Sorbetto and Prefontaine PJs: Cat Lady Sewing Challenge #1

When Erin at Miss Crayola Creepy announced The Cat Law Sewing Challenge, I was all at once feeling delighted, excited, and inspired about sewing with cat themed fabric, not to mention mildly embarrassed by those aforementioned feelings. I dove in headfirst, making two (well, three, really) garments for the challenge.  My two garments fall on either end of the cat-fabric spectrum.  Here's my first!

  

More Batik...

Buying batik is addictive, as is making the super-easy Sorbetto top and envelope-style pillowcases.

Here's a couple more pleat-less Sorbettos I made from some cool botanical batik I found:

And here are some pillowcases I made for our daybed.  One is made from the same piece of batik as the second top above, and one is actually made from 2 napkins I found that were just the right green for me:

Addicted

I am officially addicted to making the Sorbetto top.  It's foolproof. This time I made it without the center pleat to focus attention on my newly purchased hand-stamped batik fabric. 

I figured the batik was pretty appropriate for wearing around town, as it's the official uniform for most Jakartans, especially on Fridays (here they have batik Fridays instead of Hawaiian shirt/casual Fridays).  The amount of batik available in the city is overwhelming... so many patterns, styles, different qualities, patterns, colors, etc.  I shouldn't complain because it is absolutely beautiful, but it's almost hard to know where to start!  This piece I used for my Sorbetto is just indigo and white, which is pretty traditional, and I am pretty sure the pattern falls into the "parang" category.

I love the simplicity of the all-batik top, but I am also really tempted to modernize it a bit by adding a contrasting edge in a super bright color like orange or fluorescent yellow or something.  We'll see.  Maybe my next Sorbetto...

Sorbetto Top

After some success with my first clothes sewing project, I decided to tackle yet another downloadable pattern from the internet.  This one is a really cute, multipurpose, vintage-style pattern from the Coletterie that is free to download: the Sorbetto.   Super simple, universally flattering, work appropriate and yet cute enough to wear with jeans or shorts on the weekend, plus it's free!  How could I go wrong?

Turns out, it couldn't go wrong.  Very easy to make.  Very cute.

The hardest part by far with making my own bias tape to bind the neck and arms and then acttually sewing that tape on... I cannot say this was fun, but I'm glad I gave it a try.  I think it would be easier to get the tape to fold the right way if I had one of those little bias-tape maker doo-hickeys, but I used this pin-on-ironing-board method instead.  I think my main problem is that my fingers are just not dextrous enough to work with the thin, stretchy material- it was so fiddly.  Perhaps I'll improve in time, or perhaps I'll just buy pre-made bias tape instead ;-)

The only real changes I made was to lengthen it by about an inch and a half (I made a size 14, but used the size 18 length, plus a teeny bit more) and to top stitch the shoulder and side seams on both sides for additional strength.  I used the same fabric as this skirt I made Chuck last summer.

I think I'll definitely use this pattern again in the future.  Maybe I'll try the version with sleeves?  Maybe the plain-front version with no pleat?  So many options.  Definitely making a batik version, though.  I bought some beautiful hand stamped batik fabric that would look great as a Sorbetto top.