What I finished: 2023 #22 - my birthday shirt!
Nothing gets me excited about sewing like making something special for an occasion, and I always make myself something pretty for my birthday! This year I’m hitting 40, so wanted to go all out. I’ll spare you the many many hours of pinterest research I did, the multiple fabric orders because of course there isn’t anything in my excessively large stash that is just right, and cut to the chase of the shirt I actually wore (to my party at least, my birthday is still a few weeks off, as an almost-Christmas baby, I wanted a little separation there).
My party was at a local brewery, so I didn’t want to go too fancy, but still be be a little flashy, which was a little tricky to nail down exactly. My final inspiration ended up being a Robert Cavalli dress worn by Beyonce, because why not?
That helped focus my fabric search as well, because I wanted a somewhat sheer pleated chiffon fabric (that also had to not be too Christmas-y, because again, almost-Christmas baby wants some separation). I settled on a fabulous blue metallic plisse from Mood, of which I ordered 5 yards just to be safe, and ended up using almost every single scrap.
First up, I had to figure out how to actually make the thing. It was actually rather straight-forward, mostly just gathered rectangles, but it took me a while to nail down the bodice, as I wanted to make sure everything stayed in place, and I experimented a bit with the cords/elastic to help out on that front too.
Sewing math - I wanted to utilize the selvedge as my hem (both to save time and it was nicer looking than my attempts at a rolled hem), so I calculated the minimum measurements for each piece (i.e. my body measurements), and then came up with good multiplication factors to make sure the gathering was approximately even for all the pieces. I can’t even figure out my own scribbles below, but I think it ended up in the 3.5-4x gathering ratio (hence using the full 5 yards).
I was a little loosey goosy and experimental in putting it all together, which normally doesn’t work out the greatest, but I did it over the course of 3 weeks or so, and it came together. The fabric turned out to be really tricky to do any kind of seam-ripping, etc., so the finishes aren’t the greatest, but the gathers can cover a multitude of sewing sins!
I originally was thinking about doing a base lining of black knit jersey, and sandwiching in some old sports bra cups, but it was getting tricky with all the pleated fabric. I ended up just having multiple layers of the pleated fabric over the bust, and left the center edges open, and I stuck in a pair of black bra cups in there loose, and it worked out really well.
The final tricky bit was adding on the tassels, which I loved from the original dress. I just tied them on in a sloppy way, but my crowd-sourcing did bring up two good solutions, that I may eventually switch over to - braiding them on, and burning the ends of the cord and the tassel and essentially melting them together. Tests were positive for both methods, but I was scared to mess up my shirt with the actual thing. :)
All in all, I’m super pleased with how it came out, and I’ve learned my lesson that it really is way better to give yourself time to sew, and not throw everything together last minute! :)