Kitty Print Rosa Shirt

One can never have enough kitty print handmade clothing IMHO.

Remember my cat print Carolyn PJs? When I bought the lovely cotton lawn fabric on my Japan trip in January, I couldn't resist getting the same print in black and white too. Before I made the PJs, I'd already put the B&W fabric to good use for this shirt version of the Rosa sewing pattern.

The pattern is a great showcase for a cute print like this, and I've been wearing the shirt to death these past few months with jeans and dungaree dresses (you can see me wearing it in the Sew Your Own Shirt or Shirt Dress workshop videos). I love it!

Fitting the Rosa Shirt and Dress

Making the Rosa shirt or dress sewing pattern? Vanessa here to take you through fitting your handmade creation to your unique figure.

One of the wonderful things about making your own clothes is that you can get them to fit your shape much better than most shop clothing. You can add or remove length where you need it, take the shoulders in or out, adjust for larger or smaller boobs... It does take a bit of extra work, but it's worth it to have a lovely outfit tailored just for you!

We’re going to look at how to:

• Choose your size
• Pin fit the princess seams and side seams
• Lengthen or shorten the torso or overall length
• Combine pattern sizes
• Make adjustments for wide or narrow shoulders
• Adjust for a sway back
• Make full or small bust adjustments

Bear in mind you almost certainly won’t need to make all of these changes, you might not need to make any at all!

Fabric Shopping for the Rosa Shirt + Dress

Making the Rosa shirt or dress? Let's talk fabrics!

This pattern works well in so many easy-to-find fabrics. Look for a medium- or light-weight woven material - cotton lawn, chambray, lighter weight denim (including denims with a bit of stretch), linen blends (less prone to wrinkling than pure linen!), viscose / rayon (although it's not the easiest fabric to sew the collar in if you're not that confident), double gauze, shirting cotton (of course!), even fine needlecord.

For our shirt sample, we used a floaty flamingo viscose from Dragonfly Fabrics (now sold out - sorry!). On the dress version, we used a lightweight denim courtesy of Fabrics Galore. We used contrast fabric on the inner collar stand and button stand facing - Ciara B cotton lawn, courtesy of Liberty.

Inspiration for Making Your Rosa Shirt or Dress

One of the (many) lovely things about the Rosa sewing pattern is that it can look so different depending on what fabric, styling and embellishments you go for. We've got another post coming up next on fabric suggestions (look out for that), but first I wanted to share some inspiration for different looks that you can create.

New Sewing Pattern... and Online Workshop!

I am so excited to finally introduce you to our latest crush - the Rosa sewing pattern!

Even more exciting, we've made a brand new online workshop to go with it - Sew Your Own Shirt or Shirt Dress.

So much goodness to share with you today - let's start with the pattern design...

Behind the Scenes...

Hello everyone!

Lexy here, with a little roundup of what’s been going on here at Tilly Towers as of late, include a sneaky behind-the-scenes look at what goes on in these here parts!

Your Makes!

Hello! It’s Hannah, the intern at Tilly Towers, here to bring you our selection of what you’ve been busy sewing over the summer. We love seeing your beautiful creations, and it can be hard to pick our favourites, but this month I have burdened that difficult task especially for you!