Virginia made a fantastic summer outfit for her daughter by adding details to the Tribeca Knit Cami and Lisboa Walking Shorts patterns. Here she is talking about how she brought her vision to life.
As soon as the Liesl and Co spring patterns were released I loved them all immediately. I decided to make the Tribeca Cami and Lisboa Walking shorts for my teenage daughter as I am not a big shorts wearer unless the weather gets really hot.
For the Tribeca Cami I decided to use swim fabric from my stash to make a cami that could be worn with shorts, skirts or jeans or could also be worn for swimming and the beach.
I made no alterations to the sizing of the pattern choosing the size as per body measurements, however I did use woven swim elastic instead of the recommended clear elastic so it will last longer in chlorine and salt water.
I love the way the straps are sewn in this pattern; they lay so flat against the skin and don’t twist or turn. I found the shelf bra to be a bit short when sewn up for my daughter so I used smaller elastic in the hem and next time I will extend the length by about an inch.
I sewed the majority of the cami on my sewing machine using a stretch stitch and a double needle for the hem and only used my overlocker for the side seams.
I love the look of the finished cami. My daughter has also requested a cropped version for my next one. I am also going to make myself a couple of simple camas to wear under shirts or blouses for our winter.
I had been admiring lots of paper bag shorts with large fabric ties on Pinterest and I knew the Lisboa Walking shorts pattern would be the perfect pattern to sew something similar.
I found some orange cotton sateen from my fabric stash which perfectly matched my swim fabric and some matching quilting cotton for the ties.
To make the ties I cut 2 rectangles of fabric 6” x 36” and stitched them together on the short ends to make one long strip of fabric. I then folded and pinned this right sides together and trimmed each end at 45 degrees to make the angled end of the tie. I stitched the pinned edges together from one end of the tie to the other leaving a 3” gap in the middle for turning. Once sewn I trimmed the corners, turned out the tie to the right side and folded the opening under to match the rest of the seam. I then topstitched the tie, stitching closed the opening in the process.
I sewed up the shorts using the 3” inseam (as my teenager loves short shorts) as per the instructions except that I used french seams on the edges of the pockets. I really like using french seams whenever I can to give a lovely neat finish. I did contemplate sewing the side seams with flat felled seams but decided to keep it simple for my first pair.
I love how these shorts turned out and I will make many more, maybe even some longer ones for me once the weather in southern Tasmania warms up later in the year.
I think both the cami and the shorts were a hit with my daughter and she looks great wearing them and the fit is amazing.