Maddie's By Hand London Sarah Shirt

Hi there sewing folks!

It’s Thimble Bee here again and this time my make is an absolute stunner, even if I do say so myself. For this project I chose to use the Mountain Gorilla Blue fabric and paired it with the By Hand London Sarah shirt pattern. I did this because I really wanted a pattern which matched the funkiness of the fabric and would let it speak for itself – but because it’s me I added a little peplum (I just couldn’t resist).

This fabric is a mid-weight cotton and the perfect thing for many projects, like dresses, tops, skirts and some home accessories. You can really get inventive with what you make with this fabric, have you guys got any ideas?

The colours of this fabric are what really attracted it to me, and then I saw the little gorilla’s faces and I knew I had to have some.

So I began sewing and let me tell you now, this fabric is AMAZING. I was super tired at one point but I had to get it done so I kept on sewing which lead to the inevitable – mistakes. Thus, the unpicker came out and I went at it with a vengeance, but after one steam on my iron all traces of my dodgy stitching had totally disappeared. It was that good that I actually tested a scrap just to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.

I had 2m of this fabric to play with but because the Sarah Shirt pieces are so wide I only had enough to make a cropped peplum one as I wanted long sleeves. I was slightly disappointed about not getting the length I originally intended but weirdly the finished length is the thing that made me fall in love with it (I think when I look at clothes I forget I’m only 5ft). I love where this top sits on me and I think it’ll be in regular wear with my jeans and denim skirts.

Another thing about this fabric is that after a two washes it has come out incredibly soft and seeing as it has an ever-so-slight bit of give in it, it’s a total secret pyjama top and SO comfy to wear.

But I do have to admit one thing, I totally cheated when it came to the button holes, which I do regret now, but I have been so emotionally scarred from my old machine when it came to button holes that I just couldn’t bear to maybe ruin this top too. So what I did was simply make sure there was enough room for my head to go over the top and then sew three buttons down the front to make it stay together. After my decision to forego the button holes I did test out how well they came out on the one scrap I had left and they worked like a dream (I’m telling you, this fabric is magic), so maybe I’ll go back and add some button holes at a later date.

So that’s it for now, I’m really happy with how my make has turned out, what do you guys think? And any of you know what you’d make with this fabric if you had some?