Zero waste project 14: fitted shirt

Zero waste project 14: a fitted cropped shirt from a tessellating layout 😎

This one is a bit of a mashup. I own a shirt pattern I still haven’t made (Fibremood Aila), and while making @lizhaywood3754’s tessellated playsuit, I saw details in her pattern that would look nice as a shirt! The A-line shape, the curves at the hem and underarm, the back pleat… What if I combined it with elements of @birgittahelmersson’s zero waste jacket?

So when I accidentally bought 5 meters of this fun African wax fabric instead of the mirror I was meant to be shopping for, I decided to see if I could make the vision work. I started with the top of the playsuit pattern, then added collar, tab and cuff details from Birgitta’s workwear jacket. I added bust darts for shaping and for a high-low hem.

The first layout used more fabric than I thought was needed, so I redrew it based on another pattern in the book that I haven’t yet made: the tessellated coat dress. The shirt uses exactly 74x130cm of fabric for my body measurements.

As usual I made some cutting mistakes: somehow I mis-measured about 4cm length on the back yoke/sleeve, and about 6cm on the back width for the collar length. So that means the sleeves aren’t as loose as I’d planned (but they do have enough ease to be comfy) and the collar wasn’t long enough. Based on polls in my stories I chose to omit the collar fall and turn it into a scrunchie. I haven’t worn one of these since I was 10 but I love it!

After I tried it on early in the construction, I wanted to address the excessive fabric pooling around the shoulder/underarm/high bust. I laid my personal sloper on top, pinned a dart along the shoulder seam, and the pooling was drastically reduced! I’ll be doing that shoulder dart (or cut) everywhere now.

I’m so happy with this shirt and scrunchie I’ve even put a photo of my face in there! 😮 (might regret that). @withorwithoutice I’m doing my best dad on vacation pose in that photo 😂

#zerowastesewing #zerowastefashion #zerowasteshirt #petitesewing #youcanhackit #diyshirt