A Sparkly Sorbetto

This is my second Sorbetto from Colette Patterns. At the beginning of the month, I wrote that this was cut out and ready to go. Well, it too considerably longer to make than it ever should have done.

I didn't have enough fabric to make the front or back in the same material. It's a bit of a mixture of fabrics, fingers crossed it'll be OK. There's a seam at about waist height on the front, but this doesn't show when it's tucked in. There's also a seam on the back to give the back length I needed. There's also a seam down the centre of the back since I didn't have enough white material to place it on the fold.

I used some white cotton fabric which is left over from a gored skirt I made about three or four years ago, which has a silver thread running through it. This was used for the front. I then teamed it up with some plain white cotton to make the back, which was also left over from the skirt.

I'm pleased with the binding on this Sorbetto, it's so much better than the last one. I decided to use Miss P's idea of using drafting tape to cut the right width. It worked like a dream. I was possibly more careful with the sewing this time too!

I was determined that this Sorbetto would have sleeves, since I would get a lot more use out of it. So I tried to use the sleeve pattern from Sew Weekly. I had enough of the sparkly fabric to make the sleeves, but they just didn't work. I'm not a pattern drafter, so couldn't really check if they were the right size... I made them, stitched them in and tried it on. Within ten minutes there I was unpicking them and chucking the sleeves in the bin!

In the end, I decided I'd try a sleeve from another pattern. This sleeve comes from a Burda blouse that I made in May time. These weren't without problems... I cut out two sleeves, then sewed the hems and elastic casing the same way on each sleeve! So I had to cut yet another sleeve. The sleeves are now from plain white cotton since there wasn't enough of the other fabric! This Sorbetto just didn't want to be made. It's taken me weeks to sort out - well it feels like weeks!

Here at last is the finished top! The seam half way down the front looks quite obvious, but it doesn't show when I'm wearing it!

I found these buttons which were sent through free from JosyRose, which I decided to sew on the front to match up with the silver thread and detract from the seam on the front.

I also decided to make the most of the seam in the centre back and made a false buttonhole with some remaining bias-binding and sewed the last of the sparkly buttons at the top of the back. It doesn't hang brilliantly well, so I may decide to change this. I had in my mind's eye a brilliantly tidy buttonhole with binding going right down into the cut out section too, but it didn't quite come out as I hoped. I'm hoping the button hides most of the problems!

It's made and it's getting it's first outing on Day 19 of Self-Stitched September!