Mimi Blouse in Liberty, and some thoughts on 'Love at First Stitch'

In the quest for a nice vintage button up blouse I came across Tilly and the Button's Mimi blouse, from the book Love at First Stitch. I liked the unusual collar, and the gathering at the yoke, and decided I would make it when I found out my local library had the book.

The blouse was a very straight forward make. I cut a size three, as I do with the Mathilde blouse, and found the fit spot on. I quite like how the pattern comes with built in hip shaping! My one minor complaint is with the sleeves. I swapped out the sleeve pattern for M6696, but I think I need to redraft the armhole as the sleeves are a touch tight.

 The fabric is Liberty Carline in red. I bought around 5-6m of this at a fabric market in Sydney almost two years ago. It's the gift that keeps on giving: this blouse, a half finished full skirted 1950s dress, and so much yardage left over I am unsure what to do with it. I used small green buttons from the stash, and sewed them on with red thread for contrast.

Photo credit goes to my lovely friend Miriam who snapped this for me at uni after a coffee date. She calls it "1950's florals meet industry"

 I thought I'd also give a little book review of Love at First Stitch, as what I can find on line is overwhelming positive, and I have some reservations about it. Firstly, I think it's a very decent book for beginners. I gave it a good read through, and Tilly is very clear with her instructions. I also like how it builds on skills with each project. Each of the patterns looks good, and not tacky, though the Mimi is the only one I am going to make.

Now onto my dislikes:

1. The book design. I really hate the cover. The pastels are way too pale and everything looks washed out. There's no strong colour focus and if I'd seen this on a shelf I would not have picked it up. The entire book design is the very dreamy pastels, and feels like a girly art film, including Tilly blowing bubble gum.

2. Tilly's writing style. Whilst I feel it's very clear for beginners instructions wise, a lot of things annoyed me. She constantly scatters French phrases throughout, in a very cutesy "I love French pastries, striped tops and the Eiffel Tower" way. It adds nothing to the book, and comes across as very twitty. She is also not concise. When she introduces French seams, she gives a good explanation, but then every time she suggests using one in construction, she reiterates the entire technique, every single time. I felt this was deliberately dumbing down the book; we are adults, we can flick and cross reference. I also found the "Make it a Lifestyle" sections quite silly, especially "How to behave in a fabric shop". I would assume fabric shop etiquette is exactly the same as other shops, and this is something we learn as children.

3. Beginner mentality. This is not as much a criticism of Love at First Stitch than of Tilly's brand as a whole. Her market caters exclusively to beginner sewers. In and of itself this isn't a problem, there's obviously a market niche, but this often leads to dumbing down, hand holding and "oh my everything is hard" mentality. My dressmaking skills are mostly self taught (though I have been sewing for many more years than I've been dressmaking) and once you know the basics, there are a wealth of resources, online and in books to grow your skills. I feel Tilly's technique is to set herself up as the guru of sewing, and her handholding instructions that she overcharges for is what sets her apart. Case in point, her latest pattern is an elasticised waist dirndl skirt, basically the pattern is a rectangle, for £12.50. According to her it's worth it for the instructions. When these kind of skirts are free tutorials all over the web, and could be made in an afternoon by a six year old girl, I can only think of the saying "a fool and their money are easily parted." Of course Tilly isn't the only sewing related person on the web to cater to the "sewing is so hard" group, but I feel she emulates most of issues with it. There seems to be a general fear of the "Big 4" sewing pattern companies. Yes, their pattern art is awful, and you usually have to size down due to ease, but their instructions are not sparse if  you know how to think for yourself and look up things online.

4.  Lack of substance. The French post modernist philosopher, Baudrillard came up with the concept of hyper reality. This states that what is "real" becomes lost in the modern world behind a facade of marketing and style over substance. I would not have much of a problem with Tilly's patterns if I felt there was substance in them. What she has done is taken the most basic sort of patterns, and dressed them up with pretty pictures, colours and a marketing facade that lets the consumer feel they are buying into a lifestyle. The patterns themselves are basic; in the case of Miette, which is ever 1970's wrap skirt ever; or downright bad:  Francoise, Coco and Bettine seem to be poorly drafted, and often quite frumpy, but for some reason people kept lapping up these patterns. If they'd been released by Simplicity or Burda, no one would have bought them. Tilly's brand has become something people buy because it's "Tilly and the Buttons", not because it's good in and of itself. The other thing that gets to me about Tilly's lack of substance is the dumbing down of her blog over the years. I began to follow Tilly before she commercialised, and enjoyed her personal sewing projects. Then, after she started releasing her own patterns I have barely seen her sew anything that is not part of her marketing; there seems to be one item in the last two years. Part of me wonders if Tilly only got into sewing as a marketing opportunity, rather than a hobby that then grew into a business. (For more dumbing down of patterns see Colette's Seamwork patterns, versus their original offerings). Though I know she caters to beginning sewers, I feel there needs to be more substance and variety in offerings, because developing in a hobby should involve growing skills, and making interesting things, that don't involve hand holding, and move beyond being swayed by pretty pictures and marketing.

What do I want from online sewing resources? I want more complex offerings across the board, I want people who design vintage inspired patterns complete with the amazing details and construction techniques of the originals. I want the decline of fad patterns that everyone makes and swoons over. We sew to break out of the world of trends and styles, but so often I see this take over online.

I'm really interested to know what you think. Tell me what you think about Indie patterns. Is it all style over substance? How do you pick what you sew; does marketing suck you in, or do you use line drawings, and browse online to see what others have made, as I do? What do you want to see more, or less of online?

{I am sorry about the random font changes, I have no idea how it has happened, as it does not show up in the draft}