TL; DR – You can make a pattern any number of times, and you still learn something.

I’ve already reviewed this pattern, so I’m going to indulge in a little bit of storytelling, the kind that drive people nuts on cooking blogs and that drive me nuts on sewing tutorial videos. We were visiting friends in California when the Liberty for London for Target collection dropped. There was a lot of hype around the collection, and I wanted to get my hands on it. My daughter was maybe almost three at the time, and we got up early in the morning, leaving dad and son behind, and drove to a random Inland Empire Target (I think in LaVerne? We def skipped the Montclaire one) to try and “beat the crowd”. We didn’t need to worry about it.

They were still unloading the collection when we got there. I was disappointed that the women’s shirts were polyester, but the kids’ clothes were cotton, as were the scarves. I got a top, two scarves, a dress and hat for the little girl that looked adorable. I can’t find the picture of her in the hat and the dress, but here she is enjoying the dress in the warm California weather in January.

The shirt and dress are long-gone, but I kept the scarves for a long, long time. The black and white patterned scarf was always a little weird – it was a large square with tassels all the was around. It was always a bit bulky, and while it went with everything, I always had trouble wearing it because it would just bunch up at my neck and add volume to me which…

The blue one was long and I still wear because – no bulk.

Anyway, I was organizing my scarves (because apparently that’s the person I am now), and I looked at that old scarf and wanted to do something else with it, because I still love the pattern, but the scarf…look, if I didn’t like adding extra volume then, I really don’t want to be adding extra volume now.

At first, I was going to make yet another Harmon Tee, but once I laid the pattern pieces out, I noticed just how much fabric was available to me from the scarf. So I started looking at my shirt patterns to see if there was anything I could make to use more of the great fabric.

I also wasn’t really interested in printing yet another pattern, I decided to hit up the patterns I had already printed (WHICH I ALSO JUST ALPHABETIZED WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME) and pulled out the Kalle. I’ve made two shirt dresses, but had not yet made a shirt.

Laying out the pattern, I managed to get just about every single piece in the main fabric, except the placket, the inside yoke piece, and once of the collar pieces. I had some black silk scraps from a recent project (more on that on Oct 15!), and there is always some white lying around. I had also recently rescued all of the buttons from my husband’s discarded shirts, and so this is a almost a completely reclaimed sewing project!

(I needed interfacing, and I used the pre-made bias tape for the hem that I bought ages ago.)

First, I have no memory of how I sewed a placket previously. I had to look up four YouTube tutorials before I got it. And the yoke…My two previous Kalle shirt dresses were all made from the same fabric that looked the same on either side of the fabric. So if I fucked up the burrito roll, it didn’t matter. Having a contrasting yoke panel that I really wanted to have on the inside of the shirt…I had to yoke it four different times. BUT I GOT IT THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

I am really happy with how this turned out. A 10-year-old scarf now as a new life as a shirt that because it is black and white will go with EVERYTHING.

Now, I have to make pants.