Études in Jade

Two quick makes for Gaby out of cotton fabric I was gifted last year. Though the pictures don't show it, the color is very loud jade, which none of us liked much and I've been racking my brains what to make out of it. Then came carol's suggestion to try lekala.co and I was inspired to cut a pair of simple pajama style bottoms out of it for Gaby, to be worn at home.

The pattern is the free pyjamas pants, customized to her measures. I am absolutely blown away by the idea and I'll be definitely trying the site with more interesting and complicated patterns soon. As for this pair of pants, they came quite as advertised,  very easy and straight forward to make, they fit her well as for pajamas, probably just an inch short. I should have checked the length in advance, but I had so firmly decided to try the pattern as is, that I didn't take any of my usual preliminary measurements. There is only one piece of pattern, which is cut twice, no pockets, no waistband. As the front and the back are quite similar, I added a little red tag to the back to make putting them on correctly easier.

As I had some piece of fabric left, I decided to make a little top too. While the color is too loud for dressy pants, she reckoned a little summer top in this color could be wearable.
The pattern I chose is Easy smock top by lovesewingmag.co.uk, a free pattern, which I already made last year. It is another easy pattern, which comes out enormous, but I "hacked" it by adding elastic shearing to the waist. However, my first top was made out of soft cotton gingham, which gathered beautifully, and this jade cotton is much heavier and creates a bit too much volume. I should have reduced the width of the front and the back by at least a total of 8 cm, which I will probably do, if I decide to make this a third time.

Gaby wanted the top to be crop top, so I cut it just above the waist and experimented with the finishing by folding the edge in half and hemming the blouse with the same elastic thread as the shearing above. I was lucky to have a sewing thread in the exact color of the fabric. All my seams are flat felled seams and I did add a little red tag to the back of the blouse too.
I need to find a way to make my own tags real soon!