The new Janis by Ready To Sew

Do you know Ready To Sew? No? Then you should really check them out! I love the distinctive style Raphaëlle, the designer behind the scenes, has. You just know whose design it is when you see one! The same goes for example for Emily, the designer from In The Folds – and I really appreciate designers with such a marked personal style.

I have already made the Jacob Top from Ready to Sew, and I’m wearing it a lot, although I still wish I had lengthened the top a little. I always wanted to make the Janis, too – and this time I learned and added some length to it right away!

Ready To Sew has just launched a new website and is re-launching a few patterns to make them even better. So when Raphaëlle asked me to sew one of her designs for the re-launch I didn’t have a hard time saying yes. The re-launched patterns come with two seperate instruction files, one in English and one in French. Raphaëlle realized that some people LOVE no-trim pdf pattern, while other don’t like them at all. So she went through all the trouble of adding both possibilites to her patterns – pages to trim and no-trim pages. Pretty cool, right? The instructions have been updated, too, making the patterns easier to follow for not that experienced sewists, too. You might remeber that I mentioned the scarce instructions when writing about my Jacob, but the instructiosn have definitely improved now.

The Janis is a wide top with a circle peplum attached to the bottom. But since the top itself is longer in the front and the back than on the sides, the peplum looks more special than most peplum tops out there. You can make the top with different sleeve lengths and choose between a plain back and the kind of back I made.

The fabric I chose is a thin scuba fabric from Stoff og Stil that hasn’t been sold anymore for about a year or so. I loved the embossed flowers and butterflies – it’s a pretty big print, but not that overwhelming, since it’s embossed and not printed in a different colour. I think the fabric might be a poly, but it’s pretty nice do wear. The only thing I realized is that the fabric feels super cold! So I really woudl prefer to wear a cotton camisole underneath, but those tend to show at the back.

I LOVED working with this fabric! It doesn’t wrinkle, you can just lay it flat on the floor and it doesn’t move or twist at all. I opted not to hem the top, since I think that hemming this fabric might look a little bulky. And no hemming means it’s so much quicker to sew!

I lengthened the top about 1″ and I lengthened the peplum a little bit, too – plus no hemming means some extra length. And I think the length is perfect the way it is now! The top might have looked really strange on me without the extra length. I did shorten the sleeves a little, to get kind of a bracelet sleeve length. I know that bracelet sleeves should be even shorter, but this way the sleeves end at the exact same height as the bottom of my top, and I think it looks really neat this way.

Getting the cut-out at the back to lie flat wasn’t that easy, and I think it still shows on the photos that it’s not lying totally flat. To prevent the facing from showing I understitched the facing and sewed the facing to the main fabric with tiny hand stitches.

The instructions tell you to sew the closure on both sides in between main fabric and facing, but I had seen other versions where one side of the closure is sewn to the outside of the garment and finished with a button. I really liked the idea, so I copied it. There isn’t a buttonhole, so the button is just decorative.

You can buy the Janis in the brand new Ready To Sew shop and while you’re at it, you should definitely check out the other designs, too! And by the way – did I tell you that each design comes with its own playlist on youtube? You can just click on a link in the instruction booklet and get into the right mood while sewing! I listened to all the playlists while editing my photos of Janis and writing this blog post and I really enjoyed listening to Raphaëlle’s picks!

 

– I received this pattern for free from Ready To Sew. However, all opinions are, as always, my own. –