Another Birthday Negroni in Japanese Cats




Hello!

How is your lockdown going? We're coping OK at Casa NorseOtter - definitely not going hell for leather in the productivity stakes but not completely overwhelmed either. We're lucky enough to both be employed and working from home - so for me my sewing has been very much focused on having a nice calm, mindful activity for the evenings when I have the energy (work is still surprisingly busy!) or the weekends. Definitely not a mask-making factory here - although I suppose I'd better get on it soon. For the time being we're just strictly keeping our distance and staying in.

My lockdown style is also somewhere in-between - I'm not bothered about doing my make-up but I don't own or have any interest in owning loungewear, so am still getting dressed pretty much as normal but using the staying at home scene as an excuse to indulge myself with all the novelty socks that would normally clash too much to get regular wear. Plus fabulous earrings in lieu of make-up!


If you've read through the preamble, thanks for sticking with me so far - I hope you're all doing OK too and managing to stay afloat. Today's sewing project is just a repeat pattern make - the Colette Negroni for my partner's birthday - so no new sewing insights really, other than how comforting I'm finding making repeats of my 'tried and true' patterns, and taking my time over making them well. I've now made this pattern three times for my partner, all birthday makes - see 2018, and 2016 editions - 2019 seems to be missing a blog post which I need to remedy as that was probably my best version!



There are a couple of things that I didn't manage as well as I could have in this make however - which is that I planned a beautifully pattern matched front, but in my complacency/ distraction accidentally matched to the edge of the seam allowance rather than the centre front, through the button and buttonhole line. This means the pattern is overlapped and two lovely cats get lost! Luckily they're the upside-down part of the print so all is not ruined, but it is annoying as I took my time to make it work but woefully miscalculated!



I also managed an accidental print duplication on the centre of the back yoke and the collar. I was trying to get as much full cat motif on each piece and didn't stop to consider how they'd look once sewn up together. I don't think I'd realised that I'd chosen exactly the same cat for them both either.  Next time I'll take my time to place these pieces together to sense-check the flow of the pattern before sewing up, as if I'd done this I probably would have used the other side of the collar, or cut a new one!


Anyway, these visual snafus aside I'm actually quite proud of the sewing on this one. It's a quilting cotton purchased a couple of years ago at Tomato in Tokyo's Nippori Fabric Town and I'm pleased to have used it! I actually have the same print with a more golden/mustard background that I bought for myself and am wondering about the best way to use it for some sickly-sweet twinning! I recently made another twinning outfit that maybe I'll post soon, once I get photos. Why is finding time to get photos still so hard, even in lockdown?


I followed the directions other than to leave off the flap on the chest pocket and only have the one - for a little visual interest I added a button and buttonhole. I also did topstitched French seams for the side rather than flat-felled as I find flat-felling a bit of a faff - although I did do it as instructed to attach the sleeves. I also understitched all around the facing just for the fun of it, but forgot that this would be visible with the fold back towards the convertible collar and had to unpick the visible stitches because they'd got a bit messy in trying to negotiate the corner. 

Plus I didn't have much pink thread left - this was the end of a spool left after making my Ruska knot dress which I made a year ago and have never blogged (I've actually made three!) so I had to do a little cheating and used grey thread for all the construction and pink just for topstitching and buttonholes. On the topstitched French seams at the sides I even had to use grey for the bobbin threads to eke out a little extra. Luckily it worked!


Well, that's about as much as I can say for this repeat make! I might have to look into using some other men's shirt patterns just for a bit of variety. I've also tried the Freesewing Simon Shirt (my version here - although this was hacked and I accidentally gave myself tiny seam allowances) which is a nice classic and customisable, and the Great British Sewing Bee Men's Shirt from the 2nd book which is really nice but had a big mistake with the sleeve drafting. I fixed it on the fly but it was my first ever time making a shirt so although it seems to have worked I'm not as confident to use that pattern again. I have a lovely pattern in July 2019 edition of Ottobre Magazine plus a couple from old Burda Style mags, but more recommendations always welcome!

I hope you're all well and coping OK, and managing to find a little happiness in sewing!

NorseOtter xx





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