Date Night Top

Pattern: inspiration, Vogue's Misses'/ Misses' Petite Top #V8495, new dress form!
Fabric: sheer polyester (bleck!)
Cost: $15

For my last project, I discovered my love of cotton. Easy to cut, easy to sew, beautiful to wear. I know I sound like one of those commercials with Miranda Lambert for the cotton lobby, but the experience made me seriously think about my fabric choices. No reason to make it to episode 12 of Project Runway only to have Heidi call you out for using polyester to make a dress.

That said, it took me one more shirt to learn my lesson. I was inspired by this dress, and had some sheer,  gauzy fabric lying around that I thought might work. Using my brand new dress form and the sleeves of a McCall pattern, I traced out my design and fitted it to my dress form.

The fabric, however, was terrible. It stretches if you tug on it, and so I couldn't for the life of me get the hem straight. I tried measuring, cutting, fitting... and ended up with a midriff. Luckily, I had purchased plenty of this wretched fabric, and so was encouraged to try again. I made a few adjustments, and gave it one clean cut across the botton. I then began my meticulous work, blind hemming the neckline (by machine and by hand), hemming the sleeves, and again giving the bottom a good blind hem. The fabric protested the whole time, unraveling, tearing, and generally misbehaving.

To get the gathered look around the waist, I mounted the garment on my dress form and attached elastic. I'm still getting used to my favorite new sewing tool, however, and the waist came out too high once I had finally sewn everything on. But I had a date to go on, and so I wore my garment anyway. Not only was the waistband ill-fitting but so was the neckline, and the fabric was scratchy and felt cheap to boot.

Despite my ill-fitting project, the date was lovely and I've been inspired again to try this pattern--using cotton! I also picked up some general patterns at a garage sale today, so I may use that as a template for my shirt instead. So... beautiful cotton shirts coming soon!


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