Sewing a Renfrew!

It was so exciting just before Christmas - I won a giveaway! It was my first ever giveaway win and it was an amazing one: Josie over at Fabric Godmother was giving away a copy of the Sewaholic Renfrew pattern and some beautiful Roma Jersey fabric. And you have to check out Dinky Bo - the rabbit that chose lucky ol' me: he's my favouritest bunny in the whole world!!!!!

My parcel arrived very quickly and there was sooo much fabric. I was in heaven! It was my first experience of Roma Jersey and I have to say it is a beautiful fabric: it has a good feel, drape and weight - I'm not sure that it would have been possible to have sewn anything bad with it! It's perfect for winter tops and I think it would probably make a nice skirt as well.

Anyway, enough of my fabric gushing, on to the Renfrew! For the first time, I traced the pattern instead of cutting it out....in the past I've made alterations and rely on written notes for next time, whereas if I can alter the pattern pieces it will probably lead to a lot less mistakes! I traced straight onto greaseproof paper, and it worked really well, although possibly I could have used more professional pattern weights....!!!!


The pattern instructions were very easy to follow. The only bit I was a little confused with initially was the need for stay-tape as I've never used it before. Thankfully I found this blog post which covered everything I needed to know! I couldn't find any stay-tape at my local haberdashers so used a fabric selvedge which I sewed in as per the instructions.


I zig-zagged over the edge of the selvedge and fray-stopped over the bottom edge for added security


For now the shoulder seams don't have any give, so I guess only time will tell as to how hard-wearing the selvedges will be. And in the meantime I'll keep an eye out for some stay tape for when I next need it!

So, would you like to see it?! Here we go - ta dah!


And the back. The collar takes a little bit of adjusting to get right, and as you can see it's a little bit skewiff here!


And a close up of the cowl neck and shoulder seams. I have to say I'm pretty chuffed with my top-stitching there...


And the sleeve. This is the only thing that I think I might go back and modify - it just feels a bit too loose given the fit of the top, so I may go back and redo this at some point...grading it down a size from the elbow to the wrist and redoing the cuff a size smaller would fix the problem I think.



So, details

Pattern - Sewaholic Renfrew
Fabric - Roma Jersey, Forest Marl
Size - 6
Mods - none!

It was such a great top to make and I'm so happy with the fit. It feels perfect! I cut quite economically from the fabric and think I might even be able to squeeze a shorter sleeved version for spring!

This was my first time using a Sewaholic pattern and I will certainly be trying out some of there others. I am really tempted by the Minoru Jacket - if it fits half as well as the Renfrew I think I would wear it constantly! I might need to get a bit more dress-making under my belt though I think!

Thank you so much Josie!

S x

Todays sky ● this afternoon there was blue sky. Whoo hoo!!!!!

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