Archive for the 'Tops' Category

I cut this shirt out last year during the week I made my Soho coat when my spouse and I were vacationing with my in-laws.

Only the front and back seams were done by the time we got home, and somehow it got set aside until now, when finishing it became important. I’d cut out View B (on the right, above), but I’ll be making View C (on the left) the MIni-Wardrobe Contest, so getting this muslin finished mattered tonight. What was I thinking when I chose this fabric for this shirt? That’s right, folks: Itsy, bitsy stripes and princess seams. Curvy princess seams. In days gone by, I used to pride myself on my ability to match complicated plaids (and I really was very good at it). But that was a long time ago, and, if memory serves, half the battle was choosing the right pattern in the first place. This was not the right pattern. Just to prove that I actually can match stripes, though, I offer this:

You can hardly see the seam. Needless to say, I didn’t do as well on the bust curves, nor at matching the sleeves. In fact, I pretty much tossed in the towel after multiple tries. This was a muslin, after all. All of that said, I really do like the shirt. I’ll wear it under a fleece, and no one will realize that my stripes are an eighth of an inch off in strategic places. (And worse on the sleeves; they’re not quite as bad as they look in the photo, but they’re not good.) The pattern itself couldn’t be simpler, or more flattering — the shape really is wonderful, and, as is (size 12) fits my bust perfectly.

If you have the good sense not to use stripes, it should make up extremely quickly. The cowl is very, very long. In fact, it works well as a hood, and I’ll wear it that way with a fleece vest once the weather gets cooler. This pattern is definitely a keeper, and I’m eager to see how it works in my turquoise cotton knit.

Update:  “Epileptic” said my poor spouse, shielding his eyes from the horror of these stripes as I modeled this shirt for him.  I see his point, sort of, but what’s a little eye strain compared to the relentless boredom of one solid color after another?

I’m desperately looking for a top to make for PR’s Mini-Wardrobe Contest. Marcy Tilton’s new tee shirt (Vogue 8497) was on my story board, but I haven’t yet worked out the issues I wrote about last week. Since we’re only a week away from the contest start, I went for something super-simple, and made this New Look tank.

I made view D (the green one on the lower right). The fabric’s a lighter weight linen; I made the facings of a poly-cotton I had on hand.

I like the neckline very much; it turned out very well, and it fits nicely. It’s designed with a slit in the neck in back, which closes with a button. I dislike these closures, so I eliminated the center back seam, and added a zipper to the left side seam.

Because there are small vents at the bottom of the tank, I inserted the zipper so that the opening is toward the hem, making a neat placket insertion.

The zipper stops at the same point that the vent begins on the other side, so there are still vents on each side of the tank. My machine doesn’t have fancy decorative stitches, so I used a crosshatch pattern to finish the neck, armholes and hem. Everything looks fine, but it just doesn’t send me. It’s also not right with Marcy’s skirt (Vogue 8499) either; in fact, both it and the skirt look frumpy when combined. A plain old sleeveless cotton tank — a snug one — looks a lot better with Marcy’s skirt. This is crucial; that skirt is on my storyboard. Sigh. I guess it’s back to the drawing board. Eight more days — should I panic yet?

Vogue, oh Vogue, why for hast thou forsaken us? I spent this evening stitching up one of Marcy Tilton’s new shirts, and it’s a wadder. The wadder isn’t my shirt, though, it’s the pattern itself.

The first clue came when I opened the envelope: inexplicably, there were two full sets of parts for the view I was making (B). The second set wasn’t connected to any other pattern pieces; it was just folded up all by itself, almost as if someone had stuck it in later. Maybe to correct something on the original pattern? I don’t know for sure, because I haven’t compared the two sets. I’m just speculating, but I have my reasons.

I’m thinking someone should have stuck in a corrected pattern because there were a couple of problems with View B. First of all, the left front and back side pieces did not match at the hem; I had to trim one piece to make the hem even. I’d cut this pattern very, very carefully — you have to, because of the way the shirt’s made — so I was quite sure this wasn’t my mistake. Sure enough, the paper pattern was the source of the problem.

Second, there’s that neck band. The instructions say “Pin wrong side of neck band to right side of garment neck seam allowance, placing neck band seam off center back, as desired, and long edge along seam line, stretching neck band to fit.” Well, OK, that’s exactly what I did, assuming a 5/8ths inch seam. The front and back of this shirt each have one panel that is attached just like this, though, and in those cases, the overlap was one inch. So maybe the term “seam allowance” is up for interpretation here.

However, I think we can all agree that the result (below) is pretty awful. And my neckband is twice the width of the one shown in Vogue’s photo — and looks at least twice as terrible. Whoever made up this shirt for Vogue didn’t use the pattern I used.

Thirdly, check out the aspect ratio of my shirt compared to the photo on the pattern envelope, or on Marcy’s site. (Aspect ratio is the relationship of height to width.) On the envelope, this shirt is substantially longer than it is wide; the proportions are really attractive. My shirt, in contrast, is almost as wide as it is long. It’s boxy and it’s ugly. Someone didn’t do his or her design homework before this pattern was published. That’s not very nice. If I wanted boxy, I’d shop at KMart.

So this pattern’s fatally flawed. I’m bummed.

Before I knew all this, though, when I first got this pattern home and read it, my heart fell a little bit. I’m no fan of raggedy chic, and that lovely curved edge on the front of the shirt turns out to have an unfinished edge. Oh, the horror! That neck band, which looks so sleek in the photo, is also just a strip of fabric with raw edges. Little did I know that the raw edges were the only things that would turn out well on this project.

I could have finished the overlapped edges (with something like a narrow bias tape facing, you know, something along those lines), but I bit the bullet. I also did something else I almost never do: I followed the directions. I wanted this project to be fast, and to work the first time — because this was supposed to be my dry run for May’s PR Mini-Wardrobe Contest.

Well, it worked all right, in the sense that I made it up in one evening, followed the directions, and ended up with a shirt. Unfortunately, it stinks. Bah. Now I’ve got to find something else for May. I’m thinking it won’t be Vogue — this is the second Vogue pattern in three days with a serious error (or two). (See Vogue 8499.) Is everyone asleep over there at Vogue? Is anybody doing any editing? Any checking at all?

Related: Vogue 8497 Revisited