THE DRAPERY BLOG

Francine is a top & dress pattern from British company Merchant & Mills' recently released Denim Collection . It's a stylish and simple take on a workwear style, 'inspired by the fishermen of Brittany'. For the purposes of a true-to-the-pattern shop sample I made a size 12 top with no alterations.  This size was chosen based on my previous experience with Merchant & Mills patterns, but my measurements would put me in a size 14. Not all Merchant & Mills patterns are quite so generous in ease, as I discovered! If I was making this specifically for my own wearing I'd have made a muslin first, so please bear in mind the fit comments below are not intended as criticisms of the pattern, but as observations that may be helpful to others who make it. The process I find Merchant & Mills instructions to be quite good, but often a bit different to methods I'm used to. I don't mind this, and quite enjoy surrendering to the process,...

Jane here! Grab a cuppa, or scroll on down. Musings ahead. Genetically, I was unlikely to ever be the willowy type. I'm 5ft3", decidedly pear-shaped and I've had an on-off relationship with a bit of extra plumpness most of my life. Last ten or so years, it's been more of an 'on' relationship. I'm mostly good with it. During my twenties I maintained a size 8-10 figure with quite some effort. If I knew I was going out for dinner, I'd often starve myself the whole day beforehand. Eat literally nothing. Maybe a few cups of tea. I lived alone for some time and maintained a fridge and pantry that contained pretty much two minute noodles, cheese and beer. Sometimes I'd have half a packet of noodles for lunch and the other half for tea. And I was riding my bike to and from work or walking or doing yoga. So yeah, I looked in good shape. But looking in good shape was a priority for me then and I'd hardly say I had a healthy relationship with food, l...

Of course our Spring Top series has to include our beloved Deer and Doe patterns. The  Ondée (pronounced more simply than we had imagined, as just ' on-dee ') knit top pattern has interested us for a while. Here are a few versions from the blog-world that have inspired us: Tassadit of Rue des Renards Clotilde and more Clotilde   The clincher for me was this yellow skirt I recently made, which has a higher waist than most other 'bottoms' in my wardrobe. Thus I found myself lacking in suitably short tops to wear with it. Could I really carry off a 'cropped' t-shirt? Well with just a few pattern pieces and a small amount of stash fabric I could give it a fairly low-risk try! Five Ondées later..... I suspected from the start I'd want to lengthen the Ondée, but for the sake of proper pattern reviewing I made a size 42 with no adjustments first. No-one really needs to see a photo of me wearing tha...

Oh Full Bust Adjustment, why did I not try you sooner? Thank you for all the lovely feedback on my previous post. It seems I'm not alone in my avoidance of the FBA issue, and that it was a helpful thing to share. If, like me, you are a pear-shape with a bra cup size greater than B, I highly, highly recommend you get onto the Full Bust Adjustment if you have not already. Of course, everyone's shape is unique and this may not work for you exactly as it has for me. However, even as a starting point for fitting, I've found it nothing short of a revelation. Here are the details of my second garment-with-FBA. The pattern: Simplicity 7530, from my, ahem, fairly extensive collection of vintage (mostly 1960s) patterns. Which just happened to be in my high bust measurement of 34 inches. Woot! And to think until recently I presumed I'd need a complete size grade-up to make this fit. The fabric: a fantastic mid-weight border print by Kokka of Japan. (Selling quickly so ...

Hello, it's Jane here with a rather long and introspective blog post! Those of you following The Drapery on Instagram will have seen that we were posting photos for 'Me Made May', an initiative started a few years ago by blogger Zoe of 'So, Zo... what do you know? '. Sewists pledge to wear 'me-made' clothes - as much as they wish to commit to - and document their outfits for the month of May. Now, I don't know how to link to Instagram since I'm not on there myself but if you are, you can look up The Drapery and have a peek. Warning: possibly TMI to follow Now, I'm kind of putting myself out there in this post and examining my body shape and probably providing Too Much Information, but I hope it's useful to sewists out there! Me Made May is a bit different to sewists posting pretty posed pics of their freshly-made garments. Not that there's anything wrong with that! But MMM shows what really is worn day-to-day, how it's w...