Thursday, June 18, 2009

in the Nick of TIme...


With no time to spare... I finished my Queen Anne's Lace summer outfit this afternoon!  I plan to wear it tomorrow night to my retirement reception in Albany.  The design has been percolating for weeks in my subconscious and finally I figured out how I wanted the top to look! 

I wound up using every bit of the fabric I had woven -- how's that for planning!  I adapted the pattern from the first summer top I wove, changing the neckline and thereby added a cap sleeve.  I made the skirt out of 3 pieces of 36" long fabric woven with the white slubby linen on QAL gathered at the top on non-twisting elastic and with a 6 inch kick vent in the back.   The top was created out of the yellow fabric -- yellow cottolin on the QAL warp.  The top has a yoke that is made up of the yellow fabric cut lengthwise into 10" pieces and I added a band of the cream fabric at the bottom of the yoke.  In the front I cut it in half like the yellow and in the back I left it the 20" width.  For the bottom  I attached the yoke to the yellow fabric that I cut horizontally with the selvedges at the edge that met the yoke and the hem.  I put darts in the front at either edge.

When I tried the top on it fit well but the top gapped.  SO... I took a dart along the top edge on either panel from 2 inches down to 6 inches towards the neck at an angle.  Then I flattened it and sewed the triangle down.  This forms a nice cap sleeve.

I used French seams throughout.  The ones on the yoke seemed too wide, so I sewed a straight lines down the middle of each one.   I used a sewn stretchy zigzag on each cut edge.  Each edge, both cut and selvedge, was turned under to finish off the neck, hem and sleeve edges.

Pictures to come. 

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