Another Inspired shirt !

 

When I find a design I really love, I tend to make two or three of them in pretty short order. I went to my local quilt shop and back in the area where they have garment fabrics, which are mighty fine by the way, I found this Japanese fabric that up close looks and acts more like a linen. It is all cotton. It's a bit funky and the grey is rather muddy which the computer doesn't pick up that well.  I decided it needed to be the same design as the lovely white tablecloth shirt I just posted previous to this one. 

It took me 1 3/8 yard of 45 inch fabric to make this little top which started out as McCalls 8144 for knits. All I kept was the neckline and it's center front seam and moved on to a woven.  You can see all the construction on the previous post but I will point out a few highlights I did differently on this one

On this version you can better see the shape of the front hem. It is one inch shorter at center front than it is where it meets the side seam. It looks very cropped on my dummy but it totally covers my waistband and a bit of my tummy below. If  you look at the pics in the last post you will see  no skin at all shows when I wear it. 

You will also notice in the second iteration that the cowl is much more pronounced . This is because this is a lighter weight fabric than the cotton damask used in the white version.  I really like this effect. 

This time I cut a bias facing and it was understitched and then turned and catch stitched to the top.  I was careful to pull just a couple of threads so they wouldn't show on the public side. 

It's a bit confusing but what you see above is the invisible zipper opened up to show you the neckline facing. On the original it was handstitched to the zipper. Here you can see that the invisible zipper was installed on serged seam allowances and the big facing piece was machine stitched to the zipper and turned, a nice clean finish that I often forget to do.  It really is so easy with inviz zips too. 

Once again, on the back, I have the yoke going across and the inviz zip in the middle going up the neck so I could easily get this over and on for dressing. It was easy.  This print was very random and I did not bother to match at all.  I tried and tried but could not pull it off at any point that would let it match on the opposite side.

I just want to comment that I think this is a cute top but would be really great for those of us of a certain age. There is wonderful flattering neck camouflage, and the sleeves show some skin for ventilation yet are still pretty flattering. I am really also into shorter tops the past couple years as I find they flatter my petite height better. It's a good proportion for me. So version #2 of my inspiration top has been put together until warmer times. I think it will look great with jeans. 

I am going to put sewing garments aside for a bit and work on a couple of other creative projects I have going on. I feel like I am just making clothes to fill up my closet at this point. I have my vax scheduled and am looking forward to life going on. I am going to try some other creative endeavors in the meantime, some bead weaving and some pictorial quilting. I will blog about them as they get interesting. 

Happy Sewing!