Completed: Advance 8511 in Gingham

In an attempt to catch up on all the stuff I’ve finished that I haven’t posted yet (I just counted and there are 8… yikes), here’s a gingham top I made using Advance 8511, which is a vintage pattern.

I also forgot to mention that the pictures are REALLY bad; this is what happens when you don’t wait for it to finish raining (hence, me standing on the porch) and then position yourself so that the sunlight is directly behind you, and then try to lighten the pictures and when they turn out grainy and grey, you say, “Eh, fuck it.” and post them anyway.

Not that I know anything about that.

Anyway, I’m sorry.

This was a fun little pattern to make! It would have gone together a lot more quickly if I didn’t have so many fit issues. I don’t think the fit of the pattern was too bad – the size was a little big, but nothing too tragic – but rather, my fabric was a terrible choice for this pattern. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

This pattern only has 4 pieces – a front, a back, a back neck facing (the front facing is all attached to the front as one piece) and the collar (no undercollar). The armholes are bound with self-made bias tape and it only uses 4 buttons. So economical!

The fabric, again, is from Mood Fabrics in New York. It’s really lovely stuff – a cotton gingham seersucker with lots of texture and LOTS of stretch – but that damn stretch was nearly my undoing. I kept taking in the side seams over and over to get this shirt to fit (I know slightly-loose button-ups can look good, but not this shape/style with a woven stretch. Just… no), and I think I ended up removing a good 2″ from each side, possibly more. I don’t think stretch wovens are inherently bad (take a look at my fabric stash if you don’t believe me), but they really should not be used for a pattern that is already a little big to start.

You can’t see too well (because the pictures are so bad, again, SORRY), but there are tucks at the front and back waist, and soft pleats at the neckline under the collar. I had to extend the front tucks to be longer (originally they were only about 1″ long) because they ended up giving me this weird fullness in an area where it wasn’t needed. I don’t know how I feel about the neckline pleats – they are beautiful in theory, but in this fabric I think it kind of looks like I messed something up and hid it under the collar. Oh well.

Hey look, Dolly went on a diet and now she can actually model my clothes again! And they BUTTON UP. Holy shit!

I had to add a pleat to the center back because it was MASSIVE compared to the collar. Seriously, the width of that pleat is how much bigger the back was than the collar. I double checked my pattern pieces and they don’t match either, so I’m assuming someone was hitting the bottle hard at the Advance pattern drafting headquarters that day.

Despite the fitting issues, I do love my little shirt! Navy gingham goes with everything, surprisingly.

By the way… check out my new back porch!

I wish you could have seen what it looked like before (if you think it looks trashy now, let me tell you… this is an improvement). The previous renters laid this horrible fake hardwood all over the porch – you know, the kind that is supposed to go INSIDE a house – and didn’t even cover the whole flooring area. There were bare spots of concrete by the stairs. It was just drab and ugly and sad and we mostly ignored it for the past year. A couple weekends ago, we tore up the flooring (yes, we are renters, but I’m pretty sure my landlord dgaf), bought and painted the screen door, as well as hung the curtains and that tapestry. Now I am on the lurk for a tiny bistro table to fit back there.

Here’s another view – and there’s the old shed! I reckon you can guess where at least one of those chairs went 😉

Now we are actually inclined to hang on the back porch, IMAGINE THAT. If only I could figure out a way to permanently fend off the ‘skeeters…

Tags: advance, completed, Mood Fabrics, shirt, stretch cotton, top, vintage