I finally made a Scout Tee

And it's fabulous!

front

This may be the only Scout out there made of sequins.  As Miss Lulu told me on Instagram:  "When you arrive late to the party, you need to make a fabulous entrance!"

This is the last piece of fabric from my Sequin Fabric Buying Binge of 2013.  I got it from JoAnn's in their Black Friday sale for $12 a yard.  It looks like it's still available too, although not at that price.

Although this was my first time using the Scout pattern, I wasn't too concerned with fitting, as this is basically a stable knit fabric.  The shoulders looked good, so I gave myself a 1/4" broad back adjustment, graded from a 2 at the bust to a 4 at the hip, and then did the "full back alteration" for the full look I wanted with this top.  I think if I do this in a woven in the future, I will have to give myself more room in the hip for the unaltered version.

back

I had quite enough of cutting sequins out of seam allowances back in 2013, so I decided to fully line this one.  The lining is attached at the neck and sleeve seams, and open at the hem.  I'm so glad I did this - it makes a huge difference in how comfortable this top is to wear.

I sewed the whole thing on my sewing machine using a narrow zigzag stitch.  Because I didn't cut away any sequins, I did end up breaking 3 needles in the making of this top :-(  Still - a fabulous, vintage-looking sequin top for $20 + 3 needles!  A bargain!  (The lining cost me $8 - almost as much as the outer!)

I left the bottom of the lining unhemmed:

I was looking through my jewelry and found this old necklace from Anthropologie that I think looks just great with this:

I'm really happy with how this one came out - it's exactly what I had in mind.  I do believe this will be coming to NYC with me, so I'm going to try to remember to take modeled pictures in situ :-)

As Promised

Going back to the second sequin top I made.  As it turns out, the pictures from NYE were truly horrific - the lighting at my friend's house wasn't any better than it is at mine!  So I donned the outfit again the other day while I was taking the photos of my third (and for now, final) sequin top.

Not much to say about this that I didn't say in the construction post!  So here are a slew of pictures of me wearing the top.

fit pic from the front

fit pic from the back

I discovered that those sequins in the hem really like to get hung up on my pants, so the thing pretty much never lays flat.  For the first few pictures, I wore the top with the jeans and flats I had on, and I don't think it looks bad that way!

But here is how I wore it on NYE - with black wool ankle pants and gold heels.

Let's take a closer look at those shoes, shall we?  Kirsty B, I'm sure you recognize these - I became completely obsessed with them after seeing them on you, and finally tracked them down at a great sale price!

Pour la Victoire Elle in gold snake.  Can you hear the angels singing?

And because I'm in a generous mood today, I leave you with this silly pose:

Laura Petrie, or Palm Beach?

Hey, it's Jungle January!!  I've been waiting for this for months!  I so wanted to participate last year, but despite several shopping excursions I couldn't find a fabric I liked.  This year, I've been stocking up :-)

I'm not sure this is really kosher for Jungle January.  I made this top in the last three days of 2013.  BUT - I just took the photos today!  And I love this top, so I'm going ahead with it.

If you follow me on Instagram, or if you've taken a peek at my stash pages up above, you've already seen this fabulous sequin leopard print.  I actually bought two separate pieces of this fabric, because I loved it so much and I was planning on making some pattern changes so I wanted insurance!

This top is the same as my first two sequin tops.   When I went back and took a look at the magazine, I discovered that there was a version with sleeves.  My first two used pattern 12/2012 #118B, and you may remember that there was no download option for that pattern.  But this is 12/2012 #119 - it uses the same pattern pieces and adds in sleeves - and this one is on the website.  I think this is a great little pattern, so if you are looking around for a simple darted top, do consider this one.

The sleeves on #119 are long and full.  I knew that I wanted elbow-length sleeves for this top, so I traced the sleeve pattern piece but then trimmed the arms down to match the Renfrew long sleeve, which fits me well.  I knew that making the top out of this sequin sweater knit, the fit would be looser - and that is just what I was looking for with this one.

I did end up trimming sequins on this top as well, but not as much as on the last one.  I used the plain fabric from the selvage to make bindings for the neck and sleeves, so didn't need to trim there.  Then I tried on the top to see if the sequins were scratching me and where.  It turned out that they really only bothered me on the inside of the arms, so that's the only place I had to trim.

Here's a little sequin-trimming anecdote for you:

Hubby:  "There are sequins in the bathtub."
Me:  "I know.  I was making another top.  I haven't cleaned up yet."
Hubby:  "But they're in the bathtub.  How did they get here?"
Me:  "On the bottom of your feet.  You're a Carrier."

Hahaha.  He was so disconcerted!  But:  I think I'm over the sequins.  For now.

Also, this project was the first entry in my new notes binder!  I placed my pattern pieces in a zip-lock bag when I was done and stuck that just behind the note page.

Anyway, I think this is pretty cute.  In my mind, it reads Laura Petrie.  But there's a tiny voice in the back of my head saying maybe it reads more Palm Beach retiree?  I think I can be OK with that.

Here's a close-up of the front and back, so you can see the fit better:

I think of this as my casual, day-time sequin top.  I would totally wear this out for lunch with these little gold flats and jeans.  You can dress it up or down, and it's actually pretty comfortable.

And finally, I think I'm supposed to do this for Jungle January?

If not, have a good laugh on me!

Well Adjusted

Remember that sequin top I made?  Did I mention that I'd purchased three more lengths of sequin fabric to make some more?  I think I may have a sequin problem. 

I liked my blue sequin top, but when I got started last weekend on making the second one, I decided that since I'd just taken a fitting class, maybe I'd make a few adjustments to the pattern.  On my first top, I traced a size 38 at the bust and waist, and graded out to a 42 at the hips.  This time, I got a lot more fancy.

I started with a size 36 at the bust, grading to a 38 at the waist and keeping the 42 at the hip.  One thing I try to do when I use my hip curve to make pattern adjustments is take note of which section of the ruler I use, so I can match the front to the back and replicate that curve later if I need to.

Then I gave myself a 1/4" broad back adjustment and 1/2" sway back adjustment:

Then I added in a wedge of about 3/8" across the upper back for my "prominent shoulder blades" or "low round back:"

Because this top is cut on the center fold, I straightened the line from the neck edge to the hem edge.  I also left myself a nice wide border of tissue so I could pin the pattern along the center (fold) line, cut out one side, and then flip it and cut out the other side, single layer.  More and more, I'm realizing single-layer cutting is the way to go for accuracy.  It's really hard to stop myself from being lazy about doing it though!

On the front, I raised that super low bust dart about a half inch, by cutting a box around it and moving it up:

And I'm going to admit here and now that I did all these adjustments on the fly:  e.g. I guesstimated where my "apex" is and just moved the dart to correspond; I also guesstimated how much to remove for the swayback and add for the shoulder blades.

But it doesn't matter one bit, because the fit on this second top is amazing.  It's like it was made to measure for me!  (Ha!)

I decided to make my top out of the trickiest of the three fabrics I bought.  It's a paisley design in gold sequins, stitched onto a black mesh background.  Since it's basically transparent, I lined the top with black silk.

I spent four days making this simple top, because this time, I did need to remove the sequins from the seam allowances - if I hadn't, they'd show right through the mesh in a most unattractive way.

I did the darts first, as you do, and remembered to take some pictures while I was doing the sequin removal.  I thread traced my darts, then used tiny nail scissors to cut away the sequins inside the tracing.

You can't really cut away the threads that hold the sequins, because then you'll lose some that you don't want to lose.  The sequins themselves have to be cut off.  What worked best for me was to fold the fabric between my fingers so that the tops of a row of sequins were sticking up:

Then I just cut across them, lopping off the tops so that the O became two Cs.  Most of the time the remainder fell out by itself, but I did sometimes have to remove pieces with tweezers.

After sewing each seam, I'd have to remove the sequins in the seam allowance before I could go on to the next seam.  I made things a little easier on myself though by trimming half of the seam allowance away first.

Still, it was a lot of tedious work.  I'd work on it for a couple hours, then put it away for the next day.  I estimate that I spent about ten hours on this top; probably 80% of that time was sequin removal.  I did the hem yesterday and kept track of the time:  removing the sequins from the 1/2" hem allowance all the way around took me an hour and 45 minutes.  The only place I didn't remove the sequins was at the side seams; they don't really show too badly there, and I didn't want to spend another 5 or so hours cutting away sequins.

But I'm glad I stuck to it and did it "right" - the resulting top is truly the most spectacular thing I've made to date.  Hubby was wowed when I tried it on for him.  I'm planning on wearing it to our friends' New Year's Eve party next week with some slim black trousers and gold heels.

It was interesting to see how my feelings about this top changed as I worked on it.  This wasn't my favorite of the three new fabrics I got when I started making this top.  I decided to use it first partly for that reason, and partly because I was worried that if I made things from the other two (more favorite) fabrics first, this one might languish.  But as I worked and worked on this project, I came to love it more and more.  I really think this is an elegant, timeless piece that I hope to enjoy for a long time.


Pattern:  Burda magazine 12/2012 #118B with personal adjustments (edited to add the link I finally found!)
Fabric:  Paisley sequins on black mesh, JoAnn's online (no longer available it looks like)

Sneak peek, photo taken before hemming and adding hook and eye :

Black and Blue (and sparkly)

Next up in the FO parade is the Sequin Top.

I didn't have a whole lot of options in my closet to pair it with, so I went with the default of slim black pants.  And I actually really like it!

I was so dazzled when I finished the top that I didn't realize that the dart ends a good 2" below my apex.  But the thing is, you can't really even see the dart!  So I'm not going to worry about it.  Here I'm pointing to the tip of the dart, but I'm pretty sure you can't see it.

I'm including a whole bunch of pictures again because I can't decide which I like best.  And I always think that if you're looking at a garment with an eye to making it for yourself, more pictures are better.  This pattern came from last December's Burda magazine and is not available as a download, but Andrea determined that it is included in the first issue of the North American magazine as pattern number 118B.  So if you have that magazine, this pattern will be available to you.

a little pooling because I did not do a sway back adjustment

You can see that the armhole is fine on me, but Andrea tried this top on when she was here and it was very low on her - low enough that her bra was visible.  So if you try this pattern, you may want to take some measurements first, unless you have broad shoulders and back like I do.

And some silly shots.  I had to pose with something blue!!

Doesn't this top go great with gin?