Floral Fifi for a Friend

Colleen, avert your eyes. Spoilers abound.

A good friend of mine is getting married in September and is have a mini-bachelorette/wedding shower next month. While I can't attend, I wanted to send a little gift... the other girls were joking that I should make her a hand-sewn lingerie set, or maybe a Saucy Safari get-up for our environment, travel and hiking loving friend.

While they were only kidding with me, I took it as a challenge to sew up some sassy underthings! A challenge that conveniently coincided with the Sewcialists lingerie month and the release of Tilly and the Buttons' new Fifi camisole and shorts pattern/boudoir set.

The Fifi pattern, despite its goofy name, was just too adorable to pass up... those pleats! Those cute little shorts! Just lovely.

For this Fifi set, I was originally thinking I would use my favorite silky, drapey fabric: rayon challis. Then I promptly chickened out, thinking that sewing rayon challis cut on the bias could be a nightmare. I opted for this pretty, super lightweight, floral cotton lawn from Japan. I bought it locally here in Bangkok at Hieng Yoo Huat.

Fifi was pretty delightful to sew. Tilly's instructions are thorough and nice to look at and the pattern itself went together rather quickly. Although I had been intimidated by the bias cut camisole, I found that part to be really easy. I think sewing the elastic waistband to the shorts was probably the most challenging part, and calling it "challenging" is really a stretch (har har, did ya see what I did there?!). The whole set is sewn with French seams, which makes it as lovely on the inside as is it on the outside.

I can't really say how the fit is on Fifi since I didn't make this set for myself, but I can say that it looks pretty damn cute:

Fingers crossed my friend likes it and it fits her!!! In the meantime, I'll just be over here, planning a Fifi set for myself...