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A Birthday Cat Saraste Top

It’s my 45th birthday today!! It’s not been a great year, tbh, with a truly horrific last 6 months, but to quote my friend Louis de Pointe du Lac, “A shit life beats no life.” And maybe this birthday will mark the start of a fresh new year, eh?

If you’re a long-term reader, you’ll know that I always like to sew myself something special for my birthday. With gaining so much weight from Long Covid, I wanted to sew something that would fit me now and still fit me when I go back to my usual body size. The Named Saraste Top from their “Breaking the Pattern” book is one of my favourite ever patterns, so it was a natural choice. There’s mix and match pieces here that allow you to make a dress, shirt, or top with varying pieces. Here I used the body of the Top minus the ruffles, with the collar from the Shirt & Dress, and short sleeves from the Solina pattern.

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Wrap trouser FAIL

Yes, you may have judged from the title that this post does not have a happy ending, but I think it’s important to post about my fails – almost as important as posting about my successes. It’s been a while since I’ve had a project go straight into the donation pile without even hitting my wardrobe first, but it happens occasionally!

This started because I have gained a ton of weight over the past 6 months I’ve been suffering from Long Covid. Not only have I not been able to exercise, I’ve barely been able to sit up or walk 5min for most of this time, so my waist in particular has ballooned up by several sizes.

As a result, very few of my trousers still fit me, so I desperately needed to sew some more. And rather than sew some to a new, much bigger size which I don’t intend to stay in for long, I thought I’d try a pair of wrap trousers since they could adjust more easily with a changing waistline.

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A gold ribbed polo neck sweater

Sometimes my garments start with a pattern, and I buy the fabric afterwards for it. Other times, I think up an item I want to sew and find the pattern and fabric to match it. And sometimes I start with a fabric, and think about how I’d most like to wear it and find a pattern from there. This top is one of the latter.

I bought the “Old Gold” ribbed jersey from Like Sew Amazing (£19.50/m) and I originally thought I’d make a sleeveless tank with a high collar, but when it arrived it was SO SOFT and I knew it should instead be a polo neck (turtleneck) sweater instead.

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A Claudia tribute outfit – the black silk shirt

Earlier this week I talked about my inspiration and goals for this project, as well as taking a deep dive into the making of the cape, and today’s it’s time to talk about the shirt!

The shirt was the garment I could see the least details of in any of the reference photos or sketches, so it actually meant that I gave myself the most room to make what I wanted here, and one that I would want to wear again and again! I already had some beautiful textured black silk in my stash for a number of years, so it seemed the perfect opportunity to put that to good use.

Whenever I need a woven, button-down shirt these days, I tend to reach for the “Saraste” pattern from Named’s first book, “Breaking the Pattern”. I’ve made the dress version twice now, and the swing top once (with another planned), but I’d somehow not made the classic long sleeved shirt yet. One nice detail I love about the sleeve pattern is that they’ve shifted the long seam so that it falls at the side of the arm rather than the underarm. It means you can just fold the seam allowances under rather than faff around with sewing a full sleeve placket, making it much quicker to sew.

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A Claudia tribute outfit – inspiration & finished set

It’s been years since I’ve had a reason to sew something for Halloween. I’m pretty sure the last time was when I made the badger and fox suits for J and myself, and that was 6 years ago. So when I found out we’d be in Cornwall over Halloween AND there was a local outdoor fancy dress party, I started plotting. And when a friend said she’d be hosting a vampire party on Halloween weekend, I really got down to some serious planning.

You’ll already be aware from my tribute teeshirts how much I adore the recent “Interview with the Vampire” tv show (Brits, it’s on iPlayer now!), so my immediate thought was to try and recreate one of the vintage costumes from it. The first season takes place from 1910-1940 but the main female character, Claudia, is introduced in the 4th episode and spans 1920-1940. Unfortunately, for a good portion of that she’s dressed pretty juvenile, so those early outfits really didn’t appeal.

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A fun knit bat dress

I’ve done a bit of impulse fabric shopping while I’ve been stuck in bed (no jury would convict), but the one that’s had the shortest stay in my stash has been this bat print jersey. I saw it on a few Instagram accounts but then ended up buying some when it was nearly sold out everywhere! It’s Art Gallery Fabrics “Winging It” (95% cotton 5% elastane), and I bought my 1.9m remnant from Sew Sew Sew for £27 total (now sold out pretty much everywhere!).

The fabric is super soft with great stretch and recovery, but has some white show-through when stretched. It’s also a dark grey rather than a black so it looks a bit washed out even brand new…

I decided to pair it with the Named Tuuli (bodysuit and dress) pattern which I bought a few years ago, possibly in one of their great advent calendar sales(?) but never quite got around to sewing. IMHO this is a criminally overlooked pattern and such a wonderfully flattering winter knit dress!

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Sage green Aina trousers

In amongst the absolute frenzy of pattern sample sewing (the trisuit pattern is with testers now, for an estimated mid-June release!), I managed to squeeze in a small amount of Non-Work Sewing! Woohoo!

I’ve been wanting to sew the Named Aina trousers ever since they were released – I’m pretty sure I even bought the pattern on release day! I love that they appear to be a standard jean-like trouser from the front, but in the back they’ve got a half-elastic waist and tabs that extend around from the front to snaps. It means they still look like normal trousers, but have some elevated details.

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Another golden Saraste shirtdress

When I first made the Saraste pattern from Named’s “Breaking the Pattern” book back in 2019, I had no idea how much I’d enjoy wearing it. I don’t usually wear casual dresses, to be honest, let alone ones with such a long hemline or that button up so modestly. But it turns out that I really enjoy wearing it – so much so that I wanted another dress (remember that I also made the top version last summer)!

So when I saw this beautiful rayon at Like Sew Amazing with its shades of yellow, blue, green, and white abstract flowers, I knew it’d be perfect for another shirtdress (as an aside, this was marked as “deadstock” at LSA but it’s also for sale at Textile Express so I don’t know if their supplier is stretching the truth or what??).