This post is written by Meg of Cookin’ and Craftin’.
Hey Gnats readers! I want to apologize for being inexcusably late for the parties. “Parties?,” you ask. Yes: the Grainline Studio Archer pattern and double gauze fabric parties. The parties thrown every time this pattern is made and this fabric is used. With good reason, my friends, with good reason. This is feel good stuff.
First: double gauze. Nay: DOUBLE GAUZE!! I love this stuff. This is my first time sewing with it (although I have amassed a significant double gauze stash in anticipation of loving it dearly, so expect more on that front). Many have sung the praises of this wonder fabric, but here’s my quick and dirty take on it: light, soft, squishy, almost spongey consistency… doesn’t press super well, but you don’t really want it to. My thoughts as I played around with it were that it was like flannel, but for the summer. Summer flannel!
I used this awesome Kokka mushroom and owl double gauze, which gave me some mildly trippy Alice in Wonderland vibes. But pretty much any of the double gauzes in the imagine gnats shop would make a killer shirt. It was a teeny bit sheer, but the Archer’s big pockets cover the important parts.
Second: Archer. I might be the last person on earth to make this shirt. You know the deal: it’s a comfy, oversized, boyfriend-style buttondown. I bought the pattern right away, printed it out and promptly chickened out of sewing it. But now that I’ve got several buttondown shirts under my belt, I felt it was time to give it a go. Plus, with Jen’s thorough sewalong, there’s a built-in support system.
So. Due to poor planning on my part, I only had 2.5 yards yards of my double gauze to work with, less than called for in the pattern. However, with some painstaking single layer cutting I was able to eke out my entire Archer from those 2.5 yards. I even got all my mushrooms growing skywards and owls upright. No pattern matching to speak of, however, and my inner yoke has a center seam. But nobody looks at the inner yoke but me, right?
The pattern is pretty great and the sewalong super helpful. My only quip with the pattern is how wide and long the sleeves and cuffs are… next time I’ll have narrow and shorten them a bit. I’m thinking I might use bias tape to hem the shirt, too, as hemming that curved hem was a bit dicey and my hem is a wee bit wrinkly/lumpy.
The finished product definitely falls into the “secret pajamas” category of clothing… so comfortable!! Get thee some double gauze and get sewing!
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