Emergency Camisole

Posted on July 4, 2025
Tags: madeof:atoms, craft:sewing, FreeSoftWear

A camisole of white linen fabric; the sides have two vertical
strips of filet cotton lace, about 5 cm wide, the top of the front
is finished with another lace with triangular points and the straps
are made with another insertion lace, about 2 cm wide.

And this is the time when one realizes that she only has one white camisole left. And it’s summer, so I’m wearing a lot of white shirts, and I always wear a white camisole under a white shirt (unless I’m wearing a full chemise).

Not a problem, I have a good pattern for a well fitting camisole that I’ve done multiple times, I don’t even need to take my measurements and draft things, I can get some white jersey from the stash and quickly make a few.

From the stash. Where I have a roll of white jersey and one of off-white jersey. It’s in the inventory. With the “position” field set to a place that no longer exists. uooops.

But I have some leftover lightweight (woven) linen fabric. Surely if I cut the pattern as is with 2 cm of allowance and then sew it with just 1 cm of allowance it will work even in a woven fabric, right?

Wrong.

I mean, it would have probably fit, but it was too tight to squeeze into, and would require adding maybe a button closure to the front. feasible, but not something I wanted.

But that’s nothing that can’t be solved with the Power of Insertion Lace, right?

One dig through the Lace Stash1 and some frantic zig-zag sewing later, I had a tube wide enough for me to squiggle in, with lace on the sides not because it was the easiest place for me to put it, but because it was the right place for it to preserve my modesty, of course.

Encouraged by this, I added a bit of lace to the front, for the look of it, and used some more insertion lace for the straps, instead of making them out of fabric.

And, it looks like it can work. I plan to wear it tonight, so that I can find out whether there is something that chafes or anything, but from a quick test it feels reasonable.

a detail of the side of the camisole, showing the full pattern
of the filet lace (alternating Xs and Os), the narrow hem on the
back (done with an hemming foot) and the fact that the finishing
isn't very neat (but should be stable enough for long term use).

At bust level it’s now a bit too wide, and it gapes a bit under the arms, but I don’t think that it’s going to cause significant problems, and (other than everybody on the internet) nobody is going to see it, so it’s not a big deal.

I still have some linen, but I don’t think I’m going to make another one with the same pattern: maybe I’ll try to do something with a front opening, but I’ll see later on, also after I’ve been looking for the missing jersey in a few more potential places.

As for now, the number of white camisoles I have has doubled, and this is progress enough for today.


  1. with many thanks to my mother’s friend who gave me quite a bit of vintage cotton lace.↩︎