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.
