Kaftan Coverup Critique

One of the best things about sewing is that nobody has the same article of clothing anywhere.  I recently bought a cheap little coverup because I was lazy.  It was a week later when I saw someone else wearing the same thing.  Really, it's not that big of a deal, but I wanted to burn my cheap coverup and crawl into a hole.  It was probably the same week when Toni, of Make it Perfect, asked if I would review her Shearwater Kaftan pattern.

Perfect timing!  And she also a children's version, to which Olive was the recipient.

I didn't make any adjustments other than two small ones.  I thought it might be fun to have a little color peeking out from the facing. THEN I thought it would be even better if the facing was on the front. Now you know how I work.  I just make things up as a I go along, usually without a specific plan. ;) I modified the shape of the facing to mimic the pattern of my fabric (a batik which I think came from fabric.com) and added a bit of interfacing.

Mark the center where you will be sewing and pin the RIGHT side of the facing to the WRONG side of the fabric.  When I flipped it to the right side after sewing, I liked how the facing pulled a bit of the shirt fabric to look like piping, so I left it that way.

To finish it off, I did a satin stitch.  To finish it even more, I did a triple stitch (not shown here, but it's the stitch where the machine takes two stitches forward and then to backward and two forward again).  I also added some bands to the sleeves because I have monkey arms and they were too short. The fit is very generous and SO comfortable.

Olive's favorite color is yellow, so I did her facing in a bright yellow, the batik fabric also came from fabric.com.

They would also be cute with jeans or leggings (or jeggings! ;)  Or you could lengthen it for a fun summer dress.

Toni has all sorts of patterns that you'll want to check out. Oh.  And today I'm halfway to 70 years old. I bought myself a cheap hat, expensive perfume and a fake leather skirt. Wahoo!