Getting Creative

I was so impressed with the first two New Look 6735 that I decided to get a little creative. Remember back when I used to babywear? I don't think I have any photos of this pouch sling, since I used it for only a short time. It was just too stretchy for a growing infant and I moved on to ring slings. I loved the wild print and knew it had to become something else. It only took 11 years. Yikes. I carefully unstitched the seams to maximize the width of the fabric. I held it up to me. It seemed like it would be wide enough.

I laid down the pattern pieces. Nope. Not going to work. The back was fine, but I didn't have enough to also put a seam on the centre front.

I thought about colour blocking. I wanted side panels. Colour blocking is popular, that shouldn't be hard to find info on. Everything I found was about horizontal blocking. I wanted vertical. In detail, I wanted to eliminate the side seam and use a wide side panel in a different fabric. Or, move the side seams inwards so they seamed to the panel, which had no centre seam.

I could not find anything on this. I did find some dresses with colour blocking on the sides, but they all had side seams still. I finally gave up and admitted I needed to have side seams. If the shirt didn't have any shaping, it would have been very easy to just use a side panel. But I couldn't work out the different curves.

I used some white wicking fabric from the cloth diaper sewing days. Nice and light.

I had a horrible problem with the back neck stretching out of shape and not recovering. It's also possible the pattern got shifted when I was cutting, I guess. I unstitched the neckband twice and took it in. It's still a little loose back there. Just got to wear my hair down!

Photo is before I adjusted the neck at all.
There is some rippling along the side seams. I probably did not adjust the feed dog setting.

I love the shirt as much as I loved the sling. The kids think it's a bit weird, but over all the shirt is okay, they say. Next time, I will make the side panels even bigger, so it looks more intentional. Maybe even try a princess seam...