Archive for the 'Tops' Category

OK,  so there are several problems here.  The first is what I have in common with Judi Dench.  Dame Dench has been quoted as having said (either to Charlie Rose or to USA Today, I can’t seem to track it down):

In my mind’s eye I’m 6 feet tall and slender as a willow, and I’ll go through life like that.

She is five feet, one and three-quarters inches tall  (156.8 cm).  I am five two and a half (158.8 cm).   Not unlike Judi Dench, in my mind’s eye I am six feet tall (182.9 cm) and a Swedish Amazon.  This is possibly why I am drawn to patterns like Vogue 8657:

See those proportions?  I’m not sure any  human possesses them, but I can tell you, definitively, that no person of approximately five feet, two inches does.  But if I were six feet tall  .  .  .

And then there’s the question of my bust.  It is not the bust of my youth; without going into too much detail, it is not even the bust of my early 30s.  I am still essentially proportionate — for a person five-two, not for an Amazon — but my bust has become round.  And bigger.  Substantially bigger.

Don’t get me wrong. I like my body.  It’s the only one I have, and, really, I’m fine with it.  But I’m a little confused about how to clothe it if I’m not wearing t-shirts and jeans.

One recent pattern works pretty well, and I think I know why.  It has a long skirt with a lot of character, and what you see are proportions created by the dress.  It’s an illusion; it’s not me.  (But I like it!)  Vogue 8657 achieves no such sleight.

So here it is:

It turned out fine, in the sense that it fits.  I cut a 10 everywhere but the bust, but it’s borderline too large, and if I keep losing weight, I’ll have to move down to an 8.  I cut a 12 in the bust, and moved the darts down a little less than an inch because   .  .    well, you know why.

You probably noticed right away that the proportions of this top have nothing to do with the elongated version in the illustration.  My top — the real one — is squarish, not an attractive rectangle.  Not the attractive rectangle that would lengthen the appearance of the body, for example.

And there’s another problem:  When you put a largish, roundish bust into a squarish, boxy-ish blouse, you get  .  .  .  formidable.  In this case, not formidable as in “awesome”, but as in “bust like the superstructure of a battleship”.  On a dinghy-sized rowboat.

So the envelope fails to illustrate the top accurately in terms of aspect ratio.  And that lovely drape sketched so nicely by Vogue?  Well, the back of the envelope fails to mention that this top is entirely self-lined.  I used an extremely light — almost handkerchief light — rayon blend.  Doubled, it folds; it does not drape.  If you want flow, you’ll need to use the thinnest silk you can find, or chiffon.  Or change the construction completely by not lining it.

Other issues:  There’s a long buttonhole, through which the sash threads.  For some reason, it’s placed above the waist.  Which means, in my case, that my waist would get completely lost, and my bust would have a tie more-or-less right under it.  Not good.  I lowered it.

Also, if you use the spot Vogue appear to have marked for placing the single snap, you won’t be able to use the sash, because the snap is right smack in the way.  What’s up with that?

The buttonhole foot on my main machine won’t make a buttonhole as long as this one needs to be.  (I could do it with the machine, guiding it manually, but I’m not that brave reckless.)  This blouse wasn’t “bound-buttonhole-worthy”, so I just faced the two buttonholes (one in the main fabric, one in the lining), basted them together once the blouse was done, and then edgestitched all around.

I might wear it, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be resigned to how I look in it.  It’s back to the drawing board for me, style-wise.  Grrr.

I’ve been looking for styles with easy shapes, ones that I can make from linen, and tops that will be cool and comfortable for summer. I’d been thinking about the Shapes Plus One Tunic (from Sewing Workshop) for a while, and Barbara V.’s PR review finally inspired me to make it. I’d wondered about the pattern, but decided that it was just too boxy to work for me. Then I saw Barbara’s photos (her dress looks fantastic!) and changed my mind and bought a length of a gauzy cotton-linen blend to make a muslin.

Cutting it out couldn’t have been simpler: This tunic is made from two, differently-sized rectangles. To sew it up, the side of one rectangle is offset on the other, creating a flange that drapes along the side of the finished top. (Barbara, by the way, removed this flange, and lengthened the tunic into a dress, giving it a somewhat different look.)

Although I’d marked stitching lines carefully, this simple step (attaching the two rectangles to each other) stumped me, and I had a lot of trouble visualizing exactly what I was supposed to do. (Maybe I haven’t been sewing enough lately?) The design is a little counter-intuitive, but, of course, that’s part of what I liked about it. Putting sticky notes on the right and wrong sides of my fabric (they were identical) would have been a really good move, and would have helped with the next step, which involves inverting the tunic and essentially sewing a tube.

The instructions call for a narrow turned hem which is stitched, turned and stitched again. This didn’t work for me, largely because I’d forgotten that I have two damaged fingers on my left hand, and just can’t manage such detailed work consistently any more. (That sounds ridiculous, but I prefer to think that it just means that I’ve adapted to an old injury so well that I’d forgotten all about it.)

The result was that I started off doing a narrow hem, and then realized that wasn’t going to be sustainable, and then switched to a different method — except that I didn’t think I could tear out the right seam (fabric too loosely woven and fragile; seam allowance too narrow). This meant that I ended up with a collar that has a narrow hem on the right side, and the edging I finally used everywhere else. Strangely, it doesn’t look nearly as odd as this sounds, so this won’t keep me from wearing it.

I ended up finishing the edges with a light buttonhole stitch, which, even though it sounds a little odd itself, worked out well. The collar and flange still drape, and it the top still shouldn’t disintegrate every time it’s washed.

In my lightweight cotton-linen, the collar stands up dramatically, which is kind of cool, but also definitely gives me the shoulder of a linebacker, at least on the left side. The drama value ranks with Aretha Franklin’s fantastic inaugural hat, which makes it fun, but also an attention-grabbing Statement. When the event calls for it, perfect! Otherwise, it’s a bit overpowering. And I think I’m with Barbara on the flange; it’s part of what defines the tunic, but it also just looks kind of irrelevant once the top’s made. It just sort of hangs there, lacking all of the caché of the pattern sketch. Theirs:

Mine:

The collar rests a bit awkwardly, too, probably because it’s just folded back above the horizontal shoulder stitching. The topstitching and the shoulder line are sort of battling it out, and neither one is winning. Here’s the back:

All wrinkly; I know. The sewing room’s being rearranged, and I’m not willing to haul out the iron. Besides, this is how it will look after I’ve had it on for five minutes anyway. It doesn’t bother me; I love the look of wrinkled linen!

The pattern itself is fine; the markings are clear and accurate. Will I make it again? Well, probably not. I love the clever engineering, but somehow the results didn’t seem worth the all the bother trying to figure out if I was assembling it the way I was supposed to.

On the other hand, I learned something important about the way I chose patterns. I’m drawn to boxy, rectangular, “artsy”-type clothing. That’s seems to be because, somehow, I actually believe that I’m a blonde, lean, six-foot tall Swede, with a formidable presence and long, long legs.

If you met me in the flesh, those of you with a closer grip on reality would realize that I’m blonde all right (and always have been), but I’m also 5′2″, with who-knows-what-kind-of-presence, short legs and curvy little body even when I’m very thin. Ouch!

Really, I do much better with clothes that fit my shape, rather than depending on height and long legs for style. Now I just need to remember this moment of insight the next time I’m cruising for new duds!

Verdict: This pattern really didn’t work for me, but it’s probably (mostly!) not the fault of Shapes. (Do you think Barbara is a tall, elegant Swede? Her tunic looked great!)

Ann made an interesting variation by cutting the hem asymmetrically, which you can see on her blog. I think it works really well.

For an absolutely great Sewing Workshop pattern, see their Soho Coat. I love that coat!

After my Pfaff went into the repair shop, I had to revise my Mini-Wardrobe Contest plans. I’m considering substituting this top for a knit one that requires the precision of my absent machine. I’d made this tank recently, and planned to make a reversible version for my next ‘wardrobe’. Once I lost my Pfaff, the reversible version stepped into the line-up. Technically, this one is a muslin — it’s the dry run for the ‘real’ top for my next series of garments. But, as it happens, it’s now also in the running for garment number two for this month’s PR Mini-Wardrobe Contest.

The previous tank wasn’t reversible (or lined), and I’d made some changes to the original pattern. I’d removed the center back seam and added a retro-style side zipper. For this new version, I reinstated the center back seam and eliminated both the zipper and the small vents at the hem. The zipper wasn’t needed (and might have weighed down such a filmy fabric), and the vents would have just been lost in all the puffiness of the latest fabric. And, of course, I eliminated the facings, since I was essentially making a fully lined tank.

Though this is not a stretch fabric, there was more than enough give to allow me to get in and out of the tank without any additional opening. This time, I used directions from a Sew News tutorial called On The Double as my guide. They were quite helpful, though you do have to think ahead a little bit — the tutorial really only covers the reversible stuff; it’s important that you remember details like darts, and that you sew them up before getting on with the reversing bits.

I used a crushed poly fabric for both sides — it’s quite expensive at JoAnn stores (bizarrely, about $15 a yard) , but I picked up these pieces at a discount store for under three dollars a yard. The thermal crushing process makes the fabric quite springy, so there’s a lot more give in it than there was in the tightly woven cotton I’d used for the first tank.

In order to make this garment reversible, you make two separate tanks. Instead of interfacing only one tank (or, rather, only one side of the garment), I used the lightest sew-in interfacing I could find, and interfaced both tanks. This seemed especially important because serious pressing wasn’t really an option — unless I wanted flattened sections of fabric wherever I’d used my iron.

After trimming the interfacing at the neckline and armholes, I serged those seam allowances to 1/4 inch. I finished the back and side seams by serging the outer edges, but did not trim them, as I wanted them to lie flat without a telltale serge ‘rim’. To keep everything in place, I tacked the back and side seam allowances together inside the garment. This only took a few minutes, but the extra effort paid off in terms of keeping the layers from shifting.

I edge-stitched the neckline and the armholes for the same reason. As much as possible, I wanted to avoid any hint of the contrasting color when wearing the tank. I’m not sure I succeeded perfectly; the puffy texture is a bit obvious around the curved edges.

Reversible garments like this one tend to work best if the colors are similar on both sides; a great way to fake this is to use prints with consonant hues. Then, if you must use two different colors for main thread and bobbin, it’s not so obvious if the tension isn’t absolutely perfect — the differing colors won’t show though so much on a print. Because the colors I chose here are so different, I used transparent thread for both the main thread and in the bobbin; it picks up the background color very nicely.

In the past, I’d tried sewing with poorer quality transparent thread; this time I used Gutterman, and it made all the difference. I hadn’t been able to use the cheap stuff in a bobbin at all, but the Gutterman worked perfectly — though I had to take special care when winding the bobbin on my Fashion Mate machine.

The Sew News directions have you sew the bottoms of the tanks to each other. I decided to let mine hang freely instead, and opted for hand-sewn hems. I think the garment sits more naturally as a result, but this does mean that I had to make the lengths identical to prevent the lining color from showing on the front. Fortunately, when worn, the ‘inside’ color seems to naturally pull up a little, which helps to keep it from showing.

This fabric is not my favorite. The turquoise side looked alarmingly like snake skin once I’d sewn it up. The rose side isn’t quite that bad, but it’s still a bit much. My spouse — he of the bad, bad Hawaiian shirt collection — raised his eyebrows when he saw it, and almost guffawed. “You’re definitely getting your technical skills back” he said. “Now you just need to work on taste.” I hissed, of course, using my best cobra imitation. But even I am hoping that the real thing will look a bit better.

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?