So! My very first woven top! Grainline Studio’s Scout Tee.
I’m not a fan of the loose-top-and-pants anything-and-pants look on me. I definitely feel my most confident in fit-and-flare silhouettes. However, I’ll admit that it’s nice to have a few tops to throw on over pants on those days where I can’t be bothered with wrestling on tights (or shaving my legs… ahem.)
Kind of like the April Rhodes Staple dress, I fell for this pattern after seeing so many wonderful versions around the interwebs, didn’t expect it to look great on me, but bought it anyways and reasoned with myself that even if it isn’t my favourite look on MY body, it WOULD be comfortable and practical. Also like my two staple dresses (most recent + favourite one here), this top has been in constant rotation in my wardrobe ever since I finished it about two weeks ago.
I made quite a lot of alterations, in an attempt to enlarge the bust and reduce how far it stuck out at the hem. My first muslin was definitely a tent situation. Not cute. In fact, it was such a discouraging tent of fugliness that I cast the project aside for almost two months. But I recently decided to take another crack at it– the experience I’ve gained in the last two months put me in a better position to tackle it again. I think it worked out okay in the end, although I probably should have done a slightly bigger full bust enlargement– it’s always feeling like it wants to creep up over my bust.
So, here are some details:
Pattern: Scout Tee by Grainline Studio. I’ve had it for a while, but was… disinclined… to assemble the pdf. I hate pdfs. Would rather pay extra for a printed copy, any day!
Fabric: La Venta organic voile from the Cloud9 Palos Verdes collection. I bought mine here. I really love this fabric– it’s so light and breezy, perfect for a summery top! It was nice and easy to work with, too. The only downside is that it wrinkles really easily, but I suppose that’s typical of voile– I’m resigning myself to the wrinkles under my belly from sitting down.
Size: 16
Alterations: — Full Bust Adjustment, adding a side bust dart. I foolishly threw out the pattern piece I did this on…. er. I think it was 1″ (for a total of 2″ added). I didn’t want to add width to the waist/bottom hem, so I drew a straight line from under the newly added bust dart down to the original hem. I made all the rest of the changes on a traced copy of this altered pattern piece.
–Neckline raised 1″
–center front lengthened 2″, curved to nothing at the sides. The front was too belly-flashy on the original pattern!
— 5/8″ wedge taken out from the flat pattern center front, starting at the bottom hem and tapered to nothing at the neckline
— 1″ wedge taken out of the flat pattern from the front side seam, tapered to nothing at the bottom of the bust dart
— Center back lengthened 2″ at the hem, curved to nothing at the side seams.
–Side slits
What’s with the side slits? Well, all these alterations, and I got a bit over-zealous in removing width at the bottom hem. My first muslin just tented out so much, I got carried away trying to remove that! When I finally made it up in this nice fabric, I found that I’d taken too much width out at the bottom, and it was feeling tight on my hips (despite a previous wearable muslin somehow being completely fine?! What is that about!). So, how to deal? Side slits! I’m calling it a design feature… I kind of like the look of them. And I’m happy enough with this version of scout that I really can’t be bothered to make more alterations… so future versions will likely all include these side slits too.
Wear again? Already have. Many times.
Make again? Already did. One and half times. What is that half? You’ll see…
Eh. Enough. Here’s some awkwardness.
Stitchy Squirrel 