Tuesday, July 7, 2015

M6991: Everything's Coming Up Rainbows Top

PI'm settling back into the hum of work life, and my little family is starting to work out our home routine, too. It seems like a good time to turn my thoughts back to sewing and blogging. Hooray! And it seems like a good week for rainbows as we celebrate marital equality here in the US (yay love! yay families! yay equal rights!), doesn't it?

I've been wanting to sew McCall's 6991 since it's release.

M6991 Faux Wrap Top

However, finding an appropriate fabric was a bit of a challenge. You see, the front of the top is all one piece of fabric that has been gathered and folded to create the mock-wrap drape.  This means that the front of the top shows the right side of the fabric on one half and the wrong side on the other. So, you need to use a fabric that doesn't have an obvious right side. This eliminated most of the fabrics in my stash.



I decided to try the top with a loud, rainbow-striped poly-cotton blend that I picked up from FabricMart some time ago.  I wasn't sure how the stripes would fall, but it worked out exactly how I'd hoped. The fabric is definitely much more crisp than ideal. It doesn't drape the way it ought, but I like the effect nonetheless. It's a cool and crisp top. If I sew it again, I would use a rayon challis, blouse weight silk or something like that for better drape.

I sewed view A minus the pocket and with the shirttail hem of view B in a straight size 12. I didn't even alter for length. The only thing I don't like about the pattern is that the armscye is very low and my bra shows if I don't wear a cami underneath the top. I've actually been wearing the top with a sportsbra-style nursing bra, which has extra coverage; I don't mind if it shows.

The pattern was very easy to sew. The only part that was at all a challenge was figuring out exactly how to fold the front piece over to create the wrap effect in the front. All of the markings were correct, as were the instructions. So, if you make this, just be sure to carefully mark your fabric and stick to the instructions, even if you can't quite see where they are going.




Overall, I'm pretty happy with this top. It's fun and summery. But I do worry a little that it makes me look a bit wide and boxy. I may actually sew a second version for work in a more appropriate fabric, possibly with sleeves. In a more drapey fabric, I think this top would be much more figure-flattering.




But for now we'll call this a win. It's fun and different, which IMHO is what summer dressing is all about.

What are you sewing as the days heat up? Or cool down if you are headed to winter?

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