Thrifty Thursday

Finally, a warm day!! It feels soooooo very good to not have on layers of clothes for a change. 

I actually had the top I'm sharing today finished last week, but we announced Sewing Indie Month last Thursday, so I decided to wait and post my top this week.

Craftsy has a boat load of patterns that are available for purchase as well as for free. I really needed some sleeveless knit tops that would work for everything from wearing with a skirt to doing yoga. I found this pattern that was designed by Deby Coles and thought that the front shirring was rather interesting, so I decided to give it a try. 

Here's my version.

Look closely and you'll see that I concentrated the shirring under my bust. I initially had the shirring over the bust as you can see in the pattern picture above, but I decided that I would prefer that the shirring be concentrated a little lower. No changes had to be made to the pattern, I just pushed the shirring into the area where I wanted it to be.

Since I was giving the pattern a try for the first time, I wanted to use up some scraps. I didn't have enough of the black and white knit to cut the front, so I used a remnant of black knit. I think it looks fine. I do like the top and plan to make a few more. The fit is very nice. It will work well for my yoga class as it doesn't ride up when I stretch and when I bend over, nothing peeks out, if you know what I mean ;).

The top has princess line seams, so it is very easy to fit. All around a nice little pattern. For those of you who really don't like to tape patterns together, this pattern comes as one large piece. So the good thing is no taping, on the other hand, you will need to take the file to a print shop that has a large scale printer and have them print it for you. I took mine to FedX and was pleasantly surprised by how inexpensive it was to print. Deby does give instructions on how the pattern can be tiled so that you can print it at home. I couldn't be bothered. It was much easier to just run over to the print shop.  

If you would like to give the pattern a try, here is a link to the Craftsy site, http://www.craftsy.com/pattern/sewing/clothing/gathered-front-top/80620?_ct=fhezusj-tujqyb-fqjjuhd-ydifyhqjyed&_ctp=80620 In order to download the pattern, you will need to create a Craftsy account if you don't already have one. I don't find Craftsy to be too intrusive, so don't worry about getting tons of emails from them. Deby does have other patterns available, so you might want to check out her blog. You can find it here, http://so-sew-easy.com/

Hope you're having a great day!

Rhonda