I love stripes and I was attracted to the casual look of this striped top.
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| Burda 5 2014 top 130 |
I wasn't sure the style would be good for me though. There is a lot of fabric in the waist area. I felt the strip was critical to the top not looking like a baggy mess at the waist, confirmed with the only other version I could find on the internet, at theBurdastyle.ru site, which was made in a solid color knit. I decided to sew this top if I could find a semi sheer, drapey, woven fabric in a wide black and white stripe, preferably silk. I'll bet some of you are probably chuckling and thinking "Good luck with that" Yes, the only black and white fabric I could find was poly. Buy right next to it was a pink and white strip. Looking at the two choices, the black and white said "same old, same old", the pink and white said "pretty!, pretty!". The pink came home with me.
The most time consuming part of making this top is the cutting out. Making sure the front edge of the garment and all the yoke edges fall on the bottom of a dark stripe, and careful matching of stripes for the bias cut back. The sleeves are very slim fitting all the way to the wrist. I checked the sleeve width before cutting to make sure they would fit my arms. The sleeve length is below the wrist as shown on the model. And because they are so fitted, the sleeves cannot be pushed up the arm for a 3/4 length casual look, which I had considered doing. Before sewing the button/buttonhole bands of the ends of the draped pieces, I tried on the top and played with the draping to make sure the length was enough to lay nicely on my hips and maintain the low "V" in front. I cut off about an inch on each tie to achieve this. If the ties are too long the draping at the hips drops below the bottom of the top and looks weird. A comment to this effect, made by the burdastyle.ru sewer, alerted me to check this.
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| Front |
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| Front before draping |
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| Back before draping |
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| Front draping step 1 |
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| Back |
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| requisite back view |
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| with white jeans |
I am very pleased with this top. I can wear it with blue and white jeans and grey slacks.
What I have not shared with you yet is that the dress code in my work place changed about a month ago. Jeans are now permitted, with a lot of conditional criteria for client facing personnel (like me). In a nut shell, you can dress at the level of your client or above, but not below. Since most of my clients are in a manufacturing facility, it can be jeans 90 % of the time. I am completely perplexed with what to wear to work these days. For comfort and professionalism, I prefer slacks. Still I don’t want to be overdressed. The males in my department embraced this change with enthusiasm. My boss, a male in his mid 40’s promptly started wearing, baggy blue jeans. It startles me every time I look at him. His superior is a woman about the same age as I am. We have always dressed very similar and often in the same colors on the same day, which we joke about. She has continued to wear professional looking clothes. Complicating matters further is my new office, which has all glass on an east facing wall. Even with sun shades drawn against the morning sun, it is quite warm until about 3:00 PM every day, when for some inexplicable reason, a blower starts up and icy cold air pours out of the ceiling vent. I can‘t wear the beloved jackets I like to sew, but for 2 hours per day. I have three partially completed jackets in sewing limbo until I can get my wardrobe compass steady. In the meantime I will continue to sew tops.
