I am still making for Repatched, the upcycled shop attached to St Pat’s op shop in Fremantle, and have had a hand painted tablecloth kicking around in my stash for years. I think my sister may have made it for my mother it in the 1980s, and it had a large peacock in each corner, with some smaller ones dotted about, and some quite pretty flowers. The whole thing was bordered by cotton lace. I forgot to take a photograph of the whole thing, but it didn’t really appeal to me.

I used the Sewing Without Scraps book which has new zero waste patterns by Birgitta Helmersson, Danielle Elsener, and Liz Haywood. The book is written in Japanese, so my translate app got a real workout.

I thought I’d try the Panel Tee by Birgitta Helmersson, which is the first pattern in the book. I really liked the design lines, having a boxy shape with short sleeves and side panels joining the front and back, which means the pattern can be scaled up and down. The pattern is designed for 110cm wide fabric. The sleeves are shaped at the crown, so, although they are dropped they sit better, in my view.

You can see from the photo that the tee should have elbow length sleeves, but my tablecloth was slightly bigger than required, so I had enough for long sleeves. I trimmed them with cut off lace. They are a bit long for me, but hopefully someone with long arms will like it. I might size down if I make one for me as it feels a bit big.

I’m not massively enamoured with the back view, as I know that those are peacock bottoms sitting there. My sister wasn’t quite symmetrical with her painting, so they don’t quite line up. Absolutely nothing could be done about this.

I had the smallest piece of fabric left over, which I made into a pocket, fully intending to sew it on. Then I began to think that it would be too busy, so I put it aside whilst I considered my options. I find the small peacocks quite sweet, I’m not as fond of the large ones.

The side panel creates an interesting design feature. It’s quite narrow and runs the full length of the top from shoulder to hem, and wraps between the front and the back.

I love this little head popping up on the back facing.

The feathers are painted with glittery paint, and I was trying to show that here. Not very successfully.

Matching the panels at the shoulder was quite important to me and I did spend time making sure the seams aligned.

I was quite happy with this but there were a couple of marks on the back, and, as I was scouring some tablecloths, I thought I’d poke just that part in the pot. I was quite careful with the flame, but clearly not careful enough. Not only did the stains remain, but I now had this to contend with!

I was quite upset!

I cut out most of the burn (should have cut more) and stitched a piece of white fabric over the it.

I still had that pocket I talked about earlier in this post, so I decided that the sleeve was going to score a pocket.

I also managed to scorch the shoulder, so I painted it white and then embroidered over the top to distract the eye. I tried to match the colours of the flowers.

And what about the original stains? Well I tried painting over them, and then decided to just add some embroidery. Had I done this in the first place, I would have saved myself a lot of angst. They are zoomed in here, but when the top is on, they don’t draw the eye at all.

My niece is visiting from the UK and we went to the zoo. I found it surprisingly enjoyable, Please note her bent knees so I look taller! So rude!