I don’t often find stuff off-the-peg that fits really well. I’ve got bends in places other people apparently don’t, so everything that’s big enough around the middle is oddly baggy in the middle of the back. So if I buy any high-street garment, I pretty much always have to shorten and dart the back.
However, a top very like the above one came into my life almost fully formed, just needing a couple of inches taking up vertically mid-back. At which point it fit so well I decided I wanted another one. Or another 10 perhaps.
I had enough of this lovely sort of Islamic-decorative-art patterend fabric left over from making Julian a shirt to do the main body if the details were something else. (*raids scrap basket and comes up with just the thing*)
I have copied garments before by never something with a detail like the horizontal tucks on the chest. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
The original garment was very cooperative in that it was a pinstripe fabric, which makes it ever so easy to know what the curves of the pieces are doing. You can just count how many stripes go by and measure that distance on another part of the fabric. So, to the drafting table!
As always, I start with the fancy fripperies, like tiny button loops made from a tiny foldover string of the blue fabric. What faff. But it worked well.
And of course the many tucks. You need twice as much fabric to make this effect. Seems almost wasteful. Except this fabric was already waste when I started.
I love the way the fabrics look together.
I never have enough of any one button to do much, but I have so many odd buttons that I can usually make up a batch of something that looks good together.
And for this version I kept all the odd little details like a sleeve-holdy-uppy thing that I might forego next time. Too much trouble for something that just makes the sleeve feel bulky and slightly uncomfortable. Still, it looks nice.
Unfortunately no picture available, but I’m really pleased with the fit, so I will absolutely be adapting and playing with this pattern. It’ll look awesome with my breeches!