Another Sorbetto...

Having completed my first Sorbetto ( the free downloadable pattern from Colette Patterns), I rushed headlong long into making another, with a view to reducing my fabric stash. There are so many things wrong with this top, but I think it is wearable...

I had a small piece of material left from making a dress about 13 years ago.

A bit of history: the dress was made for a friends wedding. I used New Look 6828 view C for a bias cut dress as it looked fairly straight forward. I then chose some very sheer fabric - I'm not sure what it is, and then had to line it (with bremsilk, a scrap of which I also found in my stash). I had never used such tricky material, never sewn anything on the bias and never lined a dress. As is traditional for this kind of endeavour, I was busy hemming the skirt and the lining in the car on the way to the wedding.
Anyway, I found the dress material scraps and juggled around the pattern pieces until I could get something out of them. I had to make a seam in the centre front and back order for this to work. Unfortunately, I juggled the material soooooo much that I lost track of my grain lines and found, when I came to sew the 2 back pieces together, that one of the pieces was on the bias. However, I soldiered on, attempting French seams ( which I haven't done since I made my sample seams for Home Ec GCE many moons ago). Middlest saw what I was doing and commented that she hoped I would wear something underneath otherwise people would be able to see my bra.

I had already looked out the lining material, so this comment spurred me on to make the lining. Again I had to juggle the pieces and this time had to sew bits of the material together to make a piece big enough to cut the back out - but I cut it all on grain this time! I self-bound the neck and the armholes again. I had to put a horizontal dart in the lining to prevent it hanging down below the top when I tried it on, and I sewed ribbon down the pleat to hide the seam there.

I think it works:


Whilst fiddling around with this for some time last week, I took delivery of a dress pattern - Simplicity 2591 and some material. I have been looking for this pattern for sometime, especially since seeing Karen's on Did you make that? She has made three great versions of this dress. Unfortunately, this pattern is now out of print in the UK, so it took some finding - so thank you to Emily from Big Beautiful Barbara Brown for sending out my dress kit!

Next up, proof that I am completely bonkers!