Dulling The Pain

Have you missed me? (Wait – don’t answer that question. I’m just going to pretend that you said yes.)

Things around here have been a bit topsy-turvy lately.  We had a house guest for all of July which meant that my sewing room was officially turned into our guest’s bedroom.  Somehow it seemed a bit rude to say “excuse me, could you get out of your bedroom so I can feed my compulsion to sew?” so sadly not much was sewn around here during the month of July.  Plus, I’ve been in the middle of completing my first prerequisite class (you know, in all my spare time).   

But now I can officially say that that my first class is d-o-n-e!  Which would be a lot more exciting if I didn’t have 8(!) more classes to go.  But for now I’m just enjoying the fact that I have my sewing room back and I’m out of class until the middle of September, giving me both a place and time to sew.  Hurray!

To be completely honest though, I actually finished this top sometime in June…I’m just really horrible at getting around to taking pictures.  This tee is from the Scoop Top pattern, designed by the wonderful and talented (and nice!) Kristin of Skirtastop.  This is actually the second top that I’ve made from this pattern but the first one turned out to be a bit of a disaster due to my poor fabric choice.  When the pattern first came out I was so excited to make it that I settled for using whatever fabric was in my stash and unfortunately all I had was a rather thick cotton/lycra blend.  This resulted in a top where the flared sides stuck out rather draped beautifully.  Not a good look.  Plus, I completely messed up the neckline and was too lazy to go back and fix it.  Needless to say, that shirt is now back in the fabric stash, waiting to be cut up into little waistbands the next time I get around to making some kid's undies.  Fortunately my fabric choice for this version was much wiser and, therefore, this top is approximately a thousand times more wearable (that’s just an approximation).   The only modifications that I made in making this top were that I slimmed the sides just a tad bit and I cut out my own neckband piece - which was probably a bad move on my part because my neckband ended up being a little wonky.  Eh, you live, you learn.  

Perhaps one of the greatest things about the Scoop Top pattern though is how little fabric it uses.  I bought two yards of this fabric from GirlCharlee and after making my Scoop Top I had enough left over to make a top for O too. 

Her top is the Banyan top by Figgy's that I purchased many months ago in the Sew Fab e-pattern sale.  Why oh why did I take so long to make this top?  It’s incredibly easy to make, comfortable, and stylish.  Perfect for O’s back-to-school wardrobe.  And by back-to-school wardrobe, I actually mean starting-school wardrobe because my baby’s going to school for the first time this year.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to reminiscence about how this girl was once my one and only tiny little baby.  Don’t worry though – I’ll be reminiscing while we both wear our matching shirts.  It dulls the pain.