Laura and carl – part 1
Fieldwork Patterns Katy Dress
Let’s introduce ourselves! We are Carl and Laura, from Sew Got This, a husband and wife sewing team from Aberdeen. We were delighted to see when Caroline and Fliss put out a request for guest bloggers and quickly applied for the July spot. July was a particularly special month as it’s our 5th wedding anniversary, what a nice way to celebrate!
We thought long and hard about what we were going to make for this guest blog spot – which is spilt over two parts – one for Carl and one for me!
We wanted to go with a company who had their own unique approach, while being modern and stylish. Also a paper pattern was helpful as we hadn’t been sewing for long and we weren’t familiar with PDF’s. We discovered Fieldwork Patterns (@fieldworkpatterns) during our search and contacted Sue.
Sue explained the patterns she had to offer and suggested the Katy Pinafore. The skill level is beginner with patch pockets and a cross over back detail. No fiddly fastenings and easy to construct. Sue kindly gifted us the pattern, which arrived a couple of days later in the post. Sue was very helpful and made sure she would be on hand when it came to constructing the pinafore, however the instructions included were detailed.
Fabric wise we always wanted to work with a corduroy and this pattern was perfect for this. So when we saw the beautiful babycord fabric we quickly messaged Caroline and Fliss to request this fabric – as it sells out quickly!! We picked the Bordeaux as it’s a versatile colour for summer and winter months, teamed up with a short or long sleeved t-shirt. The fabric was just as beautiful in person!
We cut our pattern using tracing paper for the size 12 option to fit a 40”hip with a 36.5” bust. This pattern now goes up to a size 20 for fit a 48” hip with a 44.5” bust. After discussions recently regarding sizing, Sue increased the size range and mentioned she is looking to increase her patters sizes further. Which is great news!
After the fabric was laundered we used our pattern to cut out the fabric – including the two pockets.
The first instruction listed was to construct the pockets and attach to the front of the pinafore. We used chalk to make the small dots to mark the pocket placement. We constructed the pockets and noticed the top fold over topstitch was different widths on each pocket. At this point we should have stopped and remade the pocket. However, we continued and attached the pocket to the front of the pinafore. After an evening of thinking how different it looked, we unpicked it and remade the pocket – measuring the correct width of fold and marking on the reverse with chalk – a very good tip and we are happy we re did the pocket to match the other one.
Once the pockets were attached and looking great we moved on to tidying up all the edges – except the hem edge. Neck and armhole edges were all topstitched and we pressed after to keep the edges neat and crease free.
It then came to the part when we constructed the pinafore starting with the shoulder seams – using a back stitch to secure and strengthen. We then moved onto the centre front seams, checking the straps were not twisted. The right sides were matched and pinned. At this point I tired the pinafore on before stitching to ensure the fit was correct and at the risk of sounding like Goldilocks it was tooooo big! The fit on either side was quite big and causing the front to gape. This was quite easy to fix and we pinned more of the material together. All sides were then stitched together.
The pinafore was tried on again for a final fit and to check the length for hemming. The length was perfect therefore we didn’t want to hem too much material making it any shorter. So a hem was pinned at 0.5” and carefully topstitched – it is suggested in the instructions to use a 1.5cm hem with a 1cm topstitch.
Overall this pattern and instructions were easy to follow and helped to produce a beautiful pinafore. The only modification we made was the hem length. Following the pocket instructions carefully regarding measurements is key to make the correct pockets first time around. The material from Felicity Fabrics was absolutely beautiful and would use this again. There is a vast selection of colours to choose from such as Choco, Dusty Blue, some embossed varieties and some are included in their fabric bundles.
This is the pinafore completed! As mentioned the fabric is perfect for both summer and winter months – two style photos can be found below for examples.
I’m wearing one of the girls scrunchies, she is only 12 years old and has a small business ❤️❤️❤️ You can check her page out below!
https://instagram.com/madewithlove_scrunchies?utm_medium=copy_link
Thank you so much Caroline and Fliss for giving myself and Carl the opportunity to blog for July. It was a great experience to work with such lovely fabric which was gifted in exchange for this guest blog spot.
Laura & Carl (Sew Got This on Instagram)
