Honeymoon Leopard Twill Pinafore

Over the last few months, I've been doing a lot of thinking about the fabric that lives in our stashes. A lot of the thoughts have become podcast episodes, including Fabric Goals for 2024, Seasonal Stash Organisation, and Sew the Precious with Stephanie Canada from Backroom Finds. I'm more convinced than ever that leaving our fabric sitting on a shelf or inside a tub or drawer, is an enormous waste. Participating in the Last Sewist Standing challenge led me to face some of my own long-term stash residents, and a clear out in advance of attending a fabric swap in London helped me address what I genuinely wanted, and what needed to be passed on to another sewer. 

Fabric:

I took my two oldest stash dwellers (and my pal Catherine!) to the London Fabric Destash Swap, and I have no regrets. The were both amazing quality, deadstock fabrics from Burberry that had been in my stash for about thirteen years. I'd used half of both of them and I just couldn't see myself using the rest. Well, with those lengths out of there, this length of leopard print twill took on the status of oldest stash dweller!

I bought about yard or so of this stretch twill from Mood Fabrics in New York during our honeymoon in 2012! I had a very Rockabilly-inspired look at the time, and I bought it with the intention of making a knee-length pencil skirt. However, soon after our return, I became pregnant, and that skirt never got made. I continued to enjoy the fabric, even as my personal style shifted away from Rockabilly, but the limited quantity made it tricky to find a use for it. 

(image source: L. F. Markey)

Pattern:

A couple of months ago, lightning eventually struck and the idea of a pinafore emerged! I'd recently had to declare my much-loved and often-worn black denim Cleo pinafore unwearable due to body changes, so I was missing a pinafore in my wardrobe. Then I saw an advert for the L. F. Markey dungarees pictured above, and found the shape of the bib really inspiring. So I unearthed my Tilly and the Buttons Cleo pattern pieces and drafted a new bib shape, and new pocket shape for it for good measure. 

The project: 

Cutting the pinafore from the limited fabric was a challenge. The leopard print fabric had two darker sections running parallel down the length of the fabric, and it required a bit of Tetris-ing to get the front pieces, back pieces, pockets and straps out of the fabric in a way that suited the darker and lighter parts of the design. The facings were cut from a remnant of dark blue stretch denim because there was no way to squeeze those out of the main fabric as well. 

I decided to alter how the garment was constructed. I wanted to future-proof this garment and make it as easy as possible to let it out if necessary as and when I change shape again. I learnt so much from making the two Sewing for Body Changes episodes (Part 1 and Part 2), and I've tried to apply those lessons where possible. During a mid-way fit session, it became clear that I had to take it in at the side seams a lot, so I now have very generous side seam allowances, which is great!

Thoughts:

I'm soooo happy that this pinafore now exists! I've worn it quite a bit since completion, and it's so nice to have the fabric on my body rather than in my stash. I figured out that that length of fabric has moved homes with us five times in those twelve years! I'm hoping it'll soften up a tiny bit through wear and washing, and I have no reason to suspect that it won't. 

Denim Leftovers Cleo

Here's a cute little pinafore that was not my intention to make. However, I have made it, and I'm very pleased that it exists. And even though I've already worn it several times, ridiculously, I feel weird about wearing it during Me-Made-May (and thus taking a photo of it), without having properly 'introduced it' here on my blog. Is that odd?! So, Ta da! Here it is and I now can go back to wearing it. 

When planning my broken twill denim Lander pants, I was a good girl and diligently bought the full quantity of fabric recommended (2.5m, FYI). However, after cutting them out, I found that if I were careful, I had enough fabric leftover to make another, adult-sized garment. My first thought was to make another Helen's Closet York pinafore (which I've made before), however I felt that this denim would be a bit thick for that one, so turned to the Tilly and the Buttons Cleo pattern for a classic denim pinafore style. 

You may or may not recall that I've used the Cleo pattern previously, with self-drafted pockets in a hefty black denim. I really love that pinafore and wear it a lot, but I took some lessons away from it and made some tweaks this time round. Firstly, I decided to make the shape slightly A-line from the hips downwards, and secondly I chose a length somewhere in between the options Tilly includes in her pattern. I think the length of my black version looks great, but I wouldn't feel comfortable in it without tights, and I predicted that it'd be more suitable for performing child-wrangling tasks with a slightly longer length hem. 

The last change I made was to draft a new pocket shape: partly because I had an itch to scratch in the form of a neatly topstitched, round-cornered patch pocket, and partly because I wanted to make mine a little different from the legion of Cleo pinafores out there in the world. 

Thoughts:

As I thoroughly stated in my denim Lander pants post, I REALLLLYYYYY love this broken twill denim. I'm thrilled that I could squeeze two garments out of the amount that I bought; this pinafore kind of feels like a freebie! However, I can't remember if I monkeyed with the side seams beyond making the shape more A-line, but this version feels looser than my black one. I'm not sure if I should summon the patience to unpick the facings around the side seams and bring it in a whisker, or if I should leave it 'future-proofed' against a little potential weight gain. I'm also not entirely sold on the length. Yes, it's more practical, but I do feel it looks more frumpy than the black version, and I'm 70% sure I should raise the length a little. What are your thoughts? But those are just some tweaks I need to consider, generally speaking I believe that this is a great garment, and, like with my Landers, I can't wait to see how the denim fades over time with wear and washing. 

Cleo Pinafore Bandwagon

Yep, I've jumped on board the Cleo pinafore bandwagon too. When TATB first released Cleo I liked it, but didn't really think it was my style and perhaps more suited to women in their 20's. Then I saw a million of them on Pinterest and elsewhere online, made and worn by lots of different ages, shapes and sizes of women, and I've loved every single one of them and they look great on everyone. 

Pattern:

I mentioned my Cleo crush to Tilly during a lunch we had together a few weeks before her little boy was born. Afterwards, she generously sent me a copy of the pattern and set of the dunagree clips. No excuse now; this was happening! 

Tilly was right: this is a quick and easy project. I love working with a well-behaved, stable, woven fabric like this pattern is designed for, and I really enjoy some careful, meditative topstitching. I slowed the process down and made life difficult for myself though, because, after a mid-project fitting, I decided it was a bit loose. I took it in about one size at the side seams and continued with the construction. When it was all finished except for the hem, I tried it on again and realised that somehow it was now too small! So I unpicked a lot of my careful topstitching (I had topstitched down the side seams to get them to lay flat), and salvaged as much of the side seams as possible, taking it back out about one size. Gah! 

Because I can never leave well alone, I decided to veer away from the original pattern by drafting an alternative front pocket shape. I had got the idea for these after seeing similar ones on a pinafore in Topshop; they are rectangular patch pockets with a slanted pocket opening. I'm really pleased with them, however I wished I'd stabilised the pocket opening with twill tape as I fear they will stretch out with use. 

Fabric:

I bought this incredible denim (called Super Black!) from Fabric Godmother during a visit to hang out with the Fabric Godmother herself, Josie. It's thick, strong, amazing quality, and VERY black. I pre-washed it using the old tennis-ball-in-the-washing-machine trick. I'll continue to wash it that way going forwards, but I'm pretty sure I could re-dye this pinafore easily if it starts to fade in a way that I'm not in to. 

Thoughts:

I really like the utility vibe of this garment. It's like a mum-uniform; I look ready for a long hard day at the childcare coal face. I'm pleased with the finish, and I'm even happy with the short length that I was initially unsure would look very good on me. However, I've only worn it once in the few weeks since I made it. I think that that's because the denim is still very stiff and I'm not used to wearing garments that don't have any stretch in them these days. I need to force myself to wear it a few times to soften it up and get used to the feel of it. 

What about you? Have you had to force yourself into wearing something you've made? Did you end up loving it?