Oh Mizrahi, what an elegant one we have here! (Re the blouse) And oh, what a miss with the shorts.

I snagged this pattern in one of the Facebook groups keeping me on Facebook, the “COSPLAY & CURRENT SEWING PATTERN AUCTION PARLOR”. Love me some designer 90s patterns. Actually as soon as it arrived I wanted to make it up, particularly the blouse, and had the shorts worked out I was toying with a linen shorts suit set.

The linen is courtesy a local weaver, Emily Hitz, who i met through her wonderful Craft School YXE. She had these bedsheets that were ripping on her that she thought I might be able to use, and I thought so too, as long as I didn’t make anything too fitted. Which, who’s doing that with their linens in the first place?

The blouse

The construction of this shirt actually surprised me in that delightful way that keeps me interested in trying designer and vintage patterns - the surprise may be pedestrian to you, but truly it’s a drafting detail that it took assembling completely to understand for me.

The two fronts have weird rectangular bits at the top that get sewn together. Like so.

Then you sew in the completely normally shaped back piece into the resulting rectangle. As a spoiler, this is effectively a grown on band at the front neck. My insertion was not bad at the right angles, but of course, as happens frequently, I was foiled here by following the instructions, though I know better by now - like so many of these patterns: it has you stay stitch the corner, clip to the seamline, then sew the pieces together, which I think always results in a messier join than stay stitch, sew to corner, move your work, clip partway, sew the rest, clip the rest of the way. If that makes any sense.

Then you turn the front edge back to form a clean band at the front and topstitch the whole way down. Because I still didn’t see quite what the steps were driving at, this part is not the prettiest along the back neck, but done properly it would be a beautiful, elegant finish. And given how much difficulty I had capturing the front band in photos, I suspect the back neck bit is totally imperceptible when worn. Would be nice to nail though, right?

The entire blouse construction had a simple and elegant feel to it, with nice built in finishes. To contrast with my zig zagged seams because I wasn’t sure how this would fit and didn’t want to commit to a fell or a french anywhere. I even liked now the ties were added! (though i grabbed some way too stiff ribbon for this, and if I tie it too securely it irritates a mole I have right at tie height)

The pattern is graded down one size, using ye old extrapolate from nesting technique.

My only deviations from the pattern that I can think of are as follows: I added an additional snap at the bustline, which honestly might not be enough security still, and i reinforced all snaps with a bit of extra fabric, where the pattern has you only do so to the one on the body of the shirt. I also discovered that I sew on snaps for shit, and had to redo three of them they just came loose so fast.

The shorts

…. look like pyjamas. Possibly more when they are less wrinkly. It was extremely PJ town when I used an actual ribbon to cinch the waist. Granted, it was pink, but the real issue came from how perky and upright the bow was done that way. I replaced the ribbon with a poorly zig-zagged length of linen from the scrap box and that somewhat improved the situation, but we’re still working with PJ shorts ultimately.

I had expected more of a paper bag look from the illustration and keep wondering if I could make it happen, but I don’t think it’s in the cards. At least if I do retire these from shorts duty they’ll be fine pyjamas, which I actually probably need.

But the real problem is proportion - these just have the ease of a pyjama short, at least in a soft fabric like bedsheet linen. They’re too wide, too boxy.

I really would like, as seems to be the case every year, to get a few more shorts in my arsenal, and I had hoped that these might even fit the wearable to office bill (on a day where one didn’t have external meetings). It looks as if that desire-need will continue, and given that there is plenty more bedsheet linen to work with, I have at least one other pattern in mine to give a go.

Zero-Waste dreaming

So before I determined that I’m not a fan of the shorts as made, I started playing with the idea of a zero waste iteration based on these shorts. The idea could still work, I think, but I’m not about to go build it, not even being fond of the original shape.

Basically the thought was that you could flatten out the side seams, then use part of the crotch region to form your waistline casing, and the rest to form patch pockets. There would be little leftover bits where the fronts and backs met on the fabric, which could either be used as unconventional belt loops (go elastic waist) or as pocket flaps.

Pattern: Vogue 2626 (Isaac Mizrahi)
Size made: Top - graded down to 12, Shorts - 16
My measurements: 35 bust, 30 waist, 39 hips
Fabric: linen bedsheets gifted to me by Emily Hitz
Next time: I wouldn’t change a thing on the top, except to nail the corner turns. For the shorts, I’m finding I’m fond of the inseam pocket insertion technique used on this pattern that has you sew the pocket bags together after the side seams etc, but then of course you can’t french seam them. Or can you? Gotta give that some thought.