oh hey! I made a new top.
This is the Harmony pattern by FibreMood; and I really loved it upon first sight; the interesting, sailor-inspired bib collar and slightly old-fashioned sleeves with a wide, buttoned cuff. I think it has a vaguely Edwardian air about it and I am totally on board with this idea!
I used a beautiful silk/linen mix that I bought from Fabulous Fabrics ages ago… btw, I’m on a use-my-stash-only kick, since out move when I realised just how much fabric I have. Spoiler alert; it’s a LOT and I seriously want to get my supplies down to a much more manageable level. Like, to about a quarter of what I have now! Yes, very embarrassing, I know! but there it is and I’m making good headway, believe it or not! Yes, I know I haven’t posted much here lately, but I’m making a lot of toiles for Cassie’s and my new pattern and I’ve managed to harvest/cull quite a bit in the process. But, I’m getting sidetracked here… back to my top!
You’re supposed to gather the bodice into the bib, and also gather the sleeves into the cuffs; instead I carefully measured and folded mini pleats in these areas which I think suits my quite crisp fabric a lot better. I really love doing pleats in lieu of gathers, actually and have done it in quite a few garments in my time. I won’t call it “age-appropriate”, because I’ve become wary of that divisive term in recent years so I will just describe it instead as “personal-style appropriate”. That’s better!
The design actually uses an unexpected lot of fabric, and I didn’t actually have enough… I solved this problem by cutting the bib facings on the selvedge, and joined them in the middle. This enabled a much more efficient layout of the pattern pieces and of course you can’t even see the facings anyway!
The pattern advises you to put buttonholes on the shoulder closure; I did stitch them on during the making but I unpicked them when I realised buttoning and unbuttoning up on my shoulder like that was going to be pretty darned awkward; and I installed pretty pearl-headed press studs there instead. The sleeves have self-fabric looped button closure too, but they are wide enough I can easily slip my hands through without having to fiddle with those, and the cuffs can stay firmly and securely buttoned the whole time. I used pearl look-alike buttons here. Yes; all of of this from my stash! I’m so glad I could finally “marry” all of these items together into one pretty garment!
Details:
Top, the harmony blouse pattern by FibreMood, ivory silk/linen
Trousers; the Sasha trousers pattern by ClosetCore patterns, stretchy cotton denim, more details here
Shoes; made by me using a Shoe Camaraderie kit, details here
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