Just want to sew.

The difficulty of all this travel and teaching about sewing is that I have no time to do any myself.  I know that the summer is the travel/teaching season, and I’m winding down, and I have all fall to recuperate and focus on some of my own work in the studio, but after returning from the ASG conference in Arlington, knowing I had only about a 48 hour turn around, I absolutely had to sew something other wise I was going to wilt.

I wanted to sew something quick, yet meaningful.  Handwoven fabrics by nature to not ensure a quick experience, nor should they, but there were two scarves I’d just woven laying on the cutting table awaiting tags, and I just couldn’t help myself.

A top.  A summer top.  The summer is almost over, but if you can believe this, in all the garments I’ve made over my 35 years of sewing handwoven garments, I can’t recall every making a top for me.  I sold some oversized ones as was the style back when I did craft fairs in the 80’s, but nothing stylish and current.

I decided to use a pattern I’d already worked out, actually the one I used to make this dress.  It already fit, so I could just cut it shorter and use the pattern to make a top.

First I had to decide on what I wanted for the center front.

Then came the layout.  Of course these scarves are only 10 inches wide, and of course with the addition of seam allowances they aren’t wide enough to go around me completely.  So I did my usual neat trick of butting the selvedge of an additional scrap up against the area where I need extra.

I whipped together the edges to hold everything in place.

I transferred the markings to each panel with tailor’s tacks, particularly the front and back center seamlines.  I wanted to take advantage of the finished selvedge, even though the seamline was shaped.

I carefully spliced the selvedges of the small added on scraps at the upper and lower side seams.

I fused 3/8″ crosswise cut strips of poly tricot onto the perimeter of the wrong side of each garment section.  Though this is mostly a warp face structure, plain weave with supplemental ribbons, the content is mostly slippery rayon and unraveling would have been an issue as I worked on the neck and armhole edges.

I assembled the garment while I was at Peters Valley, it was great fun to sit in the evenings in the studio, and sew with the rest of the students, always available to answer questions of course, but really de-stressing and gentle on the soul.  I used bias cut nylon tricot to finish off the neck and armhole edges, turning to the inside.

And so, now I have a lovely top to wear…

Stay tuned…