A top machine

Well no not really but I have been working on two more Ottobre tops for my SWAP and am pretty pleased with myself, because I have tried something new and easy and it worked. Both tops will have to be hemmed and photographed in the next day or two but here are the details.

Simple I know but for me something new.

I liked the blue jersey top I did a few days ago enough to try another version. My SWAP colours are black, grey, red and white (boring I know but the assignment this year was to do a typical week) and one of my tops is from some grey rayon knit that has been festering waiting for transformation for a while now. A grey top is not the most exciting project in the world so for the neckline and sleeve binding (the sleeves in this pattern are gathered slightly into sort of cuff-like binding) I used some patterned knit that I had a scrap stuck away in a corner. Why only a scrap when I bought 3 meters of the stuff is a good question. Suffice it to say that sometimes, despite long experience, I sew something that I know will not suit me, because I am so entranced by the picture on the pattern envelope. Of course this meant only that some perfectly good fabric got wasted on a droopy old dress that even my husband noticed was highly unflattering. So out it went with some remnants saved because I couldn't face a complete sacrifice. That remnant became the binding for my grey top, and this totally simple thing that most other sewers have done, made me feel so creative.

Second innovation was to finally, five years after I bought it, use the belt loop maker attachent for my coverstitch serger to make ties of top #2 which is a variation of the first pattern,

Pretty slick and completely skill free as a process. Of course the fabric was very stretchy and I was not able to fold under or zig zag the tie ends without mega distortions, so for now the end are just knotted.

Off to bed now, school tomorrow.