Top Trio and a Winner

Of course you wouldn't know it from my silence, but I've been participating in Faye's 2013 "Essential Top Sew-a-long".  And I've made a trio of simple tops, two of which are keepers:

The cute little striped top is a Kirsten Kimono Tee, a success here but a fail for me when I first made it (in the same red fabric as shown above - I'm trying really hard to sew from my stash!). My striped fabric is a loose-weave linen jersey; it's a drapey two-way stretch fabric and makes for a completely different and much more relaxed fit to my earlier effort. The shoulder seams and neckline are stabilised with thin, transparent elastic - I forget what it's called but I use it a lot with lightweight knits. Everything else was sewn with a twin needle - side seams and all hem finishes. I learnt the hard way that this sort of fabric stretches out a lot if you subject it to overlocking, so the seams are raw :-).

Late Edit: here's what the stripey top looks like on - already getting loads of wear:

The blue top looks crumpled because it's been sitting in a bag of stuff dedicated to be passed on to the local second hand shop. I did intend for this to be a wardrobe staple as I love the colour and have heaps of this fabric in my stash, but unfortunately I misread the fabric list for the long sleeved pattern (Vogue 8879, view A) and used a two-way rather than a four-way stretch for the blue top. This top fits but feels constricting, and I don't like the waist band on it so it's being passed on to the second-hand shop. With any luck it'll become a wardrobe staple for someone smaller than me.

Lesson learnt, second time around with Vogue 8879 I used a fabric (the red stuff) with four-way stretch.  This time around I left off the stitching at the bottom of the V-neck binding because I suspected the V-neck would turn into a scoop neck if left to its own devices. It does - the strain from the cut-in-one sleeves is enough to pull what looks like a steep V shape into something much rounder when worn.  I lengthened the sleeves by about 9cm, omitted the waist band, and sewed my seams a smidgen narrower. This top looks good on, and even feels loose through the body and shoulders (what a difference the fabric makes!), but I'm not 100% convinced by fitted cut-on sleeves...  I think I would have preferred an extra seam for the sake of having my sleeves on the grain.

So that's the trio, now for the WINNER of my dresses pattern pyramid:

                          it's Dal!

Congratulations Dal - I'll be in touch soon to get your mail details and send those patterns off to you!