SWAP Tops

Sewing time has been sparse in the past two weeks. My husband has been traveling a lot for business, working on windmill farm construction in Indiana and W. VA. So after getting home from my job each day, I had full responsibility for dinners, homework supervision, driving to sport events, music lessons, hair cuts, etc. I did manage to complete two more tops for my SWAP. Both were very easy patterns.

Vogue 8392 includes a view with three tiers of ruffles on the sleeve which I liked a lot. The fabric for this blouse came from a large size RTW skirt, bought on sale, specifically to be cut up. It had two layers of crinkled grey/silver silk, with three rows of ruffles at the hem. I cut the sleeves so the ruffles were at the bottom edge. This saved me a lot of work and gave a similar look to the pattern.

The second blouse is Vogue 9771, is a bias cut cowl neck top made out of out of a woven polyester. The fabric is cross woven, with bright “Safety”orange (the color that hunters are required to wear in many parts of the USA) threads in one direction, and turquoise blue in the other. This makes the fabric iridescent, changing color when I move. Funny, the orange and blue combine to look more like mauve with blue accents. This top was super simple to sew. Cutting it out took a bit of time as the front and back pieces had to be cut from one layer of fabric, and I had to make sure the fabric stayed on the straight of grain while I am pinning and cutting the pattern pieces on the bias.
My youngest sister flew in from Arizona this weekend and all the siblings got together at my parents house in Maryland for a visit. We haven’t seen her in a couple of years. It was great fun reminiscing, eating Mom's cooking, and sis got to meet her new niece and nephew, adopted shortly after we saw her last.

Hopefully there will be more sewing time this week. I think I will change my SWAP wardrobe pattern and go with a diffent jacket in the same fabric. The collar of the current jacket is hard to coordinate with tops.