My Wrap Top from Weekend Designer

One of my favorite blogs is Weekend Designer. Shortly after I started following, the author stopped posting, but he left behind a BILLION tutorials for drafting patterns for the best designs!!

I decided to give his Show Topper a whirl this weekend. I had just gotten a bunch of matte jersey from Fabric.com. It was one of their Daily Deals, and I got it for about $4/yd. This stuff is so soft and drapey......I'm in love!!!! (pretty shift to sew, though, so use a lot of pins!!)


As you can see, I chose the red for this top. I was so torn about which to use, because I want to do a wrap dress from one of them.

I referred to my dress form a lot during the construction of this, as it has both front and back darts and I wanted to check the fit. Also, Weekend Designers suggestion for the collar length and sleeve length were both short (to me) and I had to make them longer, thus requiring a bit of finagling on my part.

Even though this pattern was drafted from my measurements, I was still suspicious that it wouldn't be the correct length. Most commercial patterns have to be lengthened by two inches to fit me properly, and after doing that for so long, it's a hard habit to break.

The front, pinned together, darts sewn.


back


close up of the final collar length



After finally deciding to bind the front edges of the top rather than hem them, I got it all put together.




Here I am in my finished top!! I'm REALLY happy with it. It looks great, and is super comfortable and I LOVE that it fits so perfectly. See Aldous trying to get in the pic??? that ham!!




a bit about hemming knits:

to hem knits, I usually use a double needle. This reduces the stretching quite a bit, and it looks nice. however, some fabrics STILL stretch, so I got a tip to use Stitch Witchery. I already had a bit of Heat n Bond lite, which I used and works great!! You iron down one side, the peel the lining off, fold your hem, then iron it down!! Double needle right over it for a perfect hem!!

But then I ran out. Because so many people recommended Stitch Witchery, I bought some. A lot of it. It turns out, tho, that I don't like it as much!! Because it doesn't have a peel away side, you have to catch the strip of it between the hem fold and iron it down. It's a bit tricky. However, once you manage that, it sews up just the same. I'm sure I'll use my 7 million yards of Stitch Witchery, but I can't wait until I run out so I can buy some Heat N Bond lite...that stuff rocks!!