I've been wanting to make this pattern for a couple of months now, for some reason I didn't get to it till now.
The Pattern is from this magazine:
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| Knipmode September 2012 |
My last few projects have been a few simple sweaters (it got cold pretty fast here, had to have something appropriate to wear 😏), so I decided to go for this a bit more "complicated" top. It has pleats on the front and this sort of bat-wing/kimono sleeves.
Time to transfer the pattern to pattern paper!
There are almost always a few changes I have to make to the patterns once transferred. Greeks aren't exactly famous for being tall so yea... I usually have to shorten my patterns by moving the waist up 4 cm. In this case, since the top is quite straight and barely has any waist shaping, I'll be skipping this step.
Secondly, since I have a smaller bust size than hip size (again, Greek...), I almost always have to combine 2 sizes to make tops and dresses fit properly.
Since the back of this top is 2 separate pieces this is how i combined the 2 sizes:
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| Top of pattern drawn a smaller size than the bottom half. |
Obviously I can't just use it as is, that'd look silly 😛. So for "fixing" this I used my awesome Luterloh rulers:
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| Making it all smoooth |
And this is what it looks like with the lines connected smoothly:
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| One line from 2 sizes |
And that was that! (Yes that's my size on this magazine... You saw it, now it can't be undone...)
Adding seam allowance to all the pattern pieces and it's all done and ready for placing on the fabric!
Which fabric you might wonder? Me too! 😄 That I haven't decided yet, first I gotta spend half an hour staring at my stash and mumbling that I need more fabric and can't find THE perfect one for this project and after half an hour I'll have pick something that I might end up replacing with another one 😕.
Okey! Here it is!
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| 💙 |
So I started pinning my pattern to the fabric, here is the way you're supposed to, according to the magazine, place your pattern to your fabric:
Yea... no, i ain't doin that! Can't be bothered cutting everything separately and mirroring pieces if it's not absolutely necessary 😁 So I put everything on the fold, here's an idea of what I did:
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| Cutting on the fold |
Here's everything cut and ready to be put together! If you didn't notice I include my seam allowances on my paper pattern, this way it's so much easier if I want to make the same pattern again, just lay it on the fabric and cut!
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| All pieces cut and ready! |
( Ignore the paint stains on my desk, was too lazy to place some plastic on top of it when i was painting a kitchen rack 😶 )
Beginning the assembly! First I have to stitch the pleats on both the left and right parts, that's the pieces with the sleeves.
After that's done, the center piece has to be connected to those 2 pieces (sigh.. why are there corners there..?) Next step is to stitch the pleats of the center piece. Here is the front put all together:
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| Front pieces finished |
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| Close up of center front |
And now the back : easy, stitch center back and then attach bottom back piece:
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| The back |
Now for the exciting part! Stitching back and front pieces together! Simple, stitch shoulder/top of sleeve on both sides and under-sleeve/side seams. And it's put together! Let's throw it on Roxanne and see how it looks!
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| Roxanne wearing the top |
Hmm...
Hmm... That is.. a tiny bit low.. It was even worse.. I took the shoulders in 1-1,5cm... Why...? Who wants to wear anything that low? Now the question is, can I fix this without destroying the neckline?
For the rest it looks quite good tho, have a look!
( I gotta get better at talking pictures 😐 )
So, I decided to add a small yoke to my top since it is so low. I draw on paper the shape of my neckline, front and back, and then I added 1 to 2 cm upwards. The center front I made 2 cm and curved it to 1 cm for the front sides and the back.
And here it is finished:
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| Knipmode top 28 finished |
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| Knipmode top 28 |
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| The back |
Am I amazed by the result? Nope. Will I wear it? Yep.
I had higher hopes for this top but I still think it's wearable. Will I make this pattern again? Nope!
The construction and pleats and all made this pattern attractive to me but the result I find rather boring.
Well, that was that, off to the next one! 😃
