Hey, Spring!

When I first moved from the northeastern US to the southeastern US, I noticed that no one said "Hello" or "Hi." Instead, people said "Hey." I think it's very southern. And now I say "Hey."

Hey, spring. I am grateful for spring this year, as I hope you are. It feels long-awaited after the year-plus of COVID. And I am loving color. Rich, saturated, vibrant color.

This ensemble jumped out of stash because I wanted color to fit the season. I have a number of other tops and bottoms that work well with these two pieces.

The top is the modified Liberty Shirt from the Sewing Workshop, a technique I first learned from Elaine of the Curvy Sewing Collective. 

Hers are primarily knit tees. My first version as a pull-over was in a rayon-wool boucle with some stretch. 

This fabric is mostly silk with a touch of lycra. I tend to avoid such combinations but, somehow, there it was in stash. Probably I could not resist the colors and pattern. They are glorious, aren't they?

The shirt is quite plain with a simple jewel neckline bound with bias-cut black silk dupioni, as are the sleeves. It fits over my head though a bit snugly. I may enlarge the neckline at some point, but it is not a struggle.

The angled front seams that create an uneven hemline are the best feature of this pattern, IMO. You can almost see the black piping I inserted using the same black silk dupioni. 

The pants are also made from stash fabric, a nice medium weight linen, the kind that rumples but does not wrinkle. That color in pants is a bit bold for me, as I tend towards black, navy, dark brown bottoms, but this had to be. 

Linda Lee mentioned that the Sewing Workshop's new jogger pants were drafted on the Kinenbi pants which, of course, I have in stash. I made them once.

I re-cut them to my new size and added fun pockets. 

The kinenbi pants have a cut-on waistband. I removed that and used a separate waistband. I prefer this method with most pull-on pants, because the waistband can be cut on the lengthwise grain. This makes insertion of the elastic much easier because there is no somewhat-bias cut edge to finagle. 

As I finished these, I noticed that the front of the Kinenbi pants is wider than the back. Evidently I did not notice that the other time I made these. It's a little strange so I double-checked the tissue. 

Yep, the front waist is more than an inch wider than the back.  I wonder if this was deliberate, perhaps done for stylistic reasons?

This does cause me to do some slight contortions to use my pockets, but it's OK. I probably won't use this pattern again for pull-on pants. From the Sewing Workshop line, I prefer the Quincy pants. But I do really like these pants. They are loose without being sloppy, I think.

This ensemble welcomes spring for me. How are you welcoming spring, if you are in the Northern Hemisphere, or autumn in the Southern Hemisphere?