Sunday, February 14, 2016

Hello

In the past months I’ve done quite a bit of knitting, but hardly any sewing. As you may remember we sold our house and moved. A month ago we moved to a house we rent for a while, as we have not yet succeeded in buying the house we want.

It was a bit of an unsettling time, sorting out our belongings, what to take  to the temporary home, what to put into storage. At the end of the day one box with sewing stuff ended up in storage by accident. Fabrics I planned to sew this spring were in that box as well as most of my thread. Lucky enough not my collection of interfacing, that would have been worse.

Of course this was an excuse to buy new fabric ;). I bought a remnant piece of a border print online and when it arrived it was not quite what I expected. I forgot to take a picture but there was too much going on and too big a difference between light and dark. Which made me creative (good!) and I used the dark part for a skirt and the lighter part for a top. I won’t wear those together though they come from the same piece of fabric. Pictures of the skirt in another post.
For the top I used the Esme pattern from StyleArc.




I had a top in mind I had copied from a BurdaStyle magazine many years ago, guessing it was from an issue published in the (early) nineties. But in the great purge I let go of that pattern thinking “I haven’t made it all those years, so it can go”. Of course it now was on the back of my mind and when I was searching for a pattern to use for the remnants of the fabric that top seemed the pattern I needed. Then this StyleArc top appeared in the Pattern Review gallery and the neckline was quite similar to the BurdaStyle pattern I was thinking of. Bought the pdf in the Etsy shop, traced the pattern (as described in a previous post here) and made it in an evening. Almost instant gratification.





As I did not have enough length of the fabric I had to make a horizontal seam. The bottom part is on the crosswise grain, against all sewing “rules” to cut in the same grain direction. There was just not enough fabric and this was the only solution, including the horizontal stripe that is not at the most favorable position.



The neckline is wider than the illustration suggests.I interfaced the collar with Pro Sheer elegance light interfacing. Both the collar and the interfacing were cut on the bias. The instructions don’t tell you to interface the collar but I thought it wise, as the fabric, a light ponte knit, would not have a lot of stability. I’m glad I did but still the collar won’t stand up as in the illustration. I quite liked the idea of being able to wear it in two ways, but am satisfied with the folded collar, which looks nice on me. I will try to get pictures of me wearing the top.







Finally I topstitched all seams, as indicated in the pattern as one of the ways to finish it.
I like the result of this top, I would not have bought this fabric if I had seen it in a shop, but I’m actually quite pleased with how it looks.

13 comments:

  1. Mooi top geworden, ik vind het een beetje a la Audrey Hepburn, die ooit - ik weet niet meer in welke film - een dergelijke top aan had met precies zo'n kraag!!!
    Je perikelen mbt verhuizen en tijdelijke huisvesting ken ik maar al te goed. Afgelopen 1,5 jaar zijn we 3 keer verhuisd - met tijdelijk alles in opslag - maar nu gelukkig op onze - wat mij betreft - definitieve stek.
    Veel sterkte en succes met het zoeken en vinden van een nieuw "thuis".
    groetjes joza

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  2. Lovely to hear from you Sigrid! The top of course is lovely and beautifully sewn. How frustrating to have your chosen fabrics locked away... yet serendipitous too, especially if this is the result :) All the very best in finding the house that will be your new home.

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  3. Beautiful fabric! Wishing you the best in finding your new home.

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  4. I like the new top very much! Best wishes in finding your special new home?m

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  5. What an interesting piece of fabric that you used to make this great top!

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  6. Very nice! Sometimes breaking the rules works out pretty well. Good luck with the house hunting!

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  7. This top looks really nice! I love how you used the fabric. I may even buy this pattern since I have seen how great it looks sewn up. Thank you!

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  8. Love your top! I like the look of the fabric and the contrast strip at the bottom look nice. You turned lemon into lemonade. I have this pattern and searching for the right fabric. I hope the house hunting goes better soon.

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  9. So nice, it remind the 60s style, which makes me love it more.

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  10. This is a very interesting top. Like how you used the fabric.

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  11. Love this top. Your use of the fabric is wonderful.

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  12. oh, this is so pretty. I love the hems, the vent, and the bottom cut on the cross grain.

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  13. Beautiful top. Just love the neckline/collar. Very stylish.

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