The One with The Dolman Sleeve Top

It didn’t take long so here it is 🙂

 

Pattern:

Free Dolman Sleeve Top pattern by Cation Design

It’s a PDF pattern with only 8 pages as the front and back sit on top of each other. I printed out the pattern twice, cut all 8 pages twice and taped them together twice… Just so I didn’t have to trace the damn thing 🙂 I guess it’s fairly obvious by now I hate tracing patterns.

Fabric:

A blue sweater knit that arrived two days ago. I wanted to use this fabric for the top after I saw Sally’s version of it. I loved the little holes in the fabric which made it a bit transparent.

The good thing is that by cutting my back into two pieces I managed to cut the entire top out of only 84cm of fabric! Yay for that, as I have enough leftover now to make something else out of the fabric.

One thing about this fabric though is that if frays like crazy. And when I say crazy I mean blue fluff sticking to every surface in my living room now. Literally everywhere! Same reason why I opted to not make the bow in the end.

Size and alterations:

I just cut a medium size which seems to be the perfect fit. I didn’t alter anything on the pattern.

I did however notice when trying to sew the neckband on that the fabric frayed just too much to sew such a narrow band to finish the neckline. Instead of cutting a wider one I decided to cheat. A while ago I came across some stretch bias tape and I bought white, black and beige (skin coloured). Not the most special colours but they were good enough to practice if I needed them. I decided to go for the skin coloured one because I hoped it would be invisible through the holes. Or at least blend with my skin colour 🙂 I topstitched it down by using a twin needle.

Level and special skills:

This is my favorite kind of pattern. No zippers, no buttons, no pleats, no darts, not even hemming! Like the Renfrew top it has a waistband and a sleeve band which makes it a lot easier to finish.

So this doesn’t really need special skills except maybe some experience in sewing with knits.

Time to complete:

I don’t know exactly but I guess about 3 hours and I didn’t rush. It would have gone a lot faster if the fabric didn’t fray so much!

Will I make it again:

I’m not sure as I’m not quite sure how I feel about the top yet.

Overall conclusion:

Lovely pattern, easy as hell! I love the fact that it feels like ages since I made anything wearable. I like how it looks when I look in the mirror or see it in the picture, but it looks kind of weird on me when I look down at my neckline. I’m just used to more cleavage.

The trick with the stretch biastape worked as a charm.. Invisible plus it keeps the neckline from gaping.

The big BUT in this story is that I think it will look better on me once I loose some weight. Somehow I have the feeling it makes me look heavier on top than I really am and that was the part of my body I liked 😉

 

PS I’m really sorry for my ghostly paleness but it’s still snowing here. That’s right, Spring started today, it decided to start off with snow. I’m in serious need of some sunshine. Oh and if you’re wondering what the sticker is: We had a run against cancer today at school so I wanted a sticker. And you know the nice part (this is going to start so vain) is that the blue on the sticker is the exact same blue as my top. It makes me so happy I want to keep it 🙂