It has been a bit of a journey with this top. I suspect I am going to get a fair amount of wear out of it - easy to team with pants and skirts, and in green, a colour I love to wear. But putting it together was an experience.
The Fabric: This is a fine jersey knit which was in my stash. It is green, and I have no idea where it came from. Let me tell you I don't have a huge stash after a bit of a push to make things up, plus a few year's back taking a load of fabric to release at a Fabric-a-brac event in Auckland. So I would have thought nothing in there was older than 5 years - yet this is still a mystery.
The fine springy nature of this fabric scared me.
The Pattern: The Maker's Atelier aesthetic is beautiful and the pieces all look like things which would be very comfortable to wear, and look great.
In theory this pattern was simple, three pieces. The instructions, I thought, were scant and also lacked options to get a nice finish. They suggest leaving the neck edge and hem raw. Which I find a little bit odd. Yet there is detail about how to sew on the label - which I did not get as I ordered a digital pattern.
I had to look up the sizing on the website, which was a bit of a pain, and there were no finished measurements anywhere to be found.
I have made, and written about, the Tie Front Blouse from The Essential Collection book, so it should not have been a surprise to find the size 14 I made was very roomy, in fact tent like, in the body. And the sleeves were, well, skinny. Here it is at that point.
I should have basted the pattern up! But I was so keen to tackle the scary stitching on my overlocker, and insert the clear elastic to stabilise the shoulders, I just launched straight in. Lesson learned. So I carefully cut off all the seams, except the sleeve seam. Then I trimmed the front and back pieces, then basted, then sewed it up - phew!
I am happy with the result. I hand stitched the neck edge and lower hem. It took a while but it was quite easy to get a nice finish. For the sleeves I used the zig zag on my regular sewing machine (Bernina Nova circa 1982). The centre front is going to pop out slightly, which lends it to being tucked in.
Interestingly it did not occur to me to search out reviews or write ups for this top until I was about to start sewing. I found two reviews, neither were fans.
I had fancied the Drawstring-neck top and the Tie Detail top, also by this designer. And I surprise myself at my willingness to overlook these experiences and be thinking they could still work. . . . But I am going to learn from this top and move on. My goal for my sewing is to make clothes which both fit and are comfortable to wear.
Claire
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