Tuesday 17 March 2015

Sleeveless top and yoke panel skirt

I treated myself to the newly-released English version of Linen, Wool, Cotton Kids. It has some beautiful-looking clothes, and although summer is now over I decided to allow myself to be impractical and sew up the lovely open-backed sleeveless top to go with the yoke panel skirt.



I used swiss dot for the top and changed the pattern to make it fully lined. This was a fairly simple alteration to make, but in the process of figuring things out I stupidly managed to sew the front of the swiss dot wrong-side-out, so it's lost much of its dottiness. The back looks perfect though!

I made the skirt in Cloud 9 organic cotton in a fabric from their 'Wildwood' range that I absolutely adore (the others in the range are nice, too - tempting, tempting). I added piping at the yoke and obediently made matching fabric-covered buttons as instructed. Unfortunately the waist wound up way too big for R, and as it's a fitted yoke with a button fastening there's no elastic one can tighten. So I had to adjust the button placement and disregard the specially designed placket. This makes the skirt slightly bunchy on one side, but it's barely noticeable and I think it's a lovely style that I'll be making again - perhaps with an elastic back, though.

R picked Moriarty up as I was photographing her and I couldn't resist including this pic!


I hope we have a few more warm weekend days so R can wear her not-so-dotty top before the cooler weather sets in.

10 comments:

  1. How lovely. The designs remind of the clean lines of Japanese sewing patterns. I love the skirt fabric too. My girls would adore this outfit!

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    1. Thank you Masha :) The top does have classic Japanese lines, doesn't it. It was the pattern that made me buy the book, so of course I had to make it first!

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  2. I love this outfit! The swiss dot makes a beautiful delicate summer top. I really like skirts with yoke panels, I have just made one for Boo out of an Ottobre magazine and snap, my waist is ever so slightly too big. She will grow into it!

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    1. I agree, yokes on skirts are lovely. It's just hard to get the fit right - and then once you do, how long will it fit for? (in R's case, probably several years since it's definitely way too big!).

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  3. such a delightful outfit! Love the breeziness of the top and think that swiss dot was the perfect fabric choice:)

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    1. Thanks Lucinda. That swiss dot had been sitting in my cupboard for years waiting for the right garment :)

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  4. Oh, I love this outfit! I'm a big fan of Wildwood too, and the top is so perfectly summery. Very nice:)

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    1. Thank you! It's such a beautiful range of fabrics.

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  5. Ah - I just sewed (and blogged) this skirt! And yes, the waist was way too big on my little girl too. I threaded a wide piece of elastic through the back yoke as an easy solution. It spoils the line of the back yoke a bit, but was quite easy to do. And I'm hoping that when she grows a bit I can just take the elastic out! But the sizing does seem a bit wierd in this book. I'm going to measure very carefully for my next project. http://as-it-seams.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/just-little-red-skirt-and-lessons-in.html

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    1. I read your post - the skirt is stunning. Have you made anything else from the book yet? I wonder if they are all bigger than stated. I took a little width off when I made the top - something I always do for my daughter - and I made the band at the bottom narrower, too. Maybe that's why that one fits ok!

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