Make That Look: Terranova Crop Top

In my favourite fabrics shop downtown I came upon a 50 cm remnant of this sweet viscose knit and I snatched it for a crop top for Gaby. This summer she's been wearing a RTW crop top by Terranova and I knew I could make her a similar one.

On a different note, RTW t-shirts now during the sales at the end of summer are so cheap, that to a non-sewist all that money I've spent into buying sewing machines, fabric, threads and needles (and I'm expecting my own labels to arrive any time soon) seem totally pointless. But it's never been about saving money and it's not even about higher quality, though I try, it's about the love for creating, that's all.

To recreate the pattern, I used as a basis a T-shirt pattern by Shkatulka, which I cropped, extended and further modified to match the original crop top. I even made a mock sample out of a white promotional T-shirt I was about to turn in for recycling - to my surprise it turned out quite nice, Gaby liked it and might wear it at home.

The main seams are sewn on the overlocker, the back of the neck is covered with a band from the same fabric (youtube tutorial here), I cleaned the hem edges on the overlocker and then sewed them on the Elna with twin needle. NB! Always check the settings of the machine when using twin needle - I had forgotten mine on zigzag stitch and of course, I broke my only stretch twin needle :(, so I had to hem the blouse with the twin needle for wovens, using paper straps to make it work on my knit fabric.

After I finished the crop top, I had a small piece of the fabric left, so I made a pair of matching undies. The pattern I used is again one from Shkatulka I've sewn already six times and I know it's a good pattern, though I'm still fiddling with the fit, trying to perfect it.

All in all, pretty happy with this set!

Études in Jade

Two quick makes for Gaby out of cotton fabric I was gifted last year. Though the pictures don't show it, the color is very loud jade, which none of us liked much and I've been racking my brains what to make out of it. Then came carol's suggestion to try lekala.co and I was inspired to cut a pair of simple pajama style bottoms out of it for Gaby, to be worn at home.

The pattern is the free pyjamas pants, customized to her measures. I am absolutely blown away by the idea and I'll be definitely trying the site with more interesting and complicated patterns soon. As for this pair of pants, they came quite as advertised,  very easy and straight forward to make, they fit her well as for pajamas, probably just an inch short. I should have checked the length in advance, but I had so firmly decided to try the pattern as is, that I didn't take any of my usual preliminary measurements. There is only one piece of pattern, which is cut twice, no pockets, no waistband. As the front and the back are quite similar, I added a little red tag to the back to make putting them on correctly easier.

As I had some piece of fabric left, I decided to make a little top too. While the color is too loud for dressy pants, she reckoned a little summer top in this color could be wearable.
The pattern I chose is Easy smock top by lovesewingmag.co.uk, a free pattern, which I already made last year. It is another easy pattern, which comes out enormous, but I "hacked" it by adding elastic shearing to the waist. However, my first top was made out of soft cotton gingham, which gathered beautifully, and this jade cotton is much heavier and creates a bit too much volume. I should have reduced the width of the front and the back by at least a total of 8 cm, which I will probably do, if I decide to make this a third time.

Gaby wanted the top to be crop top, so I cut it just above the waist and experimented with the finishing by folding the edge in half and hemming the blouse with the same elastic thread as the shearing above. I was lucky to have a sewing thread in the exact color of the fabric. All my seams are flat felled seams and I did add a little red tag to the back of the blouse too.
I need to find a way to make my own tags real soon!