I really love this sleeveless Briar – it’s quickly found itself in heavy rotation (right after my tribal print version) and it’s also Chris’ favourite version!
I kept this nice and simple – and so in the end this version took me something like 1/2 an hour including cutting – and used up 1/2 a metre of left over fabric.
That’s kind of awesome right?!
Here’s how to make a quickie sleeveless Briar!
This is Sophie.
Sophie is completely awesome. I love her blog Cirque Du Bebe – and every time i see shes posted something new i do a happy dance. Not only are her creations gorgeous, i love her adorable photoshoots, and her entertaining writing style. Oh and she’s a complete sweetheart. And she lives on the opposite side of my great country. Yeah you get it, i’m a big fan :)
I was really excited to see Sophie’s Briar – she was one of the wonderful ladies who helped test the Briar pattern. She used a crinkly jersey with metallic thread running through it – and i’m getting rather jealous of how well it turned out.
Head over to her blog for more gorgeous photos of her awesome Briar, and then you should also check out her new leggings because i would like them now.
And now that i’ve been really bossy i shall end this post.
The end.
I really adore elbow patches – which is why it’s kind of weird that i’ve only done one project so far with elbow patches. Really weird.
I thought that should be rectified during the sewalong. So Briar with elbow patches here we come!!
If you subscribe to the Megan Nielsen Patterns newsletter – then you would have seen a link to a freebie pattern download at the end of January for elbow patches – well today we’re going to use them!! If you haven’t subscribed to the newsletter yet, you can download the pattern piece by clicking here.
Ready set sew…
I knew i needed to make a Briar dress. It really had to happen. I’ve been obsessing over the idea since i started planning the sewalong. I actually still have two more i want to make, a maxi and another that’s a surprise :) But i might wait on those for a few weeks, because otherwise this sewalong will just run on forever and ever with all the variations i want to cover.
I spent quite a while choosing the right fabric to buy – i wanted to use a Ponte/Ponti knit, so that it would have a bit more structure and not be too figure hugging or clingy. I’m really happy with how it turned out! This is the Sprite Ponte from Tessuti fabrics. The customer service is truly fantastic – i highly recommend them.
I did make a bit of a boo boo and made it a bit too short in the front (oops), but i think with the length the original length as i describe in this tutorial (before i hacked a bit more off! ha!) would be perfect. Made in a black, navy or more subdued colour – i think this would be ideal for the office. I still like mine, but it doesn’t work as well for every day wear as i’d hoped in this length – but it does make a rockin’ date night dress :)
You’re going to fall over when you see how easy this was…
As i mentioned earlier in the Briar sewalong – my method for binding a knit neckline is different to the standard or more traditional method. So incase you’d like to try the normal way, today i’m going to show you how!
Just to make things easy we’re going to use the binding pattern piece from the Briar pattern – but if you did this on another pattern, you’d just want to cut a binding strip that was either the same length as the circumference of your neckline (along the stitch line, not raw edge), or an inch or so shorter. I prefer to make it a bit shorter, i find it conforms to the curve better, but most texts/instructions will tell you to cut the exact same length for a binding.
(and remember, a neckline band is a different thing. i know, too much stuff to remember!)
Okie dokie lets get going!
I really love happy accidents.
I wanted to make a Briar with elbow sleeves (i happen to love elbow sleeves) – and as i started measuring out the perfect length, i realised that the cut line for elbow sleeves was perfectly halfway between the cutlines for the short sleeves and 3/4 sleeves on the Briar sleeve pattern. Yeah i know, how cool is that?!
So if you want to make elbow length sleeves for your Briar – heres what you do – Cut halfway between the short sleeve and 3/4 sleeve lines. DONE!
I found an easy way to do this was to just fold the pattern so that the two lines matched up, then cut.
Don’t forget – if you haven’t gotten your Briar yet, you can still get 10% off! Just enter BRIAR at checkout!