A quickfire shirt

Another FESA project down! I usually feel like I'm pretty slow at sewing, compared to a lot of bloggers that I follow, but this shirt took me only two days from start to finish--and that includes some single-layer cutting! I had two unexpected days off of work recently, due to some nasty, rainy days. (My garden center job involves sitting at an outdoor register, and it's already been pretty slow lately, so rain = even more dead. So they told me to just stay home.) The Thurlow pants were already at the point where I just needed to sew the hems by hand, so I figured I'd save that for tv time and make something new instead.

It's a Renfrew, of course, since I've been talking about revisiting this pattern since the first one I'd made. And I think that was actually the best possible choice for this fabric. It's hard to tell how a fabric will handle as flat yardage sometimes, and I discovered as I was working with it that the edges have a very strong tendency to curl to the outside, and develop little tiny runs in the fabric in the process. So a pattern with bands at the sleeves and hem was the perfect counterbalance, and I'm glad I didn't try to do one with a more traditional hem! Especially since I'd been going back and forth for quite some time about what this fabric wanted to be.

I did have to fiddle with the print placement a bit, due to the stripes, and I think it worked out well overall. I do wish the stripes were a little more matched up at the seams, though. Despite all of my pins and careful placement, it did shift around a bit during serging. (Which was surprising, since the fabric generally clung to itself quite a bit.) But I like the way the thin stripe looks as the neck binding, and even though I didn't quite have the yardage to make that stripe line up between the body and the arms, I think it still looks pretty good overall!

I'd originally altered this pattern to make the waist curve in a few sizes smaller, but for this one, I cut it more of a straight size 8. The fabric is sheer enough that I knew from the start I'd have to wear this as a layering piece, and with its clingy tendencies, I wanted to give it a little extra wiggle room to make it easier to pull over my camisoles. I also did a cheater adjustment on the arm length, and just cut that to the largest size with the width of the regular size 8. It worked perfectly, and I'm quite happy to not have my wrists hanging out like they often do with long-sleeved shirts! I'll be cranking out at least one more of these before the cold weather ends, and this pretty much clinches it as my favorite knit top pattern!

And hey, look, a different backdrop than usual! We spent the weekend in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, since I was in a friend's wedding. The ceremony and reception were held at the Landis Valley Museum, in and around this barn. I managed to get my husband to take these pics before the rehearsal started, since we got there about an hour before everyone else and had time to walk around. It matches my shirt pretty well, doesn't it?



This was my artist friend (the one I made that apron and placemat set for recently), and I have to say, her vision turned out quite lovely! The grapevines with the twinkle lights were already there, but we hung the paper lanterns ourselves. There were a lot of people helping to set up, so even though there was a lot of work, it was still a relaxing, fun time.









I did a little more crafting for this, too! The night before the wedding, the rest of the bridesmaids, the bride and I made our bouquets.None of us had really done floral arranging before, unless you count my trial-and-error artificial centerpieces that I made for my own wedding, but I think they turned out nicely! It just took us a few tries, that's all.

I also made that little banner hanging up there by the dessert table. I don't have a decent close-up because there wasn't time, but I brought it home with me, so I can take one if anyone is interested.

I have one more recently finished project that needs photographing (knitting this time), and I'd better get on it, since the Doctor Who Sewalong is officially on now!