If You Sew It Together, It Goes Together

For years I've been sewing doll clothes with mixed prints.  I used to have a list of rules I'd use for choosing what print went with what other prints, but, sometimes, I'd notice two prints next to each other in the storage spaces and think they looked good together.  Whichever way, I always got compliments on the finished doll clothes.  (I used to sell a lot, before Etsy went evil, so the compliments were often backed up with purchases.)  So, eventually, my A #1 Rule For Mixing Prints became: If you sew it together, it goes together.

People might question separates of mixed prints, but, if the different prints are sewn together?  Who are they to question the designer?  Humans are all about pattern recognition, too, so they can find ways to make the prints coordinate, if they really want to think about it.

Now, another thing about my attitude toward mixing prints is this: if you can easily give a name to the entire class of one of the prints, then the brain parses it as A Whole Thing, and it might as well be a solid.  Stripes, checks/plaid/gingham/madras, dots, leopard print, camouflage.  But not florals (and I haven't quite figured out why)--florals, however, will easily mix with all of those others.

So, yeah, I'm sitting here now wearing a dress I sewed with a mix of a madras plaid and a Star Wars print and really feeling like it's not much of a pattern mixing achievement, because, pfft, "plaid" is neutral.

But, I wondered...could more aggressive print mixing work on a grown human, or is it something I should keep for dolls (and small children)?

So I made this

As far as I can tell, yeah, it does totally work.

Pink & Green Are Always In

Still working on getting over my Sewing Snobbery about thinking that simple construction is "below me."  Listen, Self--simple construction means fast, finished, and, for the most part, really really forgiving in fit.  Also, inasmuch as I barely pay attention to trendy style lines, it does certainly look like a lot of the popular indie patterns are aggressively simple, and I can find similar shapes in the stash of thrifted patterns I have (albeit, I'm sure, without the expert drafting that so often seems to go with reviews of the indie patterns.)

Which also means I have a lot of new (to me) patterns to try out, which means everything is going to be "wearable muslin" for a while.  I have downsized my fabric stash a bit, and I still have a lot of Precious pieces that I don't want to use unless I know exactly what I'm doing with them.  But, there are also the odd little bits that came from thrift store grab bags or that one DollPerson's destash--nice fabric, but not things that I feel like I have to "live up to."  You know what I mean, right?

So that's how I ended up using this pattern, Butterick 6470 from 1999, for the first time

to make this shirt

Checkered/Past In Action!

...sorta

The kiddo wore the shirt in the last post to school yesterday.  I didn't think to ask him to model it for me, but I was walking around with the camera (trying to get cat photos, of course)  and realized he had his perpetual hoodie* slopped down off of one shoulder so a contrast shoulder triangle was visible on the shirt so I snapped some pictures.  They were all blurry, of course--combination of low light, my refusal to use the flash (on-camera flashes offend me aesthetically, OK), and the fact that he never really stops moving.

Still, it's a record that the shirt was worn

*It's interesting to read his reaction in that post, because he's pretty much never taken it off since then.  It has been repaired many times, including putting decorative patches over holes in the front from pins, buttons, and badges he wore on it, and then interfacing the back of the front pieces and then sewing on a more stable woven, to help support the flair weight.  Despite the way it looks in the photo, the sleeve length is still fine, but the waist is getting a bit short.  I've downloaded and printed the free kids' hoodie pattern from Lekala, as well as thrifted a commercial pattern in the right size (just found that a few days ago.)  He's said the green hoodie is his brand, though, so he will only accept a replacement in the same color.  We'll see what I can find.

Also, the hair is entirely his choice, no matter how often we suggest that shorter hair will be less prone to knots...