Now for something completely different!

…just kidding, it’s another Sewaholic Renfrew! I hope you aren’t sick of seeing me in this pattern yet, cos I’m not sick of making or wearing them! I’m a tee shirt sort of girl at heart, and its hard to get too worked up about dressing nicely for the trip to and from work (I wear scrubs when I’m actually working). The fabric may be familiar, its made out of the scraps of Lyocell from my last Renfrew, and the stripy cotton knit from my first Grainline Hemlock tee. I’ve been hoarding the stripes for ages because I love the fabric so much, but I didn’t have enough to make a whole other top out of it. When I realised that it matched the grey Lyocell knit almost exactly, I decided to chop my (traced!) Renfrew pattern in half and use the two fabrics together. This version follows the pattern pretty closely, with my standard adjustments. I cut a size 6 with 2″ of length taken out of the body because of my short torso. I drew a line two inches under the armscye across the front and back pieces of the pattern, and added 3/4″ seam allowance before overlocking them together. I also added a pocket, to break up the stripes a bit (no pattern piece used, just cut it out freehand). I also skipped the hem and sleeve cuff bands, as the striped knit hems nicely with my twin needle, and nothing I did worked at all on the lyocell, so I left it raw! (Hah, I’ve just looked back over the post I wrote about my hemlock made in this fabric, and I complained about how hard it was to hem with my twin needle! Am I more practiced now, or is it just the way I was holding my mouth..?)

I like it! Its not spectacularly adventurous, but its comfy and cute, and it fits well into my wardrobe. Its also not my best piece of sewing, I realised yesterday when I was wearing it that I somehow managed to cut the grey lyocell on the cross grain, so the stretch is going up and down instead of around! Happily it has some stretch on the cross grain as well, which is probably why I didn’t notice when I was sewing it… I think that might be why I’m getting those diagonal pull lines between my bust and waist in this version. The only thing I’m wondering about is making the sleeves one stripe shorter, so that they end at the same point as the transition line between fabrics on the body. Would that make it look more cohesive, or does it not matter? Overthinking it, maybe? I’ll ask you, internet oracle, for your thoughts!

I love both of these fabrics, so putting them together has made me happy! I didn’t realise I had my sunglasses still perched on my head until I looked at these photos, it was really sunny on Saturday when I took them. Too sunny for me to take them outside, I was just getting glare and pictures of me squinting in a very attractive way! This week is my final week of university, only one more assignment to hand in, and I’m done for the year! Bring on Sunday…or earlier, if I get my arse into gear and finish my essay earlier. I have so many large-ish sewing projects i want to get started on, it’ll be nice not feeling guilty for sewing instead of studying.