Tag Archives: summer

Adventures in drafting // linen dragons

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This top completely unintentionally reminds me of Daenerys from Game of Thrones. I originally set out to copycat this top from Urban Outfitters and decided to use the leftover linen from my Mystery Fabric Contest dress. Somehow I ended up with a cute summery top that totally looks like something Khaleesi would wear if she were summering in modern day California.

This top, along with my off-the-shoulder tops, has basically been my uniform this summer, and I’ve been experimenting with different fabrics. The problem is that I feel like this linen is a little too stiff and sort of sticks out awkwardly from certain angles. But then I tried a much drapier fabric and it was too lightweight to hold its shape. I’ll have to keep playing. I did have to make a special bra to wear underneath which is basically a nude halter the same shape as the front.

Drafting was pretty simple. I drew lines, then contoured. The one thing I did differently that helped with fit was before I added the bias binding and straps, I put it on the dress form and pinned the straps and pleats into shape rather than trusting the lines. It ended up fitting pretty much perfectly that way.

Now back to fabric experiments.

Ruffle top(s)

Off-shoulder ruffle tops

Off-shoulder ruffle tops

Off-shoulder ruffle tops

Off-shoulder ruffle tops

Off-shoulder ruffle tops

Off-shoulder ruffle topsboth tops: self-made, tutorial here // shorts: AE

Reasons why this is the perfect top for summer:

  1. It takes like 30min to put together. No joke.
  2. No bra necessary. The ruffle conveniently hides everything. (Ok, to be fair ladies with a certain amount of boobage might not be able to get away with that as comfortably. I’ve also worn these with a fun strappy sports bra and that looks cool too.)
  3. It’s SO comfy. I was a bit apprehensive at the whole elastic sitting at the shoulders thing but it’s so breezy and nice and I got used to it after wearing it once.
  4. Did I mention it literally took 30min to sew? I want one in every color.

Sidenote: I made the blue one first and did it exactly as indicated in the tutorial, except I made it cropped instead of a dress. Since the black one is made of rayon challis and much drapier, I used more fabric and flared the edges of the bottom part outward like a trapezoid to get even more volume.

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Another thing I played around with was doing a rolled hem around the edge of the ruffle. I took a serging class this summer and managed to break my upper looper about an hour into the first class. I debated getting it fixed but it was kind of a dinosaur and we’d never been friends so I decided to buy a new one instead. I ended up getting a basically new Juki MO654DE (thanks to Heather’s awesome review) on eBay for half the price (win!) and I can’t even begin to describe  how much I love this machine. I’ll do a review of it soon along with some fun things I learned in my serging class.

Anyway, next I want to make a dress version. And maybe one with a more fitted bodice. Yee!

 

 

More weather inappropriate drapey-ness

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Floral drapey top

Floral drapey top
top: self-drafted // bra: blogged here // sweater: Modcloth // pants: Jamie Jeans

Since it’s almost Christmas, this seems like a great time to share more of my summer wardrobe Here are two more of those luscious drapey tanks.

I wore them both pretty much all summer with shorts so it’s nice to be able to throw a sweater on top and call it a fall outfit. Or maybe this only works in California.

Happy almost Christmas!