Twists in garments have been around quite a while now. I believe it started with a famous Burda top in 2004 and I made my share of garments with a twist. Not very many, maybe 2 or 3. Now I did two in a row. This post is about a StyleArc pattern: the Sadie top.
This time the twist is not in the bodice but in the sleeve. A detail I immediately loved and wanted to try. I don’t know when this pattern was released, but I only noticed it a couple of weeks ago. I ordered the pdf pattern and one thing I noticed was that the front was not a complete pattern but half, to be cut on the fold. It’s been one of my little irritations that StyleArc used complete patterns when you could just as well cut the pattern piece on the fold. It saves a lot of paper and it also means less tracing/taping of the pages. Hope they do it for all patterns now. Great improvement!
The sleeve detail is really nice. You definitely need a thin fabric with good drape for this. My fabric is a viscose (rayon) and perfect for it.
It’s a loose fitting top, can easily be worn over a pair of trousers like in the photos of me wearing it, but it’s also very good tucked in.
The pattern is labeled as medium/challenging and the sleeve isn’t for beginners. The rest of the pattern is easy.
I’ll try to illustrate my take on sewing the sleeve. Photos taken with my phone in the evening, not the best.
My first step was serging all seams, without cutting any fabric off, so that the seam allowances remained.
The hem of the sleeve must be finished till the notch on the pattern. I folded the serged hem twice and stitched it (stitching not in photo)
In the curve I used the same approach. The advantage to me was there is no clipping of seams this way, which might make for holes or fraying of fabric.
After twisting as in the illustration in the instructions it looks like this:
The seam is sewn till the twist and then it’s almost a sleeve like any other sleeve. Stitch the sleeve seam and insert in the bodice.
That is a lovely detail. Thanks for drawing my attention to this pattern and sharing your techniques for such a successful outcome.
ReplyDeleteI love this top especially the sleeve twist that attracted you to it as well. I even have fabric that would work for it in my collection. I avoid PDF patterns unless there is nothing else available. Do you like how STyle arc lays out their PDF patterns? Are they easy to line up?
ReplyDeleteI use the pdf from StyleArc because shipping takes too long (impatient as I can be). The patterns are easy to line up.
DeleteI love all things twisty in patterns and hadn't noticed this one before, it's really lovely and the feather print fabric is lovely too!
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