Come Fly With Me - New Look 6891 Top

This loose fitting top was my second completed garment and I must admit to being ridiculously pleased with it when it was done.  Of course it still has some foibles but nothing I can’t live with or feel the need to go back and correct.  I sort of like having those things to chart my sewing progress, or at least I hope it’s progress!

I tried French seams for the first time and absolutely love the way they look.  In fact I didn’t find them hard at all which was a surprise, they just take a bit longer but surely it’s worth it to have your seams neatly tucked away.  I’ll caveat that though by saying that I only did the side seams with this technique.  Let’s gloss over the fact that I completely ignored the need to finish the centre back seam, shoulder seams or armholes.  Having disliked the finish I got using a zig zag stitch on my McCalls 3341 skirt seams and without pinking shears or an overlocker in my sewing arsenal I simply just did nothing.  Not cool.

Lovely French seams

Not so lovely back seam - unfinished lol

I did make an alteration to this pattern as I didn’t want to have a centre front seam cutting through my balloons and I also wasn’t a fan of the gap at the top that’s intended by the pattern.  There was absolutely no chance of me attempting any pattern matching so I cut the front as a single piece, remembering to remove the seam allowance.  I can’t actually remember how I did this now but I’m pretty sure I didn’t do it by cutting on the fold which now seems to be a perfectly obvious and easy solution.  No doubt I did something complicated like tracing half, turning over and tracing another half.  Whatever, I still got there.

The gathering at the neck and armholes was another new technique for me and I took my time with this and was very happy with the results.  I used the basting and pulling technique which I think was included in the pattern instructions.  I could improve on my efforts with this I think, particularly in the armholes as my gathers probably weren’t really close enough to the seams so they got a bit uneven once through the sewing machine.

 I promise there is gathering there, not loads but some!

The bias binding and tie at the neck was yet another new technique to me and generally this went pretty well.  I’m already in love with self binding but I might not be when I’ve tried it with a less forgiving fabric ha!  My stitches fell off the binding at times but it’s all secure so who cares.  My machine did struggle a bit towards the ends of the ties so I did get some thread breakage there and my stitches are nowhere near the edge.  I took a bit of a sledgehammer approach and just made sure they were joined together, regardless of good stitch placement.  Again who cares, it’s my second make!

Very happy with my bias binding

The bow is together even if the stitching isn't perfect

There is one thing I don’t like about this top and do care about and that’s the sleeves.  The fabric is a medium weight cotton from My Fabrics and I sort of anticipated that it might not be drapey enough for the sleeves and it wasn’t.  I wanted the balloons pretty badly though so I just ignored that and ploughed on.  They stand a bit proud and I’m not sure it’s going to improve a lot – the cotton has got softer with washing but I think it’s kind of done with that now.  So stiff sleeves it is, ah well.

Still no attempt at pattern matching and I'm just fine with that

This top has seen a fair amount of wear although I wouldn’t say the fit is that great (my fault not the patterns I’m sure).  I paid a lot more attention to the pattern sizing this time and cut based on my bust measurement which I knew would mean taking in at the waist later.  I figured I could just do this once it was on me before I sewed the side seams and I did do this but I found it fiddly without a buddy to help.  (My dress form was a distant dream at the point I made this top.)  And I stabbed myself with pins quite a bit L  Fortunately it’s a loose top so it’s easier to get away with this.

New achievements for my portfolio:

• Bias binding - both making and attaching
• French seams
• Inserting sleeves
• Gathering
• Staystitching

Overall a definite win and I’m still totally in love with those balloons!