The Party Top Makeover

I woke up late yesterday and everything moved slow after that. Maybe because it was so cold. It was our first day of freezing, wear your gloves, bundle up in your coat, weather. Luckily, it wasn't snowing. I went small stuff grocery shopping and it's a nightmare trying to navigate a cart through a snowy parking lot. I'm going bulk stuff shopping today at Costco. They don't have anyone to help you. After hurting my back one time, I won't shop there in winter unless one of the boys comes along to push the cart. Therefore - LOL - if it starts snowing before I get going, it'll have to wait.



In the afternoon I worked on the party top makeover. I put it on, wiggled around to shift the fabric, marked where the hem should be, took it off, wacked off the excess, and sewed a 1" hem. That was the easy part. The sleeves were more of an issue. There were very small 1/8" seams and the fabric tore easily. It occurred to me that failure was not an option. Above is the makeover. Below is the RTW tunic.




The tunic came with cap sleeves. I included that length in the finished sleeves or they'd be shorter than I wanted. Using them meant that 3 1/2" of the sleeve cap was already in place.




This is my T & T sleeve pattern at elbow length. There's a 1 1/4" hem included along the bottom. The dotted line shows the 3 1/2" already sewn to the sweater less the 1/4" seam allowances.




I stretched out the ribbing along the bottom before cutting out the sleeve so that it would snap back and create a snugger look on the finished sleeve. Above is the abbreviated sleeve. Below it's sewn to the RTW sweater. As you can see....




... the seam was quite visible. I knew from other projects that a double needle pin tuck would help to disguise a seam so I added one, then three, then five tucks because odd numbers always work better.




In hindsight, I wonder if I should have added seven tucks so that they extended right down into the ribbing. Oh well. I didn't. This works. The front of the underarm is a bit baggy. The back sits nicely. Later on, I'll do a little more tweaking by pulling a bit of the front into the underarm seam with a dart like shape. In theory, the back will stay as is and the front tighten to the armhole. We'll see how it really works when I try it.




To finish, I added three rows of pin tucking around the hem so that the tucks on the sleeves "matched" tucks on main body of the garment. I don't normally add details to my hips and worried that they'd be attention grabbing when I was done. They're not. The collar demands the most attention.

The hem tucks are small enough and soft enough to wear the sweater tucked in and a fun detail for when it's untucked. I'm happy with the makeover. As a tunic, I never would have worn this. As a sweater, it's perfect for the party and useable after, even work wardrobe useable. There's a remnant of black and fuchsia tweed in my stash. Enough for a short, fitted skirt. They should look good together.

My youngest son is in a grad fashion show tonight. It seems entirely the wrong time of year for this but oh well. It's tonight. I took him and a friend to be fitted for tuxes last week, for final fittings yesterday, and will return the tuxes tomorrow. Other than the event tonight, it'll be the perfect sewing, knitting, reading weekend. Hope yours is wonderful.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - my daughter has been looking for a job for the past few weeks since moving to Calgary. She was offered what sounds like a wonderful one yesterday with a higher salary than she anticipated. YES YES!