Get ready to raglan again!

Now that I got my first raglan and pencil skirt out of the way, I decided I was ready to make myself something else! When I went to my SAS store a couple weeks ago, I kept eyeing the feather fabric from my last post, and this pretty rose fabric. Still really inexpensive fabric, and not very thick, but I love how this shirt turned out!

I went to a women's meeting at my church last Thursday night, one where we were to share our favorite thing with the other women there. I had forgotten about this until about an hour prior, and really wanted to take something I had made to share my love for sewing.

I used the same size (3xl), but used the short sleeve option instead. I added the relaxed waistband, although I probably should have made the band a little tighter. The stripe fabric I used is super thin though, so I am not sure how much recovery it will have, and if it will look great tighter around the hips. I guess we'll see how it hangs on me after washing it the first time.

Since the stripe fabric was so thin, it shifted a lot while cutting my fabric. It's true that better quality fabric sews up better. But I still really love this shirt!

After I got my fabric home, I realized that the rose fabric was actually a border print, and I only bought one yard, so I couldn't use it as a border print. I also realized I didn't have enough to make my back look the same as the front. I considered color blocking the back, but really wanted to finish this in time for the meeting. I had one hour, and almost made it. Another 5-10 minutes, I would have been able to wear this. Instead, I just took some beautiful corduroy fabric I've been holding onto for years...maybe I'll get around to using it sometime! :)

Anyway...instead of color blocking the back, I decided to make it fun and different with the border print on the side of the shirt! It just makes it a fun design piece! The roses even look like they're peeking through on the side!

The best part about this shirt? I ended up wearing it Saturday on a Pokemon hunt with my kids. We took all 5 kids down to Tempe Town Lake, walked around for about 3 km (Pokemon Go is in km), sweat a ton, but this shirt is so thin and breathable, that it wasn't nearly as bad as normal. And when I say sweat, I mean it! It was only a little over 100 during our walk, but would have been much worse with a different shirt.

If you're still on the fence about the relaxed raglan pattern by Patterns for Pirates, jump on over and get it! It's wonderfully easy and flattering. Or the etsy shop here.

Jolly Roger Raglan by P4P

I forgot, I have sewed a little more recently, and want to share.

One of the first knit patterns I ever made was the Jolly Roger Raglan, by Patterns For Pirates, or P4P. They started out designing a lot of patterns for boys, but recently have designed more patterns for women. And as great as those patterns look, I'm just too afraid to make things for myself right now. So even though I've bought several of the women's patterns, I haven't ventured there yet. But I still love using the Jolly Roger Raglan as a basic for my kid's shirts. It comes together very quickly, and the instructions are detailed and easy to follow.

I have used this pattern for all of my kids, boy and girl, but the shirt seems to look better on the boys than the girls. Not sure if it's the neckline, or I need to make the shirts a little slimmer for my girls, but I prefer it on my boys. Nevertheless, I still love this pattern. It uses knit fabric with good recovery, especially for the binding. It has many options, including straight hem, baseball hem, and a band. It also comes in long sleeves, 3/4 sleeves, and short sleeves, with extra options such as an elbow patch and triangle patch at the neckline.

Recently, I won that amazing penguin fabric in the picture above, and really wanted to use it. I can't even tell you where it came from because the website has been closed down, but it's truly great fabric. The store is called Sew Much Fabric, but all the related websites say they are under construction or not loading up. I won this by winning a Nightgown sew along last winter.

This summer I finally got around to using this fabric, and made a pair of PJs for my twin boy. But of course, I had to make my girl something as well. So I ended up making 2 PJ sets for my boy and 1 set for my twin girl, and I love them. I used the Jolly Roger Raglan for the shirts, color blocked them because my panels weren't large enough, and used existing 3t shorts for a pattern for the PJ bottoms. I've sewn for the twins a few times since they were born, but this was the first time they were aware they were getting new clothes from mom. It was very exciting for them.

I have to say, I love it when I match up my stripes! Anyone else get that happy feeling when you realize what an awesome job you did? When all the time spent lining up the fabric really pays off?

P4P has recently been updating their patterns, and adding layering to their older patterns. I'm sure this one will be done soon. I only wish the original pattern had the PDF layers. I spent hours tracing all 16 sizes, but glad I did. I have used many of them over the last couple years.

You can find P4P at their website, on etsy, and on facebook. They have so many new releases for women, I think you'll fall in love! I love looking at them, buying them, and I'm sure one day I'll love making them for me as well!