Making 'The Mary White' a Sailor collar top

Hello and it’s a dressmaking post today. Summer is here and though I confess I am more of a winter girl, and clothes are always a tough call as you get older (I have written about this before here) I need to rethink my holiday wardrobe. My mum used to make sundresses for holiday wear and I remember her buying the fabric and making up the same pattern in different colourways and she always looked lovely. A reluctant dressmaker, I do drag my heels with all my ideas on this front, but this project in particular, has been lurking quietly in a basket on my cutting table for some months. I bought this pattern from Merchant & Mills, the instant I saw it because I just love Sailor collar shirts. I was a devotee of Laura Ashley in the early 1980’s and even though the dress pictured above is from 1982, it remains, the most favourite dress that I ever owned and sometimes I wish I could get it framed to hang on the wall in the sewing room!

This pattern seems like a more modern take on that style, but then I fell into a quandry with the whole idea. Lady Di, the 80’s, Laura Ashley…it was a long time ago and I am certainly not 20 anymore and what on earth was I thinking….but then again….I spend quite a few lazy Sunday mornings looking at my japanese dressmaking books and sailor collars always feature and sometimes they are beautifully embroidered and that would definitely be something I could do. I tossed and turned the idea around and then suddenly thought, what the hell. If you love something what’s the harm in just seeing if I could make it and if it would suit me. After my last few dressmaking endeavours, I determined to take my time, make a toile and do it properly. It was so worth it! There was a lot to learn and consider and quite a few difficulties encountered. I used some fabric from a bolt end of essex linen for a try out.

Because I don’t have an overlocker and like to do French seams to encase all the raw edges, I always cut it a size larger than I think I will need to give me some leeway. This time though it did come up rather large, so for the next version I will size down. The sailor collar, which I thought would be the tricky bit was easy, but the centre front where it all joins together was very confusing. I simply couldn’t figure it out the pattern instructions and started googling and looking around for some help. I did find a lovely post by The Drapery in Australia, which I will link to at the bottom, which not only mirrored my problem so you might want to see this if you consider making up the pattern. However, despite this, I still couldn’t see quite how to do it. In the end fudged it and was very unhappy with the finish on that front seam and how it looked. Otherwise it was quite quick to sew up and when I slipped it on, I knew that I liked the pattern immediately.

It is definitely going to be one that you have to select your fabrics carefully, especially at my age (a new ‘60’) but it was actually very flattering. I am not tall or slim, so a boxy fit is good. The collar is quite elegant and as a casual top, it looks way more stylish than a t-shirt. However, I knew that somehow it wasn’t correctly made at the front and needed some advice from a friend with a bit of expert knowledge. She kindly agreed to come and help me with the next attempt.

This time I picked some interesting fabrics from my stash. I had some teal coloured linen fabric and by coincidence a gorgeous piece of printed fabric that just co-ordinated perfectly and I thought would be great for the collar to add a little interest. I am quite interested in photography and recently completed a course at a local college and having been wondering what to make with this charming piece of retro fabric, it was definitely the moment.

Once cut out, I began stitching to the point that I was stuck at before and my friend Chris came over for the day to try to unravel my confusion. She was also at a loss. I am a little surprised at Merchant & Mills because the patterns I have made before have been excellent, but here the instructions are lacking something. We huffed and puffed over it all afternoon and in the end, I gave up and plonked the whole project in heap on my cutting table in despair!

Then two things happened. Sewing Bee started on the BBC and a spell of exceptionally hot weather lead us to take a spontaneous break at the british seaside for a few days. The Sewing Bee always fires me up to have a go at things, but a few days watching the rather alarming fashion parade at the british seaside was enough to send me almost running to my sewing room. I couldn’t believe how scruffy and unflattering most people looked! For me, Lycra and leggings are for the gym, cleaning days or sick days. Seriously, very few people have either the figure or the accompanying items of clothing to make stretchy, tight fighting garments look good. When you look back at old photographs of the promenades in days gone by, people look so much better - what will future generations make of what is paraded today?!? Maybe they won’t care, but actually I felt like I needed to think about a summer wardrobe and make somethings that are both comfortable and age appropriate. As it happened, the seaside resort we were at, had a department store, once upon a time and my grandfather was the general manager in the late 1950’s. It was before I was born, but from what I can gather, it was an elegant and upmarket shop where people purchased summer dresses, straw hats, gloves, silk scarves and matching bags for their evening stroll along the front. What ever happened to that? Anyhow, enough ranting and back to the sewing room. I came home with notes on what I thought constituted a holiday weekend wardrobe and plans to make it, with, not least, my linen sailor top first on the list. I set to work. This time, I decided to use the inspiration provided by the Sewing Bee and just improvise. I made a placket to go down the front of the top and join the two pieces together. It worked wonderfully.

After trying to decide whether to add the tab at the base of the sailor collar or faux buttons or embroidery, I finally decided on adding a tab in the matching print and little designer label with a tiny camera embroidered on it from Yumiko Huguchi’s wonderful book ‘Stitch of Season’ and decorative stitching around the bottom to sort of add a ghostly feel of a sailor top.

Honestly I am over the moon with this. It looks great with cropped black jeans, but I fancy making some wide leg linen trousers would be good too, I think, or even some capri pants with buttons up the side. It is comfortable and interesting and easy to just pop over a camisole. It matches one of my favourite pieces from Cecile at Tiki in Brighton (link at the bottom) and I feel all ready to go off in search of interesting places for photography. If you are interested, the camera bag that I made in the photo is also on my blog with the link below.

I am on a mission now to make some more things, so I hope you will pop back soon to see how it goes. I might even make the dress version of this in something more drapes and maybe with an embroidered collar.

Useful links:

Merchant & Mills : you can buy the pattern here

Pattern Review by The drapery is here

Tiki Brighton : Retro bangle from here

My blog post on the Ansel Camera Bag is here