Finished Yellow Eyelet Lonsdale

My new camera charger finally arrived! It officially beat the return of my good camera from downstate. And, I was finally able to get my finished Lonsdale photos. (Unfortunately, now my computer with all of my photo editing software is on the fritz, and trying to use Photoshop in safe mode is a pain! Oh well, the show must go on.)

Here are the details:

Pattern: Sewaholic's Lonsdale

Fabric: 1 3/8 yards of yellow cotton eyelet from Joann Fabrics. I'm so proud of myself for getting a Lonsdale out of this. The underlining was white mystery fabric from Vogue Fabrics and the lining was combination of assorted white muslin fabrics.

Size and modifications: I cut a size 6 at the top and scaled to an 8 at the waist. I also made a swayback adjustment and pinched the bodice in a bit.   I made these modifications about two years ago when I made my first Lonsdale (back in my pre-blog days), and blindly followed the pattern this time. Luckily, it still fit perfectly!

I did not have enough fabric for the slash pockets. I really love that design feature, but it did need to be sacrificed. Instead I used the Cambie pocket (View B), but any pocket would work.  In hindsight, I should have checked out Sewaholic's tips for using less fabric.  She suggests making facings for the pockets as an alternative, and I probably would have had enough fabric to do that.

I also had to piece together a few pattern pieces since I was working with so little fabric.  The fashion fabric straps were just too long to layout in one piece, so those are pieced together. The same went for the lining and underlining. I used up a lot of muslin that was lying around, and feel pretty happy with myself for doing that.

Finally, I had to shorten the skirt quite a bit in order to get it to fit on the eyelet. I used the View A skirt pieces, and then shortened by another 4 inches.  I'm very happy with the results.  Still long enough to make me feel comfortable, but short enough to feel very summery.

What I learned trying to piece together a pattern with too little fabric:
1. Non-directional prints are your friend. Or, just don't be too picky about matching patterns.
2. Omit or modify pockets.
3. Splice together long pieces. No one will notice and the sewing police won't haul you away.
4. Shorten the skirt.
5. Keep your fingers crossed that the hack job you're about to do actually works.