I wanted a simple, airy pattern to show off the fabric and went with the Verona by Style Arc. It was a good choice for what I wanted to create, but I did run into a couple of issues — mostly due to my own decisions.
First up, I had more than enough fabric length for this pattern, but neglected to check the width — doh! Not enough to cut out such a full sleeve, especially on the bias. So, first pattern alteration was to narrow the sleeves. It’s still a full sleeve, still bias cut, just not as full as the designer intended. I also needed to cut a contrasting yoke for the back to insure I could lengthen the body to the finished length I prefer. I had some handkerchief linen that I was using for the hem facing and the neck binding, and that worked well for a back yoke.
Pattern instructions call for a double turn of the sleeve hem to insert the elastic. I didn’t want any visible elastic so I used some voile scraps to make bias casings for it instead. It’s fine, but I think a better look would have been to gather the sleeves into narrow bands of the linen. I was tempted to re-do it that way, and still may, but I’ll need to test it out on my scraps as I’m not totally sure it would look any less stiff done that way.
And then we come to the neck binding. It is folded in half and first sewn to the inside of the neckline, then turned over the outside of the top and machine edge stitched. I have no issues with that method in theory, but the width of the bias strip when folded is very narrow when allowing for 2 ‘turns of the cloth’ and going around curves. Soooo, re-cut the binding and re-attach, and of course forget to stitch it to the inside of the neckline first — what a dumb move on my part! I ended up leaving it sewn to the outside and hand stitching it down to the inside. A high price to pay for my inattention.
Still, with all that, I made it to the finish line and I’m pleased with how it looks. Now we just need a pleasant summer day!
Gratuitous close up of the fabric:
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