I Will Wear it in Public Challenge Completed!

First of all, if you have heard about May's garment sewing challenge, you can read all about it here:

So here it is!  I've completed the sewing challenge and am moderately pleased with my results.  I wore the top to pick up my kids from school.  I talked to a couple moms and some teachers, but really won't have a chance to wear it "out" until Mr. Ricochet plans our next date night.  

To refresh your memories about the previous post I made about this project, I began with this large piece of printed, flowy, silk-like fabric:

Then I thought this "circle top" would be the perfect pattern for this wild print.  Here's a pic and link to the easy-peasy tutorial:

[Sweet Lemonyde's cool tutorial]

I wanted to have the center of the print (the bulls-eye if you will) to be centered on my chest.  With a bit of finagling, I managed to find out where to fold the fabric in order for the print to land in the right spot.  Then to my dismay, I discovered that the back of the shirt wouldn't have enough fabric to match the length in the front.  I solved this by taking a strip of fabric from the front and adding it to the back.  Then, I folded the fabric into quarters and cut off a rounded corner to create an overall oval, or more exactly a lozenge shaped piece.  You can see how I added the stripe of fabric and how I made the cut here:

The sewing entailed hemming the entire perimeter of the lozenge.  I folded and pressed the edge over twice hiding the raw edges.  Then I sewed two neat rows of stitching all the way around (yellow line in pic below).  I cut out a v-shaped neck line and trimmed it with black bias tape (blue lines).  Then I sewed up the sides (pink lines).

I thought I was done, but he neckline would not lay flat.  This was because I didn't "ease" the bias tape as I sewed it on.  To fix this I simply added some well-placed tucks/pleats into the neckline.  You can see in the photo below that this caused a little pucker in the fabric:

Another unanticipated result of this neckline construction was that the neck hole was so large that it fell off my shoulders.  To remedy this problem, I added a strap connecting the sides as you can see here:

Eventually I got it done and I'm variably happy with how it turned out.  

I've decided I like it a bit more when it's tucked into jeans:

Because of windy and rainy weather I had to shoot inside using the timer on my camera.  The photos didn't turn out great and I had to edit them a great deal to take down the bright glare from the windows.  Pippa, my faithful canine companion, acted as my assistant.  We've had her for around 4 months now and she is such a joyful addition to our family.  She's a cocker spaniel and poodle mix (cockapoo) and we rescued her from the local animal shelter.  

Not to mention how stinking cute she is!  She just got back from the groomers and is sporting a pretty bow in her hair.  I think she matches my outfit perfectly!

All in all, I think this project was successful and I ended up with a wearable garment.  While I like the bold print and how I employed it, I'm a little disappointed in the fit.  It's very comfortable and I'm known for wearing bold prints, but I think over-sized billowy tops look better on thinner gals while curvy gals like myself end up looking bigger than they actually are.  I think I can tweak the garment to make it compliment my figure a bit more and look less like a muumuu.

[source]
example of a muumuu

I'm considering taking it in a just a smidge on the sides and shortening the "sleeves" so they end above my elbow.  What do you think?  Leave it or make some adjustments?

Stay tuned for the voting portion of the garment sewing challenge coming up in the beginning of June.

Happy crafting and big hugs from Montana,