A Sleeveless Class Picnic (with mistakes and shoddy sewing!)

I made this little outfit for Elsie back in April during the spring KCW. Obviously, that was a long time ago, and at this point I almost decided to just skip blogging it. But I changed my mind about that because:

 a) It's a pretty cute and easy modification to the Oliver & S Class Picnic top, b) It has some shoddy sewing that you should probably see, and c) It's kind of interesting to see the clothes blogged after lots of wearing instead of in their normal new and pristine state. 

First the changes to the pattern. As you can see, I left off the quarter-length sleeves on the top all together. I sewed up the front and back yokes with their facings like normal, but then I just sewed thin bias tape around the arm holes with lots of extra inches to make cute shoulder ties. I also took in the side seams about half an inch just to make sure the armpits didn't gape too much. The shorts are sewn according to the pattern  (Cutest shorts pattern ever, for sure.) Simple as can be and perfect for summer. You can see last year's version of this outfit here. 

So now let's get to the good stuff that makes you feel better about your sewing imperfections, K? Here you can see on the back that my bias tape tie doesn't cover the entire raw edge and it's visibly frayed. I really should have made the tape a little wider, or just sewn it on more carefully. I even picked the seam out once and tried to sew it on again to cover, but I guess it didn't take. It happens. My home sewn clothes aren't always completely perfect and I think that's probably good to show you! It's still a super cute top on her and no one can notice the fraying under those ties. 

The other problem with my frenzied KCW sewing showed up after washing these shorts a couple times. For the gray denim, I cut up an old pair of my husband's jeans. Then I picked out the trim from my stack of fat quarters on the shelf, which are not pre-washed. I usually pre-wash any larger cut of fabric that I'm going to use for garments, but I don't wash my quilting stash. But I was impatient. Between not being pre-shrunk, and being much lighter in weight than the heavy denim, you can see how the trim got all scrunched up and turned up the wrong side of the denim so it's visible. Again, not ideal, but they are still cute shorts that she wears all the time. It happens.

Both pieces are size 2, and you can get this pattern in paper or pdf versions. The fabric on the top is Lizzy House's Hello Pilgrim and the trim on the shorts are her Pearl Bracelets. (PB's I can't quit you!)

Moral: you are good at sewing. Don't sweat the small stuff.