Elegant little top

July 21, 2016 Stacy

I just love how this top turned out! As part of the Blaverry promotions team, I received this pattern, which is the Yves top/tunic/dress. It is a reversible woven top with shirring and ruching with ribbon or bias at the shoulder. I made a size 7W and 14L top. It also come in tunic and dress length, in sizes 2T – 16Y.

In seeing that it was a reversible top, I knew the perfect fabric to use for it. Mine is essentially a lace-like outer and satin inner fabric.

The ties are just some satin ribbon that I got at Michael’s craft store. I heat sealed the ends.

The shirring is hard to see in the black, but it is a nice feature. It brings the top in a bit and is a cute detail. If you have never shirred before, it is pretty simple.

There are some caveats, however. Some of the more computerized machines have a hard time shirring. They try to compensate the tension and it ends up not getting it shirred correctly.

You can find elastic thread at any fabric store with a good notions supply. It can be found with the rest of the elastic, not the thread.

1. Hand wind the bobbin with the elastic thread and don’t pull it.

2. Use regular thread for your top thread.

3. Set your stitch length to the longest stitch. I usually set the tension around 3-4.

4. Start sewing in straight lines. Trace your guidelines, and just go slowly.

5. When you are done sewing your lines, tie the two threads together. It is hard to use an anchoring stitch with the elastic thread, so tying them together is necessary.

6. Now if it didn’t shirr enough while you were sewing, you can use a steam iron to bring it out.

The leggings here are the Ellis leggings. Christie is going to rework these a bit and re-release them. I used my daughter’s waist measurement and they ended up being too narrow in the legs and hip. I think if I did a straight 14 they would have been fine, so just check the width before you make them up. The waist fit, but I should have graded it out from there.

I am bummed, because she loves the leggings. They are just too tight. I am hoping I have enough of the gray to redo them. The don’t come with the color-blocking on the top, but I did it so I could use the gray. I didn’t have much of the gray, since it was just a scrap that a friend at the sewing retreat gave me.

I really love how this little outfit turned out. It is really cute on her! It was a pretty hot night last night to take the pictures, but she was a good sport…most of the time. 😉