Are You Sure It’s July?

Hope my Canadian Readers had a Happy Canada Day yesterday! Guess that means it is actually July, eh? However I’m currently wearing long pants, a long-sleeved t-shirt and a tunic over that. Plus 2 pairs of socks. I even took Blodgie, my hot water bottle, to bed last night. Our furnace is turned off and my feet were freezing, OK? Yeah, I know I shouldn’t complain because other people are “enjoying” heat waves, tornadoes and rampant forest fires. And our southern hemisphere folks are slipping into winter. But I’m getting a wee might anxious that we’re not going to have much summer before our winter sets in again. As it is, it kind of resembles October out there except with green leaves instead of brown. The slugs are in hog heaven in my soggy garden and there are mysterious spots appearing on the tomato leaves in the greenhouse. Sigh. Wish I knew how to send the rain to where it’s needed more.

All right. Whinging over.

I did manage to finish a project. Yay! And I’m quite pleased with the results.

Anthro-Knockoff Top

Completed:  July 1, 2012

Fabric:  4 different fabrics/scraps from the deep stash; none less than 10 years old. Front and back – linen/poly blend, oatmeal (left over from the Bib-Front Shirt. Sides – lightweight napped plain weave of unknown fibre content, natural/greys/black unbalanced plaid. Yoke and french binding – rayon, black/natural hand-print from Maiwa’s scrap bin. Accent strips – cotton twill, brick red.

Notions:  Sewing threads in black, dark grey, light grey, oatmeal, brick red. Serger thread in dark grey. 4 small plastic buttons, matte red-brown.

Comments:  It was almost exactly 2 years ago when I saw this top on the Anthropologie site:

 

Unfortunately, that was the summer of the Itchy-Peelies skin condition and there was no way that I was making nice clothes for myself then. Flash forward to now and I have a lot more patternmaking and sewing skills under my belt and I was finally able to realise this garment. Or a fair facsimile thereof. The neck isn’t nearly as low cut and the back is sadly without the racer-back so I can wear a regular bra underneath:

Drafting the pattern gave me some trouble and it took several sessions but I persevered. I began with my basic shoulder-princess sloper and added a little extra ease. Happily there was only a small amount of tweaking needed after I basted the main vertical seams together, an inch more shaved from the centre piece at the back waist seams and a smidgen of smoothing on the front neckline. Pretty good methinks!

The yoke facing (cut from the oatmeal fabric for body) was sewn on using the burrito method. It was cut out on the grain but in the photo you can see that the print wasn’t exactly on-grain. Probably why it ended up in Maiwa’s scrap bin. I used french bindings on the neckline and armholes and went a little nuts changing thread colours in both the top and bobbin to match the fabrics I was stitching over. It was kind of a fun idea if somewhat tedious to accomplish! I finished the top with decorative buttons on the red bands, two on the back and one on the top of each front band. Just a bit of whimsy. (You’d have to click on the image to see them!) The Real Anthro Top used grommet tape so I was hinting at that detail. I might have used more buttons but 4 was all I had.

Now if only it would get warm enough to wear my new top.

In other crafty news, there is no news. I’m about a foot away from the finish line on T’s 10-Stitch Blanket. I’ve been in no hurry to be done. It makes a fine warmer while I’m watching TV and knitting on it in the evenings! I haven’t done anything more on the dress for Rosebud. It’s waiting until I’m done with the blanket.

While I was cutting out the Anthro-Knockoff, I found out there is enough of the oatmeal linen/poly left to make a sleeveless blouse and enough of the brick red cotton twill to make a skirt. There’s lots of the plaid left too (maybe 1.5 m) but I’m not sure what to do with it. It’s very lightweight and because it’s brushed to bring up a nap, I’m afraid it will pill badly. (I used the least napped side as the outside on my top. We’ll see how it behaves over time.) I also have no patience for the asymmetrical plaid at this point. The two faces are different enough that you can’t just flip the pattern over to get a mirror image. Bleh. Maybe something will occur eventually. Back into deep stash with it for now. The skirt is next on the sewing table. Stay tuned.