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Start at the top



I had a small bit of the lovely Cherry picking fabric left from the blouse I made. I was hoping to make a simple top, something a bit less complicated than buttons and zips. And obviously without using too much fabric! I found the Start at the top pattern, which looked like it would work.


There are some issues with the pattern though. Part of the sleeve does not line up with the rest of the sleeve (and I'm sure it's not me, since the guiding lines are spot on) and the notch marks are misplaced on this piece. I made a guess at how they should be placed...


From there cutting was easy enough. But once I came to start pinning the pieces together I discovered a second problem with the pattern. The instructions mentioned sewing the sides together until reaching the dot. I couldn't fathom what was meant by dot. Turns out reading through the entire pattern revealed that there's supposed to be a small slit at each side. So I eyeballed a decent length for this, I think 10cm works. 

Then I overlocked all the edges. And then it was back to trying to follow the pattern! This time it went much more smoothly! 

There's two more things worth noting. The first is that threading the elastic through the neckline's casing is a bit fraught, my seams kept blocking the safety pin, and I needed to do some frustrating wiggling to get through the whole piece. I'd recommend either sewing down the edges of the seam before making the casing, or laying down some wool as a guide while making the casing. 

 

Pretty much the rest was straight forward. Indeed my next make was the same top, from a different material. This time I didn't read the instructions, I just did it all in the order it occurred to me, but it worked fine! 

For the second top I laid down wool as sewed the neck/elastic casing. It wasn't quite as stress free as I hoped, but still miles better! The other thing I did was leave the hole for passing elastic through at the place where a label would go. And then inserted my own vanity label in there once the elastic was threaded 





The top is nice and simple to whip up: it's really quick to make in gaps before/after work while working from home. Also nice is that it can be worn off-the-shoulder or as a normal neckline. 






Summary
Pattern:Start at the top - simple blouse
Fabric:100% Cotton, cherry picking plus Gold dash double gauze
Lesson learned:You get what you pay for!
Audio book:Leviathan Wakes -  James S A Corey ❤️


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