A Tale of Three Tops

 

In the week and a half that followed the making of the batik Eureka top I made two more, each quite different from the first and each with it's own story. Bear with me as I go thru their individual dramas here. I won't be focusing too much on construction as you got that on the first batik version and can read all about that here.  Instead, I will tell their stories. 

Far right:

This is a knit version of the Eureka top. 

 First, pardon the horrific lighting on this photo. Now, more importantly, pardon the fact that I even made this top. Here is my story. I was in Joanns walking the aisles hot with triumph on the little Eureka top and itching to make another. I thought I'd try a knit as that is what the top was originally designed for. The knits all looked rather blah.  As they hung together, draped on their boards, this one, with its gray background and blobs of color called out to me more than the others. This was the one.  Those blobs were interesting, colorful, and the gray background would go perfectly with fabric I had at home for some matching cargo pants. Let's go to the cutting table. Done, on to home. 

I washed the fabric and set it aside for the moment and dealt with other distractions.  Was the fiber poly or rayon or a blend? It was a very thin knit and very very drapey. The knit section is all mixed up so it could be anything and I forgot what the bolt said. I got my receipt and looked up the sku on their website and was mortified. It was part of a whole collection of prints called various names but all together as "African Print Fabric." They were called Kente fabric, Ethnic fabric  and Global fabric.  Seems my sideways blobs were the continent of Africa. I never felt so stupid in my life but more importantly I had this awful gut feeling that this fabric was not mine to sew.  Hubs walked by it later and I asked him what it looked like and he said " a continent", which one,  " Africa".  OK.  So I thought and thought. I know I did not want to appropriate that fabric for myself and apologize for my ignorance to all my sewing sisters. They did have similar fabrics in the store, which I found on a later visit, but this bolt was in a totally different area with the knits. Here's what I decided. I am going to make this and figure it out as I do.  I'll comment a bit on the making and wearing first. 

Above you can see I used the selvedge to make the collar binding which is a french fold binding to the front of the garment. It took a bit of fuss to  get things to lay just right but not too hard. 

I also utilized the selvedge to add a small pocket on one side. You can also see here the sleeve cuffs.  I ditch stitched them at the top and bottom as I did on the batik but they insisted on drooping open and looked awful. I tamed them into submission with a bit of  Steam A Seam Lite mid cuff and it hangs nicely now.  As I am making this my mind is coming up with various ideas of the best and final use of this garment. 

The hem was stitched on the edge as well as in inch further up.  I gave this garment my best efforts. 

Not far from my home is an organization that specifically helps women in need for various reasons. One of the groups they help are new refugees. They take donations of clothing and I have often donated there as opposed to Good Will and SA as I see it go directly to these women in need. I know for a fact that they are helping out a large group of Somalian women and their children, refugees. I will donate my top there, along with some other summer clothing. It makes me feel good to see it go to one of them. When I did hiring at the axle factory years ago, I dealt with Lutheran services and many "Lost Boys" and other refugees from war ravaged areas of Africa.  The women would come for interviews in their beautiful ethnic garb and wore the most magnificent large smiles. I always remember their smiles. How they could muster them after what they had been thru......any way, I will donate this shirt and a bit more to the organization that helps this community and I feel good about that. 

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My third Eureka based top, but this one is quite different.  I have been ooo-ing and ah-ing over the Sewing Workshop Gardenia Dress for some time.  I went on a great fabric buying trip last week and wanted to check yardage and details on that pattern in case I actually did get to make it. The more I looked at the pattern the more the Gardenia dress looked like the Eureka top with a few changes. Could I knock it off? Do I dare try? WTHeck and get out of the way!  I studied the details and measurements. I definitely didn't get it exactly but close enough to have a cute top called whatever. When I was all done I compared and I did get a few things wrong but dang, I think I got a pretty cute top out of the attempt. 

First I lowered the neckline by about a half inch in the front to the shoulder seam. I then redrew the pattern front and then divided it into two pieces with that division being about 2 inches to the right of center front. Each piece  had 2 1/4 inches of fabric added to it. This became seamed together and made into a big tuck. I stitched my tuck down like a zipper fly which you can see if you look closely. It is included in the neckline binding. The Gardenia does not have big binding like this and it is not secured down.  This gives it a lighter look than my top. 

On one side of the garment, my left, there are  four tiny tucks between that large tuck and the side seam. Inserted into the big tuck and the side seam is a bias tube that pulls and gathers the excess fabric. I had to open this side of the top with wedges to extend it out about 3 more inches. At the hip, the Gardenia is 8 inches bigger than the Eureka.  I made those tucks and wedges from about an inch below the apex down to the hem. . The tucks are a fat 1/8th inch and about 4 1/2 inches long. You can barely see them in the pic. There is a lot of comfortable volume here but controlled by this tie.  I LOVE this top. I am going to redraw the tissue neatly today and plan on making more. It is not quite the Gardenia, but it is a nice top and could be a dress if need be. Most of all, I had a blast making this pattern work. It was a really enjoyable after noon of brain work, looking at the pic and transferring it from my brain to a new tissue. 

ETA: The fabric is Brussels Washer Linen from Kaufman. It is 55% linen, 45% rayon, easy to sew, easy to wash and maintain. 

I can't thank you enough if you have made it to the end of this blogpost. Like I said, lots of story here. I am now moving on to a batch of undies for myself and than I am going to start on some summer pants. I have lots of fabric to play with and McCalls 8099 which looks great on those I have seen it on. Fingers crossed!.