Sewing a Nightshirt from a Thrifted Texmade Ibex Bedsheet

Since I've started obsessively thrifting I have a new joy for sewing and embroidery. This was my first full circle project that started with me getting giddy in a thrift store about a Texmade Ibex bed sheet that brought me right back to my childhood. I love that feeling of nostalgia I get in thrift stores, but the sheet had so many holes and stains that I just enjoyed the memories that seeing it brought me, and then carried on my way. As I worked my way through the rest of the thrift store I just could not stop thinking about it. When I was younger my siblings and I had these same flannel bedsheets (in a different colour way) and we also had matching pyjamas made out of the same striped flannel. On top of that my teddy bear even had matching pyjamas! So when I got the idea to turn this damaged sheet into an adult version of those pyjamas I basically ran back to the linen department of the thrift store to scoop it up.

This nightshirt wasn't exactly on my list of things to make for the upcoming season, or for my home, but it was just such a fun idea in my head that it got bumped to the front of my project queue and I've been working on it almost non-stop for the last month. I wanted to make it really special with some embroidery on the front pocket and the edges finished with the same blanket stitch that the sheet edges are finished with. I'm using a vintage sewing pattern here that I found on Etsy: Butterick 6885. It's a unisex pattern for a nightshirt and pants. After cutting out the pieces for the nightshirt it looks like I might have enough leftover to make some shorts, but anyways that will be a later project, I usually just sleep in a nightshirt anyways.

For the pocket piece I cut it in a way that would be mostly blank fabric with just a bit of the stripe running along the top. I needed a blank canvas for the embroidery but I still wanted it to tie in nicely with the stripes on the shirt. I used an embroidery pattern by Sarah K. Benning called Summer Flowers. It's not available currently on her website but a couple times a year she will do a re-release of all her old embroidery patterns. It was a pretty fiddly embroidery pattern but my main frustration with it was that I just could not get the pattern transferred onto the fabric. Usually to transfer patterns I just trace them with pencil or use some graphite transfer paper, but the flannel was too fluffy for this and it was so hard to get even the most basic shape of the flowers down. So basically I ended up just eyeballing it flower by flower which worked well enough. Next time I work with flannel I'm going to buy some of that paper that you print the pattern onto, embroider, and then it dissolves away in water. There was also a lot of outlining on this pattern but I actually loved that and found it very relaxing.

Once I had the embroidery done I could cut out the pocket piece and start assembling the night shirt. Attaching the pocket is the first step of the pattern so I couldn't start the until the embroidery was done. The shirt came together very fast, only slowed down by the fact that I wanted to do so much hand-stitching on it. I used a closed blanket stitch to attach the pocket and hem the bottom of the shirt, and I used chain stitch around the collar and the sleeve cuffs. I am so happy with this nightshirt, it almost feels too beautiful to wear to bed.

Making this just really made me so enthusiastic about all the possibilities there are when it comes to thrifting. I would have never thought to make something like this if I hadn't seen the sheet and got the inspiration from that first. Another section in the thrift store that I've been getting a lot of inspiration from is the table linens. There are often such beautiful hand embroidered napkins and tablecloths. Sometimes stained from years of families gathering and enjoying meals, but if cut the right way could be made into summer dresses, camisoles (something like my Wattlebird Cami), and baby clothes. Anyways, now back to my list of things I would actually like to have done by summer! I would like to sew a couple more lightweight summer dresses and I have a wedding dress I need to start planning as well!

Some more posts for you to check out:

Butterick 6250: Whimsical Vintage Cotton Pyjamas

The plan was that these pyjamas were going to be a mock-up. Sewn up in an inexpensive lightweight white cotton this first time, as my final vision for these includes tediously hand embroidered fabric, naturally dyed silk or cotton lawn, and potentially some handmade lace trim. Considering how time consuming all that will be I decided to use this mock-up to practice as much as I could: hand stitched silk buttonholes, hand-felled seams, and very careful stitching on the hems and pin tucks. I'm so happy I did all this. This mock-up turned out to be such a lovely, whimsical set of pyjamas. I probably cut a size too big for the shorts but they work in this lightweight cotton and they just are so floof-y and wonderful to prance around the house in. I also feel like I always learn so much from hand stitching, and I never regret using every excuse to practice.

The cami is much more involved than the shorts, which are just done with an elastic waist. Pin tucks always make me a little nervous (if you aren't precise with them you can really alter the fit of the garment), but ultimately sewing from a pattern is just working your way through each step. So what looks daunting is always simple once you break it down. I added a silk ribbon to the casing which makes these pyjamas so feminine, I always love when a garment defines my waist. This mock-up turned out to be such a romantic set, and I'm eager to make it up again with even more special material.

Some links that might be helpful:

lightweight organic cotton: Maiwa

delicate cotton lace: Cotton Lace

vintage sewing pattern: Butterick 6250

A Vintage Pattern and the Three Day Cardigan

Drawing sketches of my garment plans and then bringing them to life is still new to me but I love how it turns the process of making my clothes into what feels like a purposeful story. Each project starts to take on its own narrative in my head and finishing becomes so exciting as all the elements start to come together. I first did a sketch for my Wattlebird Cami + Fawn Skirt combo and I'm hoping this habit will become the prevailing practice for me.

The Three Day Cardigan by Plystre Knitwear has been on my mind for some time now because I thought if I loved the fit, it could become a pattern I knit up in multiple colours. I also really thought I might be able to knit an entire cardigan in three days (we may as well note here that was absolutely not the case). I ordered some yellow yarn from Knitting for Olive and while I waited for that to come in the mail I did the quick watercolour sketch of the cardigan paired with a wool skirt that I just started sewing.

I've been getting some sewing inspiration from browsing Etsy for vintage patterns and then starting to plan from there. This wool skirt is from a 1940's pattern which is so simple but still has some beautiful details. It did take me 2 mock-ups to fit before I could cut into the wool and make the real skirt, but that's also because I'm still fairly new to altering patterns to fit me, so the adjustments I make to patterns don't always work perfectly the first time. Anyways this skirt became such a special project to me because I put so much care and attention into the details. The lining is a pomegranate dyed silk habotai fabric, the linen yoke facing is from that same dye, the wood buttons up the back were very carefully considered, and the linen bias tape as a hem facing looks so professionally finished to me. This skirt had so many tiny little hand finishing stitches put into it to make it look polished on both the outside and the inside.

Eventually my intention is to add some floral wool embroidery to the cardigan but I'm holding off because I'm still undecided on the colour. The cardigan is knit up using Knitting for Olive Pure Silk in Quince and their Soft Silk Mohair in Marshmallow Yellow, and I think these two colours together create a tone that just doesn't complement my skin. So while I love the idea of a soft butter yellow fitted cardigan, this particular one might get a dip in a dye bath before I add the embroidery. Still undecided, but for now I will try to wear these pieces as often as I can before spring arrives and wool skirts and fuzzy cardigans become impractical.

Links for cardigan resources:

Pattern: Three Day Cardigan by Warunee Bolstad

Yarn: Knitting for Olive Pure Silk in Quince

Yarn: Knitting for Olive Soft Silk Mohair in Marshmallow Yellow

Links for wool skirt resources:

Pattern: A lucky find from Etsy

Wool: Atex Designer Fabrics

Lining: 8mm silk habotai from Maiwa

Dye: ground pomegranate rind from Maiwa

Read about my experience dying with pomegranate here.

Naturally Dyed & Quilted Pillow Covers

Just a quick post here to share some pictures of the throw pillows I made for my couch. The monochromatic yellow on yellow comes from ground pomegranate rinds (I shared this dye project with you here). The cotton Sashiko thread dyed a couple shades lighter then the linen fabric so the running stitches on the pillow still stand out, and I'm really happy with the texture that the stitches give as well. These were pretty easy to make construction-wise, but the running stitches did take ages and I like to hand finish my binding as well.

I wanted to make two pillows so altogether I needed four squares of quilted fabric. For each quilted square I cut a piece of cotton muslin, a piece of cotton batting and a piece of the dyed yellow fabric, then I quilt those three layers together with the cotton Sashiko thread. Two quilted squares are sewn together along three sides, and then I bound all raw edges with straight-cut binding. The pillows are closed with sew-on snaps along the side that was not sewn together, that way the pillow inserts can be removed and the covers can be washed. Since taking these photos they've been washed and because all the fabrics used were pre-washed the pillow covers washed beautifully.

Summer Dye Experiments: Sequoia, Madder, Marigold & Cutch

With this batch of natural dye experiments I wanted to finish with more than a pile of colourful swatches and trims to add to my stash, so I decided the theme of this dye weekend would be to make a table setting for a late summer dinner party. I thought along side that I could make a set of tea towels for the kitchen, and the napkins I made would be a smaller "everyday" style napkin that could be used instead of paper napkins when eating all of our meals at home. So a table cloth, tea towels, and napkins was the plan, and of course a pile of swatches to add to my stash because why not throw any extra bits of fabric in when you have the dye pot going.

So before I even got started with the dyeing I had to make the things I wanted to dye. The table cloth I made by hemming two large pieces of linen and then adding buttons and buttonholes, which allowed the pole of our umbrella to come up through the two pieces. And then 16 tea towels and 16 napkins took me a couple weeks to finish, following the metered corner tutorial from Purl Soho (link to tutorial at the end of this post).

I made 4 dye pots, as always following the free instructions from Maiwa as closely as I could. Below WOF is an abbreviation for "weight of fabric", which is how dye stuff is measured when natural dying.

Cutch:

Measured at 30% WOF. No tannin is needed for cutch so I just scoured the fibres and mordanted with alum at 15% WOF, then a second alum mordant at 10% WOF. The table cloth went into this dye bath and it made such a beautiful brown. This is the dye from this summer that I am most looking forward to learning more about in the future, as there are so many ways to shift the colour by adding things to the dye bath as you work.

Cutch & Madder:

Cutch was measured at 45% WOF and Madder at 15% WOF. No tannin is needed for cutch so again I scoured the fibres and mordanted with alum at 15% WOF, then a second alum mordant at 10% WOF. I was hoping for a deep rust colour, and I like the reddish brown that I got but I'm still going to work towards a more perfect rust colour.

Marigold & Madder:

Marigold measured at 45% WOF and Madder at 10% WOF. I scoured fibres, applied tannin at 10% WOF, mordanted with alum at 15% WOF, then again with alum at 10% WOF. This combination of dyes was just perfect, it made for an orangey gold colour and it's just so vibrant. One day I'll have a garden full of marigolds so that I can harvest and dry my own dye stuff, and dye all of my belongings gold.

Sequoia:

Measured at 10% WOF. I scoured fibres, applied tannin at 10% WOF, mordanted with alum at 15% WOF, then again with alum at 10% WOF. Sequoia is a dye with moderate lightfastness, which means it will fade if left in the sun. I do like the purple grey colour but I think I could achieve a similar colour using other more lightfast dyes with iron. I was expecting more of a wine colour so maybe I'll have to play with this one again, but probably at a higher WOF percent.

I took a couple pictures of everything put together on our patio, and of course made a couple new pages for my dye swatch book.

Pattern for mitred corner table linens: Purl Soho

Dye Supplies: Maiwa Natural Dyes

Linen I used: 140g/sm white linen

Natural Dye Instructions I use: Maiwa Guide to Natural Dyes