Blossoms on the Bike Path

Yay! Another Monthly Stitch challenge met!

This here is the Shwin Lane Top in "specialty cotton" per Joann's. I had two separate yards (remnants) that were officially 44" wide with the floral design being closer to 40" across. But I obviously had enough for this shirt! 

As per The Monthly Stitch sub-theme, Flower Power, I have two floral fabrics, the 3D floral for the front, back and back yoke, and sleeves, and another white fabric for the inside yoke (so I wouldn't be pressing two bumpy layers at once) and as bias binding for the neckline and hem.

This is actually my second Lane iteration. The first will hopefully be blogged soon. I present this one first so that I could get my Monthly Stitch contribution in before the month's end.

The construction instructions are pretty simple, though there is one step that I could not make heads or tails of just by reading. Both times I made this top I had to play around with the pieces in order to figure out what the instructions were trying to convey.

On another note I need to make this top without bias tape hems because I think that the specialty cotton has more drape than the quilting cotton, which makes the hem flair out more than preferred.

Aand today's photography session is brought to you by the Rookie Photographer! She can't figure out what makes some photos blurry and/ or washed out and she was constantly looking for interlopers because she chose the public bike path for the location. Thankfully the location is on a bridge that offers some privacy, and it was 40 degrees out, so most of the population was indoors. In fact there was one interruption, which caused the Rookie Photographer to ditch the last few shots of the 10 shot burst to try to hide what she was doing. (Chronicled below, which very nicely shows more fabric detail).

Fabric: Specialty floral cotton, (presumably) quilting cotton
Notions: self-made bias tape from quilting cotton
Adjustments:  XS graded to medium in the hips, elastic in lieu of button and button tabs, bias tape for hem and neckline, no pocket


The sewing queue:
1. Simplicity 2154 Pencil skirt (partially sewn)
2. White Belladone  (partially sewn)
3. Blue-green bottom weight Lisette (Butterick) 1419 (cut out)
4. A green microsuede Simply Shift Dress (on the brain)


Oh, and my Me-Made May pledge:

"I, Laura of Creating Distractions, pledge to wear at least three handmade garments a week and to finish making at least two more during the month of May."