttons because opening and closing this amount of buttons every time you wear it is really time consuming and annoying.

So. Will I be making other versions? Heck yea. I actually already have made more. And I have seriously considered burning every little piece of the itchy fabric I have left. Because nothing is worth that amount of itch. Good thing I got it from Gran S and didn't pay for it.