Cherry Blossoms

So I've written about the Beignet skirt that I dreamed about, only to screw up when I made the decision not to make a muslin. Never again. But what I didn't say in that post was that I'd already made a top to go with it. More to the point, I'd matched the red wool to a red in the rayon knit I used for the top perfectly, and I'd had these visions of a wonderful birthday dinner wearing my new outfit.

I should backtrack and tell you that I'd been ogling the Hot Patterns website for years and finally decided that I wanted to try them. I'd kind of stopped buying patterns for myself when I came across their website for the first time, because I was focusing on sewing for Maeve. But I've been trying to get back into sewing for myself and I wanted something hipper than the average pattern. Fabric.com had really good prices on some of the older patterns by HP, so I ordered a few from them and this is the first I tried - the Plain and Simple Boy-Leg Body, the faux surplice v-neck version with long sleeves. Then I scoured the web and found this lovely rayon-lycra jersey in a cherry blossom print on etsy.

The instructions were limited, but easy to follow and I only have 2 complaints about this pattern: 1) Some of the pattern pieces didn't print properly. This was fixed fairly easily with a ruler and pencil but I still wonder if I made the pieces the right width (they were straight, so fairly easy to reproduce). 2) There are really no instructions for applying the elastic other than the directive to apply it. Yes, I could have googled it, but I was sort of lazy and just wanted to get it done. I'll have to research methods for future projects, but since this is something you wear with a bottom garment, the wonkiness of the elastic in this one is really not an issue. You learn from your mistakes, right?

I only made 2 changes to the garment construction and they didn't involve pattern modification at all. The first was that I chose to topstitch the band on the neckline so that it would lie flat when worn. I just used a straight stitch for this, since I'm unlikely to be extremely rough on this top it should be fine. The other change was that I used stay-tape on the crotch openings when I applied the snaps, since I felt that the stress on that area of the garment indicated a need for reinforcement. This jersey is not super thick and the snaps are pretty darn strong so I wanted to avoid any holes in the fabric from using the snaps.

All in all, not bad, although I think I'll have to make some carriers for my bra straps so that the shoulders don't slip down over them. But I can do that by hand, so no problem. And I think that if I make this again I'll use something a bit firmer - this rayon jersey is super stretchy and stretches easily, so I find it slipping down at the v-neck, which usually ends up in someone getting an eyeful of my cleavage. I don't mind so much if it's my husband but the preschool teacher doesn't need to see it.