New Look 6303

I’ve been slowly working on New Look 6303 all week and put the finishing touches on it today!  

The fabric I used was a relatively sheer crepe type fabric from Hancocks.  

Since the fabric was so sheer, I double layered the whole thing and I’m glad I did.  I considered leaving the sleeves a single layer, but I didn’t want that look.  That made the construction of the top take a little more time consuming as I had to pin, then machine baste the two layers together, but it was worth it.    

All I have to say is…LOVE!!!!   Well, like enough that it may as well be love.  There one or two things I could do better next time, but I’ll get into those more later.  Ok, enough talk…Here are the pics. 

First up…on the dressform;

Then on me:  

 

The only change I made from the pattern was to lengthen it an inch on the front and back. I didn’t want the sleeves to be full length, so I left them where the pattern had them.  I should have done a slight broad shoulder adjustment.  It’s okay as is, but if I were to make it again, I’d add on a little bit.  To lengthen, I had to first understand how this pattern went together.  In this picture below, you can see the pattern laid out on the fabric.  The one in the middle is the front pattern piece.  In order to figure out where to lengthen it, I folded it up on itself, and then drew in lengthening lines around the waistline.  You can see that in the second pic.    

 

 To lengthen the front properly, I had to lengthen both the left and right sides, which you can see that I did when you look closely at the pic with it laid out on the fabric.  This wasn’t a hard adjustment to make.   I saw where someone else needed to do an FBA, and if I was going to attempt one on this pattern, I would try this method described in this post here for the swimsuit FBA:  http://sewforthnow.blogspot.com/2007/06/episode-5-dive-into-swimsuits.html.  This way you wouldn’t have to figure out what to do with the added width at the bottom.  After you added in the length, you could add in a bust dart to take out the excess on the side.  Thanks to whoever’s blog that is.  I hope you don’t mind me linking.

The only other real deviation that I made from the pattern was in the instructions.  They wanted you to take each layer of the front and staystitch 1/4 inch away from the seam allowance or maybe the seam line on the crossover part of each side of the front.  Sorry, the instructions are downstairs and I don’t want to run down.  🙂  Anyway, they wanted you to staystitch 1/4 away from something and I thought that was dumb.  I had cut my fabric out double layered, and I had already tailor tacked the center front mark, and a few other markings, and it just seemed crazy to rip that apart only to staystitch and then put back together.

I just took the whole shebang over to the machine and sewed both pieces together.  I did make sure to sew those seams in the direction indicated in the instructions.  You sew from the bottom waist seam up to the neck edge on each side, then turn inside out and fold one half up.  That creates your front piece.  I did press the seam allowances open to make it easier to iron neatly once turned.  The instructions did not tell you to do that, but I knew it’d be easier to get a neatly pressed fold later if I did.  Oh, I forgot, the pattern has you do a hand tack at center front.  I added a couple more on the inside because there really isn’t that much fabric overlapping at the bust, and it’s easy to get gappage if you move the wrong way.  The hand tacks easily took care of the problem though.

My other irritation with this top is how the front droops down more than the back.  You can clearly see this in the side view dressform shot above.  It hangs like that on me too.  Perhaps if I had more of a bust, it wouldn’t do that.  Or maybe perhaps I sewed the hem on the back a little too wide.  Or maybe that’s just how it’s designed.  Who knows, it’s possibly all three.  It’s a minor irritant, and I don’t like the way that part looks on the dressform, but when the top is on me, I don’t really care…probably because I’m not looking at it from the side.  🙂  PR review here:  http://sewing.patternreview.com/review/pattern/102784.

Overall, I’m very pleased!  BTW, those are my Sewaholic Thurlow jeans featured in this post https://fabricthreadclothes.wordpress.com/2014/04/26/unscrewing-my-screw-up-double-welt-pockets/.  I love these jeans, but it feels like I need to snug up the waistband a bit and maybe add a little on to the center back top when I make them again….and there will be an again! 

I’m not sure what’s up next.  I went into Needle Nook Fabrics today and picked up some more of this fabric in blue that I used for the Jalie Dolman top here:  https://fabricthreadclothes.wordpress.com/2014/08/03/burda-7188-take-2-and-jalie-3352/.  I want to make my favorite V neck for me, plus one for my sister.  She got her gray sample featured here https://fabricthreadclothes.wordpress.com/2014/08/30/a-tale-of-three-tees/ and has a few changes.  The biggest quibble was that I made the waist a little too big, and there was a little too much fabric at the waist front.  I’m going to try the FBA for swimsuits that I linked to above on the next one for her.  I think that will eliminate that problem.  I LOVE this fabric from Needle Nook.  🙂  It’s the perfect four way stretch and it washes and wears well.  I think I’ve bought some of it in every color she had.  BTW, Anne at Needle Nook is running a special for National Sewing month, so if you need anything, now is the time to buy!  Here’s a link to her blog that advertises the deal…and it’s available for call in orders!  http://ndlnookfab.blogspot.com/

Happy Sewing!