Friday, September 28, 2012

Taming the Striped Beast ..(Piece#2 of Mini Wardrobe)

The matching top to the cardi in my last post came about as a result of watching an old episode of Glee.
One of the young characters was wearing a striped cotton dress. At the bodice, the stripes were positioned to form a square and I immediately became obssessed to create that look on the "tunic" I planned as a match for V8819.

First, I'll show you where the process started and what I came up with and then I'll explain how I got there.



Lately, I've been using a croquis I found on line somewhere and adapted to what I think my body looks like . I try styles that I'm not sure about in this way.

Here is the finished garment.
 

It's obviously not a tunic and yet, it started out to be!

I decided to use the front and back pieces to V8272 minus the inserts at the bottom.

I traced the front and drew a line from the outer shoulder, through the mid chest and to about high hip point on each side.


I cut the pattern piece apart and I now had four pieces. I added a 3/8" seam allowance to each piece.
 
Well, my troubles had just begun. In spite of the fact that I cut very carefully making sure the stripes would match, no way could I match them on all four pieces.

After about three days of pondering and trial and error, I had this mess! Notice the uneven seam allowances.
Remember I only added 3/8" SA's

 
 
But I did manage to form a rectangle if not a square at the chest.

 
I then had to re cut the whole top because the sides were way out of whack. I decided to use my favorite TNT pattern for a sleeveless top(S3634). I ended up shortening it because it just looked better this way than as a tunic length.
 
After all these trials with this garment ,it hit me one night when I was trying to go to sleep. The angles formed by the intersecting lines should all have been 90degrees! Mine were off a bit and that's why I had all the trouble. I almost want to try this again to test my theory, but not yet.Lol
 
And that's how I conquered the striped beast! I quite like the top this way.
 
So that's three pieces out of five finished and blogged. I do have the fourth piece finished. It's a sweater dress and I love it. Will show it to you in a couple of days.
 
Unfortunately, I still have the final  piece to cut out and sew tomorrow.Yikes!!

 
Thanks for stopping by.
More later from
 
 

12 comments:

Lori said...

Amazing job on this top, the stripes are perfect.

SewRuthie said...

Oh that's great, I really like how it came out.

pdiddly said...

well done you for figuring it out - but why oh why do answers to our questions always come in the middle of the night lol love the top

Jenny said...

Cute and impressive! Very cool!

Summer Flies said...

That's a great top. I love it. I admire your perseverance too. Can I offer a suggestion. Put together the stripes and then cut the top out. A tip I learned at Fashion design college years ago ... it was in reference to pin tucking but same theory. it's easier that way - still I don't think it would be easy.

Mariela Alethia said...

Awesome!

Amanda S. said...

What an awesome idea!!! LOVE the top and I just might have to copy you someday.

Evelyne said...

Amazing top! Funny, same thing happens to me trying to solve problems.

Sharon said...

Love your top and thank you for sharing how you got there.

velosews said...

Stunning result. And I love watching Glee too now for the clothes, of course.

Claire S. said...

That is VERY cute ! Love how it turned out.

gwensews said...

Sweet! And you are right about the 90 degree angle. Years ago, Stretch&Sew (do you remember them), put out a leaflet to their Tshirt pattern (which I still use) that had that bulls-eye chevron in the center. I made one and loved it. I also made a "Mork" Tshirt (Mork and Mindy was a popular TV show), and that shirt was all the rage at the time.