Bracken Crafts- 100 garments: 40: purple top

Friday 13 May 2016

40: purple top

This is Burda pattern 6722, the same pattern as my red dress and my black dress. When I started this blog I chose this pattern because it is supposed to be a simple or easy pattern. It was beyond me then. I made a complete mess of the red dress here:

13: Red dress or long top

and here:

13: Red dress re-visited

But then I got things right here:
29: Burda 6722 Black dress

Years ago when I was just a young thing I always wanted a top like this. They have been briefly in fashion in the 80s and 90s. Maybe more recently too but this is the first time I have ever owned one so this I truly like.

Now I am sure my sewing is getting better. However to sort out my mess I made another version after making a mess of the red dress. I started to make the same pattern in this ribbed silky purple fabric.

This is a lovely purple and I really wanted to be wearing this over Christmas but it was not to be. I messed up this one as well. Infact this actually went into the waste paper basket I use for all my fabric edges and bits of cotton but I grabbed it back out and stuffed it between two other fabrics in my stash.
I kept thinking about what can I do to sort this one? I hate wasting fabric and money. Then I had a sort out on Saturday morning and found this lace. I bought this ages ago. Possibly the first thing I ever bought off Ebay. I was very poor at the time and desperately needed some new underwear since everthing was falling to bits and I did not have enough money for new so I decided to make my own. This was inevitable a complete disaster and I made a couple of attempts and gave up. In the end I just sewed fold over elastic to the edge of all my bras and knickers and kind of repaired everything which got me by till I could afford new. I forgot all about my lace which was untouched since my initial bra and knicker experiments were all on cheap old T shirts. I was saving my lace until I could do this and make a good job of it. That still has to occur. Maybe I can get round to knicker and bra making eventually.

Anyway, eight months after beginning my 100 garments experiments, I am now at a standard where I can say I have finally sorted out this Burda pattern 6722 dress/top pattern. This does not resemble the original pattern but I love it.
Image result for burda 6722

I am also quite sure lots of people out there would not tell the truth here and would say they had made a pattern hack to make this lovely top. Well I have I suppose I did do a pattern hack, but it was unintentional and this particular hack is really a mistake despite it turning out better possibly that the original design. My partner described this top as Game of Thrones-ish and I think he is right there. It is also a Bardot top which I actually blogged about making a while ago here: Great Minds.......
Anyway I think in this case the trials I have gone through to achieve this make it worth it because I really do love it.

I had, at the point I messed this up, already sewn up the sleeves using an overlocker and I had overlocked the edge but the sleeves are too narrow to do a proper hem so I decided I will simply wear them as they are. I did toy with chopping them off and attaching a lace edge to match the neck but having destroyed this garment about 3 times already and actually rescued it I reckon best to just leave well alone, learn from it for next time ( sew the edge before sewing up the sleeve seams!) and cover the edge with some lace mitts.
so here I then made some mitts from the lace:

The steel ruler is very old and a bit rusty but hopefully if you click on the photo you can see approximate dimensions. The small angle is sewn up for the bit above the thumb and the lower bit is the wrist. Sewed the top first, then the thumb hole and finally the wrist. I overlocked the thumb hole. To secure the threads I just knotted them. It probably is not the best way to make these but I have no pattern and it has worked surprisingly well.