It is definitely a happy accident that I used two fabrics for this pattern. I am determined to sew up as many projects as possible without buying fabric (patterns are okay if they are versatile and I have a fabric in mind). There are so many beautiful versions of this Rachel Comey design and I have been thinking a lot about voluminous summer tops – my dreams often involve long lengths of floaty white linen. However, this pattern is quite a fabric hog and I decided to give the mixing and matching a go, using up two pieces that wouldn’t have gotten much use alone.
I didn’t notice how ‘sleeping beauty’ these colors are until I was sewing the layers together! Perfect for my disney-loving friend Madhavi! This pattern is perfect as a gift as it requires no fitting at all.
I made a few changes because of how sheer and lightweight this fabric is. For the center panel, I actually sewed it closed with both ‘wings’ inside and then pulled them out of the tube. No topstitching and no raw edges!
Instead of cutting the back facing pieces, I cut a double layer of the triangular piece for opacity: that was the only section that didn’t already have two layers of fabric. The instructions also said to use bias tape to bind the armholes, but making it out of this shifty fabric seemed like a nightmare and I didn’t want to add another bulky material.
Overall, this pattern is mostly hemming – I couldn’t get a narrow hem with either the instructions provided or a rolled hem foot – for the most part, my mistakes pressed out nicely, but halfway through I switched to just folding and stitching twice.
Kausalya Mahadevan 