Stripey Tee

Another top, yes. And I've already got so many, right? Are you wondering why I haven't branched out and made other garments lately?

Well despite (blog) appearances to the contrary I have; I've made a frocktails dress and a little jacket, and I'm mid-way through a skirt, but the question is absolutely valid - why am I making so many tops?

Well to be honest the reason is very boring: it's easiest for me to fit tops at the moment.  I've put on weight recently, and my upper body size doesn't change as much as my lower body when I gain (or lose) weight. See, boring!  Pants are on hold for now, but I will make some more dresses and/ or skirts soon.

So back to the top. This one is "self-drafted", but it's based on tracing around a RTW t-shirt, the same one I used for the citrus yellow travel top in this post. So not much drafting skill involved really!  I was working with a very small but lovely viscose remnant from Tessuti fabrics - quite wide but less than 0.8 metres long - so I didn't have room for anything but these short kimono sleeves and this slightly cropped length.

Basically I used my earlier tracing and just folded the sleeves and body length back till the pattern width doubled fit my fabric width and the pattern length fit my fabric length. The stripes are across the top because I like the idea of drawing the eye upwards.

Oh and if you like this shape and don't have a similar RTW top of your own to trace around, I suspect it's very similar to that of the Maria Denmark Kirsten Kimono tee (which I have, but cannot be bothered to unearth - sorry).

So many wrinkles! I would normally iron a garment before photographing it, but without forethought (or ironing, obviously) I was just madly trying to get photos of as many of my unblogged garments as possible while everyone (including crazy puppy) was out.

I'm not sure if you can see it even in the close ups, but after a failed attempt at sewing twin needle finishes around the folded over neckline and sleeves I opted to instead finish these edges by hand. My pick stitching isn't invisible but it's even enough and I like the fancier-looking finish this gives on the outside of the top. I was a bit concerned the neckline stitches might pop as I put the top on and off, so I've sewn a bit loosely and added knots every now and then around the neckline so that if stitches do pop, only a small section will come undone.

So, not much to say about this one - a very simple sew - but as it turns out, this little top slots into my corporate wardrobe very nicely. The beige/light brown colour is not one I'd normally choose to wear, but maybe I need to rethink colours - besides which the top is as comfortable as you'd expect a t-shirt to be, and its lack of sleeves means it fits smoothly under even my more tailored jackets. Sold!

I've got one more top I want to try to post before the end of 2016, along with my top 5 sewing misses (I haven't yet checked - not sure how many misses there were, so perhaps it will be top 3, and perhaps top 20). And then I expect my normal (irregular blogging) program will resume in 2017...

See you soon!

- Gabrielle xx