Puff sleeves, suits and chickens

 Hello Christmastime sewers!

I've been sewing a lot since the pandemic began, but the blogging hasn't been so good - I do want to keep track of progress though, so here I am with a puff-sleeved self-drafted shirt! It's in an ikat from (I think) Merchant & Mills a few years ago. I used Simplicity 8523 (view B) as a block and went from there - I made the armscye bigger, added a button placket, and lengthened and massively widened the sleeves. It was all pretty fly-by-the-seat-of-pants in terms of drafting, but I think it's turned out really well and I love it! This is actually the third iteration - I'll post the others soon.

The buttons are from lovely Textile Garden. Trying to show the big armscyes below - lovely and roomy! (I'm wearing the shirt with some old True Bias Hudsons in slub cotton jersey from Organic Textile Company).

I made some trousers from this ikat last year, and now with the shirt I have a jolly suit too. The trousers are also based on the Hudsons, sized up for wovens, and straightened out in the legs - this was before Anna Allen released the Pomona Pants pattern, which is my go-to at the moment for stretch-waist trews.

I really like it as a suit like this with the shirt open - with the shirt done up it's a bit clown-in-pajamas for my current tastes. But when that look comes in sometime in 2021, I'll be ready.

I also thought I'd show a couple of the Christmas presents I sewed this year. These are chickens for holding plastic bags - I based them on a plastic-bag chicken my mum gave me a while back, and I'm really happy with how these came out. My original is in jazzy stripey cotton jersey - I think these more "realistic" colours work better.

CHICKENZZZZ and suits!!