Hello November

I just scrolled back to see what I needed to get caught up on....and wow. I didn't post at all in October!! First, I was super busy finishing up things for our big anniversary cruise (I posted lots on Instagram), and then we were gone for 12 days, and then it was full on Hallowe'en costume creation. But let's get this blog back up to date!! Lots of sewing posts ahead, one crochet post, maybe two knitting posts....

First up. Two sleeveless blouses. I found this flowy blue-ish fabric remnant and figured it was rayon. It was only 0.9m and marked to $12.83 though because of my Fabricland Premier card, I got 50% off, so with tax, it came to $7.25. I was looking for a fabric that would go with blue shorts, white shorts, blue pants and blue capris. An abstract/floral print was perfect. I washed it up and decided to test out  Simplicity 3506. It'd been in my collection for awhile. It's hard to see in the pictures, but there is a bit of yoke detail on the shirt. I traced out size 16 and decided to do a FBA for real, instead of my cheating of doing a larger size from the armhole down. It took awhile to figure it out, and I did way too much work in the end (I made a dart, rotated the dart and then took out the dart). In the tracing process, and transferring to the slippery rayon, the subtle shaping on the yoke pieces pretty much disappeared.

 Not sure what this was showing but I think it had to do with the yoke. Oh, actually, I think I sewed the yoke to the back with wrong sides together. Further adding to the issue with it losing it's shaping.

 I'm not going to the trouble of editing all these photos. It might be hard to see it, but I felt the neckline didn't come out too exact, being slippery rayon, so I opted to make a band and tie. I made the band pretty tiny though, by the time it got all folded and pressed. It does hide the bottom of the V though.

 I liked it, though I wasn't happy with how the gathers on the yoke drooped over towards the armhole. It created a fold of fabric over the outer bust. I figured it was my sloppy cutting and marking of the notches, so I tried to be super careful on the next one.

 I wore it on a sunset catamaran cruise in Aruba. OMG, that was the greatest excursion. Made so much fun by meeting the girl behind The Mutt Hutt. And her fiance. And the open bar. The shirt was nice and cool though in the extreme heat times it did stick to me a little. It didn't get worn as much as I thought it would because I just had too many clothes with me of course.

 I decided I needed a white shirt that wasn't a t-shirt and that this pattern would be fine. It's an eyelet cotton my MIL gave me when a friend of her's cleaned out her house. I tried to be super careful with the yokes, and moved the gathers right up to the neckline, but it still droops over the outer bust. I think if the V neck was taken in a bit, it would really help. If you draw a line straight down from the yoke, it just ends up on the outer portion of the bust. I'll keep looking to see if I have a full picture. Also, I did have some issue with my front and back pattern lengths not quite the same after the FBA. Must correct that before the next one.
This time I did the facings. It wasn't too bad. I need to tack them down at the shoulder seams though.

I eliminated the zipper in both tops.

I may or may not make this pattern again. Hard to say. I really need tops with sleeves now, so it won't be anytime soon. I also like the dress version.