I made this very snuggly and cosy shirtdress/jacket thingummy recently, the pattern is the new Fibremood Ildri … I think it is called a shirtdress, but it can obviously be cut shorter as a shirt or jacket too. btw, while it has a second version pictured here, when I got it the pattern only had the first, long version with covered button band..
I used a piece of quite fluffy, brushed cotton that I bought from the pyjama fabric section of Spotlight, several years ago now… and cut my dress as long as I was able!
The pattern is quite nice; with a self-faced yoke that I did with a burrito finish … such a nice finish. I can’t believe I used to hand stitch these down with most of the mens’ shirts I made back in the day, before I discovered it. The button band is hidden with an extra flap; I kinda like this but because my fabric is quite fluffy I worried for quite a while that it was going to be too thick to be workable. Fortunately it worked out just fine, but I agonised over this quite unnecessarily for much of the construction process. And is it even necessary to hide the button band? Is the button band ever so ugly that one feels the need to shut it out of sight like this? Why are we choosing such hideous buttons that we think; oh well, this should clearly not be seen by the general public! I’m a little unsure where I stand on this detail, that’s not even very visually interesting. Don’t mind me, just ranting for no good reason. I used press studs, which are not bulky and you can’t even see them because of the hidden button band anyway.
Anyway. I added side pockets, of course, as well as the breast pockets with flaps, that are in the pattern. The collar is quite a nice size, and sits well. The sleeves were a bit bland on their own, in my opinion, so I threaded a little elastic through a cuff to bring them in. I like having my sleeves shoved slouchily up to my elbow like this, I think it looks cool and it keeps the warmth in.
I cut the side edges in a curve, which is a small detail that I always like in a shirt/shirtdress. To be honest, it’s way too short for me to ever wear it as a standalone dress, so it will be more of a shirt/jacket in my own wardrobe. I do really like it though! We’ve had a very up and down start to spring this year, some days delightful, other days blustery and freezing… and it’s been lovely to have this cosy thing in rotation. For some reason, I think of black and white as being a very spring-time combination of colours to wear, and this fits in nicely.
To belt or not to belt? that is the question. This is how I wore it yesterday… I think I prefer it belted mostly, but this makes the pockets practically inaccessible… !
worn with:
my black stretch Burda jeans… and then self drafted mini, and one of my recent ivory merino Pinjarra tees
In maintenance news; I made this, in my opinion; really beautiful bra with 2 sets of matching knickers set several years ago, and white the bra is thankfully still in excellent shape, the foldover elastic on the knickers had given up the ghost. That’s thing about foldover elastic, it really does not have the stamina of others and doesn’t last very long. I think it’s ok to use it as an aesthetic choice, but remember that it’s not going to do such a good job in the long run.
Anyway, I decided to run up two new pairs of knickers to match the bra. Obviously I didn’t have any more of that pretty Liberty jersey, but I did have a big-enough remnant of reasonably well-matching blue jersey from which I managed to cut out two new pairs of Watson knickers. I cut out a few small flower motifs from the old Liberty knickers and hand stitched them on too, just for fun. This was a very small project, barely worth blogging really but I’m so happy with it! Sometimes small things can make you really happy.
My dear friend 
However.. modifications happened along the way. Of course they did. My dress has the same bones, but the original is actually a very boxy design, with quite a pronounced dropped shoulder. I’m sure it’s a lovely design for the right fabric; as in, something with plenty of natural “flop” that allows those shoulder seams to drop gracefully down over your upper arm.
