Every year for Mother's Day, I have to start planning early. My mother lives on the opposite coast, so I have to leave time to find the right project, get materials, execute it as flawlessly as possible, and get it shipped in time.

This year, I used a pattern that I had purchased probably two years ago. Skills-wise, I was not ready to make it at that time, so it has been waiting patiently. It was Butterick 6101, which they suggest can be made with either jersey or linen. The first time I saw this pattern, I knew it had my mom written all over it and would look great in linen.

I used Kaufman's cotton/linen blend in indigo, purchased from Fabric.com.

I did make a few minor changes. The pattern had a collar that I really wasn't in love with, so I cut some bias tape out of the fabric I was using and used that to finish off the neckline. I also hemmed the bottom of the garment with wide bias tape the whole way around. The pattern states to finish the circular section in bias tape and match up with the hem of the rest of the garment, but I thought it would be easier to match up two sections of bias tape there and used it the whole way around.

This is definitely one of those patterns that doesn't follow all the standard layout and isn't intuitive to line up, so you really need to transfer all of the markings. My standard is to mark everything with children's washable markers, but I didn't plan to wash this project before I shipped it. I wanted to make sure that it didn't soften up too much, so everything was done with chalk so it could easily be removed.

I also shortened the sleeves to be closer to 3/4 length. It is meant for cooler weather and also, with the wide-ish sleeves, I didn't want them to get in the way.

I finished the whole thing with french seams, even those oddly shaped pockets. I wasn't sure how I was going to do it, but I just took it one step at a time, one seam at a time, and it came out great. You could almost wear it inside out it looks so clean.