Hey, Guys! I finished making this top the other day (11/21/2012). This would be the first article of clothing that I've made, aside from beanies and handwarmers. I'm extremely excited with the way this turned out.
I found this tutorial by Sew Mama Sew via Pinterest not too long ago, and I just knew I had to make it. It's 100% my style. I had the perfect floral patterned fabric that just needed to be transformed. I searched through my stash hoping to find a contrasting fabric to use to create the chest band and straps. Nothing matched, nothing worked. So I put my fabric away, and just so happened to lay it down next to this yarn in Blue Mint. It was a perfect match. I snatched up the yarn and fabric and went to work!
First, I created the chest band. I worked in the round until the piece was as tall as I wanted it. After the chest band was completed I worked up the straps. I made them too long, so I had to frog a good number of rows. Then, I finished off the crocheted work with a round of single crochet all the way around the straps and chest band, creating a "boxy" look.
Once I finished up the crocheted part, I followed along with the tutorial. I used the formula to figure out what size pieces of fabric I needed. I cut them out and realized that the formula just didn't work for me. I'm tiny. Really tiny. I made many, many adjustments to get it to fit me just right. I got all the way to the hemming step, and that's when I finally messed up. You see, as I stated earlier, this is my first article of clothing. I have no experience hemming anything. The tension on my machine was off, and the stitches came out all loopy and messy and there was no seam ripping. (Unless I wanted holes!) So I cut the bottom portion of my fabric off. I was worried that I just ruined the entire piece! I put my mind to work. Ah ha! All I had to do was cut a long rectangle of the same width, just a few inches tall and fold it in half. I sewed the rectangle to the rest of the shirt, right sides together, and ironed it down when done.
I needed to come up with a way to mark the back of the shirt, so that I don't put it on backwards. This shirt looks the same from the front and back, yet it has a totally different fit when put on backwards. I crocheted a chain leaving long tails, and sewed those tails into the back of the shirt. Loop is shown in the photo below.
And after all was said and done, I quickly grabbed my camera, pulled my new shirt on, and took pictures. I love the feeling after completing a project that I started to have a few doubts on, and it turning out just perfect (for my taste). In the end, I was more than happy that I ruined the hem, because the alternative that I used turned out so much better than I think the hem would have. (As I don't have matching thread, and big black lines would be at the bottom of my piece). I feel like it has a more finished look to it. But, the pictures of the results in the tutorial also look amazing.
I want to end this blog post with a quote from my husband about this project. "It looks great! It looks like something you would by from the store!" Even he knows this is completely my style! ;D
Thank you all,
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