Topkids No. 23 - Birds of a Feather Flock Together Shirt .

Birds of a feather flock together - having made tops for my youngest and eldest daughters out of the same hummingbird fabric. However I think they would rather be plucked , quartered and roasted before they were seen together in them !

My daughter wanted a simple sleeveless button up collared blouse - we saw heaps of this style on our school holiday shopping trip and lots of bird prints too .

I pulled out all of my old Topkids pattern books and found a pattern I could convert to what she wanted.  

This one is issue 26 from Spring 1993 ! I used to absolutely love my topkids pattern books . They are like burda magazines ( with the same kind of instructions and no diagrams ) but the patterns are almost exclusively for children. I made dozens and dozens of the patterns and had only a handful of the Big 4 patterns for my children. I loved the magazines so much they were a part of my fire plan ( after grabbing children, pets, important documents, etc etc if there was time I would take my magazines- that is a bit sad but hopefully other sewing fanatics would  understand .)

I have always wanted to sew this pattern but my daughter did not want the interesting parts of the pattern - the shaped hem and added flaps with the extra buttons.

The pattern has you finish the neckline and armholes  with single fold bias binding ( made of self fabric ) . I also was able to do french seams everywhere  so I think my youngest daughter was pleasantly surprised by the end result . She certainly wore it right away when we went to friends for tea  and she was quite happy to pose for the blog  ( I didn`t even have to twist her arm or anything else for that matter.) If anyone has young children and babies I would  recommend getting old copies of these if you see them. The baby clothes are seriously cute .

I can now also say that having sewn more chiffon I am no longer afraid of it .

Well now my blog is starting to look like an Alfred Hitchcock movie I must leave the last word to Bob the Second.

Honestly while the girls got on with the serious business of pecking and scratching Bob POSED for the camera.

Cheers Janine. P.S My family are back from France and it is wonderful.

Simplicity 3786-Hummingbirds for a Honey Top .

 

   Last school holidays my eldest daughter spotted this bird printed chiffon at Spotlight and loved it  and since then has been reminding me to sew this up. This school holidays I have been trying to do 'nice` things for my eldest and youngest daughters as my middle DD is in France with my DH.
So I finally sewed up this tunic - hmmm , top homemade by Mum , trip to France with Dad  - yep that just about balances things up !
   Just to ' quickly ` explain about the trip - my eldest DD went to Japan for three months a couple of years ago on an exchange programme and since then our other daughters have been muttering that this is  not fair . Then my middle DD said ` Just give me the money .` and my eldest DD said ` That`s not fair ` and I said `I am most certainly not just  giving you the money ` and then my husband said he could go to France with middle DD and I said ` That`s not fair ` ( only joking about the last bit ) .

Simplicity 3786.

   Anyway I have now sewn Simplicity 3786 four times so I have it down pat although I have not sewn it in chiffon before. However, soaking the fabric in a gelantine mixture that I previously blogged about , using a walking foot, lots of sharp pins and  lots of pressing ended up helping alot . Once the little pintucks and the mandarin collar are sewn this is a very easy top to sew. I used french seams where I could but otherwise sewed the side seams and armscye with double row of close stitching and then trimmed the excess fabric very closely ( and carefully ) to the stitching. I took in the side seams by several cms and added narrow ties because this is a loose fitting top and she wanted it to be slim fitting .  We added some non - functional buttons to the front which match much closer in real life than the pictures  show  . In case you can not tell I highly recommend this pattern.

Anyway the end result is that my eldest DD loves her new top. While I was cutting this out my youngest DD said that is pretty fabric and luckily there was a sizeable remnant that is already cut out for another ( different ) top for  her.

Cheers Janine.