Working in Threes

When I was learning to play bridge from my mother, she said Once, Thrice, but never Twice. At least, I think she did. She was talking about the etiquette of shuffling cards of course.

Recently I've been working with a pattern three times before I'm ready to move on. This happens if it relatively simple and successful. Some patterns are definitely one and done. I won't name any but you know what I mean.

I just finished 3 Ogden camisoles, a pattern by True Bias. Such a lovely little pattern, deceptively simple, beautifully drafted.

I imagined myself drafting a camisole. It seems so very simple. But fit is everything in a camisole, IMO, especially if the cami is in a woven fabric. So, as usual, I decided I preferred to test a pattern over drafting my own.

The Ogden cami kept popping up on my IG feed. There are many versions of it out there, every body shape, and with numerous *hacks,* some I'm ready to try myself. Check these out!

For my first one, I used a thrifted man's shirt I had already deconstructed. This required that I add a center back seam and cut the facings cross grain. For fun, I added the pocket from the shirt to the lower front.

And I love the result. It is now my favorite hot-weather PJ top.

For this first one, I followed the excellent instructions fairly closely. 

I note a few features and characteristics of this basic camisole pattern by True Bias.

• The straps are fairly short, providing more modest coverage which I like.
• The straps are cut on grain giving them more stability.
• There are no bust darts. Instead the front hem is longer that the back with more *swing.* I think of it as rotating the darts to the lower hem and then releasing them. In fact, I may reverse this for a closer fit in a future version.
• It works great as a layer under a jacket. I probably won't wear it stand-alone outside of the house. I tried several things to cover the bra straps without much success.
• The front and back necklines are V-shaped, so pretty I think. 

Let's look at the shape of the front and back. You can see the *swing* I describe above, where darts could be placed.

And the back fits more closely to my body.

And now let's look at bra strap coverage. You can see in the picture above that, even though the straps are about 3/8" wide, they do provide some bra strap coverage, especially in the back. The front coverage is not quite as good. But it is darned close!

I'm thinking that some ladies would be OK with that. I might be one of those ladies. But first I tried to add some loops. My bra straps can be separated and I thought I might secure them by feeding them through these thread bars, right where the strap attaches to the bodice.

This first set of thread bars were too small for my bra straps so I removed them. This is just a PJ top anyway. 

For the purple linen version, I added larger thread bars. It worked OK but required that I thread the bra straps through the bars prior to putting the bra on. This meant some gymnastics to get into the bra-top combo. I have no pictures of that. You're welcome.

I wore the purple one to church with this Tabula Rasa linen jacket in a similar linen, and my striped cotton Urban pants.

When I returned from church and wiggled out of this bra-top arrangement, I found that the stress on the straps had caused one strap to fray where it attaches to the bodice. So I will be wearing these under jackets where it won't bother me to have bra straps showing.

The facing is just right. It stays in place with a little hand-stitch to the side seams and hardly shows on the next two versions of the Ogden - one in purple linen and one in gray linen. I chose to fully line the purple linen one in a navy cotton batiste. This did not change the construction at all. I think that a future Ogden will be layered by lining it with something longer than the outer layer. This would be fun in a semi-transparent fabric too.

I imagined I might improve upon the construction but learned otherwise when I constructed the third version in a gray linen remnant from stash. 

The straps are basted to the front piece prior to attaching the facing. Little slots are left behind for attaching the straps to the back piece in another pass through the sewing machine. You can see that here in the directions.

Because this is essentially sewing in a circle, I thought - why do it in two passes? I learned why. 

The straps are short enough to distort the *circle* making it nearly impossible to keep in place if sewn in one pass. And it's even more difficult to be certain the straps haven't twisted. Definitely not worth the trouble.

That's why I buy patterns.

The hem is a standard men's shirting technique, sort of a double fold baby hem. I made this third one from a remnant and I had to cut half of the front on the cross-grain. I like the center front seam but it did cause some distortion in the front hemline. I ended up cutting some bias strips of the striped fabric used on the facing to make a hem facing. 

I am finally pretty happy with it. It will be worn under another Tabula Rasa I made using Diane Ericson's Wing and a Prayer panel. 

Sweet pattern. I recommend it.