Saturday, May 3, 2014

Melly Sews Hi Lo Top and MMM'14

On the last day of April I decided I'd sign up for Me Made May again this year. Last year was my first year and I really enjoyed it, much more than I thought I would. I found that I hardly had to think about reaching for me-made as it's automatic and also it identified the gaps in my wardrobe. Plus, there's of course the great big bonus that I get to connect with lots and lots of lovely like-minded sewing fanatics all over the world, yay!

So here's my pledge:

 'I, Jo of Bubala sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '14. I endeavour to wear at least one item made by me each day and once a week a whole outfit (excluding underwear, shoes and socks) for the duration of May 2014'

I will posting a pic each day on my Instagram feed then hopefully do a round-up here after each week has passed. Anyone who's done MMM before will know that the photo taking is the hardest part!



I wore this top on day 2 and thought it was time I blogged about it before it falls apart through over-wear :-) I made this a couple of months ago and it's been in regular rotation ever since.

The pattern is the lovely free 'Hi Lo top' by Melly Sews. From the moment I saw this pattern I thought I'd love it, so I downloaded and printed it and waited for the right fabric to jump out at me :-) The pattern comes in only one size, but I think it would be reasonably easy to change a bit. I'm about a size 10/12 Australian (bust 34") and it fits well.



I love the overall shape of this top and it's been perfect for our autumn weather when you need a little extra coverage. One change I made to the pattern was to add a casing to the sleeves and thread elastic through. I have done this with other tops and it's worked well. I don't particularly like sleeves just hanging and find the elastic comfortable.



The other change I made was to add some pin tucks to the front. I love the look of pin tucks and hadn't tried them before so thought this would be a good pattern to try them on.

I used this tutorial, applying the pintucks to my flat (uncut) piece of fabric. I then placed the bodice pattern piece on the fabric so that the pintucks are in the upper centre of the piece. I then cut out the other pattern pieces and sewed them together as usual, applying the binding to the neckline as usual, which covers the raw ends of the pintucks. I choose to do 7 pintucks (my lucky number ;-) and just eyeballed how long I wanted them. As I'd done the pintucks before cutting out the pattern I didn't add any width to compensate for the width they take up, but if you were to cut them out first I'd consider adding a bit (about 1.5 cm in this case as each pintuck is about 2mm). Though, having said that, these pintucks are so tiny that if you had a loose fitting top you wouldn't necessarily need to bother. It looks like mine are straining a bit in the pic above but it's just that I'm stretching my arm out to take the selfie :-) I had so much fun doing the pintucks and will definitely be adding them to other garments in future!

The fabric I used was a Japanese lawn from Spotlight that I bought on sale and stashed away for the perfect project. I have used several of their lawns now and find them really comfortable to wear, quite strong but with a lovely drape. They also wash really well. I find it so annoying when fabrics suffer greatly from laundering. I do seem to find that Japanese made fabrics are superior to others. Gross generalisation but that's my finding so far. Do you agree?

10 comments:

  1. Love the pin tucks you added - very cute!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great top. Good luck for May. I'm glad you are doing it again! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Really love the top - the pintucks look fab.
    Enoy MMM!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Justine, funny how a little detail can change the feel of a garment and be so enjoyable to do ;-)

      Delete
  4. Its beautiful Jo!
    Did you link the pintuck tutorial, its not working for me. I'd love to try them, oh and did you add extra width for them?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Susie, oops, I'd forgotten to do the link, thanks for picking that up. I've also added a bit a detail about the construction of the pintucks now ^, hope it makes sense x

      Delete
  5. I love this top, and I happen to have some nice Japanese voile on hand ... (and yes, I'm sorry, but the Japanese just have *great* style).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Inder, and you're going into the right weather for the japanese voile, always a joy to wear

      Delete

Related Posts with Thumbnails