Summer Love

Every once in awhile a fabric comes along that is just Love At First Sight.  That happened to me with this dark teal Liberty fabric a couple of years ago, with the unfortunate name 'Mitsi':

The thing about Liberty fabrics is they're obscenely expensive and they are usually a very, very thin cotton.  So unless you know exactly what you want to do with it, it doesn't feel like a wise investment.  Even if it's the purdiest thing you ever did see.  Even if all your friends want to date it too.  Even if it drives a really nice convertible and has a dog.

Being a rational person, I didn't buy Mitsi right away. But every few months I would cyber-stalk it, just to make sure SOMEONE  was still selling it. And a couple of months ago it seemed like it was starting to disappear - not a good sign when only Etsy sellers have stock left. I bought two yards without a plan. I would have always regretted it if I hadn't made my move.

This is the summer shirt I decided on.  I needed to do a tester because I didn't want to make a mistake with Mitsi, come off as overly enthusiastic.  so I did a first version for my sister with another voile favorite, Amy Butler's Josephine's Bouquet.

The back had this pretty tie to make it size-adjustable:

It came out nice enough, but was pretty roomy and the v-neck wasn't working with the sleeves so well.

So when I cut into Mitsi I went x-tra small (I know, if you've ever seen me in real life you can guess where this is going) and did a more tailored sleeveless version with the v-neck.

I didn't try it on until after I sewed in the arm and neck lining, because I thought Mitsi and I had an understanding.  I thought we were in this together.  I had no idea how uncomfortably tight it would be across the shoulders, or how the alignment of the v in the neck with the gathers at the waist would just be so, so wrong.

All to say, this is going to need to be un-sewn (and I used the tiniest stitches which will be hell to rip out), and maybe re-sewn without the pretty French seams, or repurposed altogether.  That's the end of my trying-to-sew-clothes phase for awhile. The girl totally burned me. The fantasy of matching sister shirts was nice while it lasted. I hear Sister Responsibly and Amy Butler are still going strong out in sunny California.

Luckily I've spent the last couple of weeks working on a much more successful project.  My first entirely paper-pieced quilt, full of some lovely new fabrics.  Maybe not Love-At-First Sight fabrics, but some Japanese cottons that were at least nice to hang out with.  I'll show it for real once

it's shown some loyalty

quilted.