Style Arc Maris Moon Top

This top was made for my friend Kathy's birthday and whilst it caused some angst I am really pleased with how the pattern and fabric worked together to produce a great finished garment. It has now been wrapped in its pretty paper and is winging its way across the ocean to England hopefully in time for her birthday.  Fingers crossed that it fits and Kathy likes it.

The finished garment

Kathy is very petite so how this top looks on my body double Dorothy is hopefully not how it will look in real life.  As a point of reference there is 5 inches of negative ease at the bust and hips and about 10 inches at the waist.

Without Kathy to model it showing it on Dorothy was the best alternative I could come up with. Photographing it on a hanger or flat produced very uninspiring images.

The fabric

Another Art Gallery Fabrics knit called Moon Stories in colourway Spark purchased from Hawthorne Threads in April this year specifically with my friend Kathy in mind. Kathy loves rabbits and this was such a cute fabric I couldn't resist it.

This is a 95% cotton 5% spandex fabric. Described by AGF as the day fades into the darker shades of the sky, friendly creatures appear through the pine trees. The moon shines in its different phases and reveals the winged fauna and playful bunnies in the colours of a luminous nightfall.

When I purchased the Moon Stories knit I also bought another AGF knit that I thought I could use as a coordinate but the colour match was poor when I saw the two fabrics together in real life.  So off to The Fabric Store I went on my quest to find a coordinating knit.  I couldn't find a cotton knit but I did find a merino that coordinates really well.

The pattern

Just love the Style Arc Maris top but it wasn't my first choice for this garment as I only had my size 10 version and Kathy is considerably smaller in circumference than I am.  However I decided that I had the skills to alter the pattern appropriately and I am really pleased I took the chance.

Style Arc description is: has an interesting front hem panel that continues to the back giving a fabulous silhouette.  Use your own creative flare, mixing fabrics or colours for your own individual look.  We made our sample in linen but would also work in a knit as well.

The pattern alterations

The pattern measurements for the size 10 are: bust 41 inches; waist 30.5 inches and hip 43.25 inches. Guestimating my petite friend's size was a leap of faith but hopefully both the knit fabric and the shape gave me some room for error.  I didn't want to alter the look of the finished garment too much despite using a knit.  Definitely don't want it to be as fitted (tight) as it is on Dorothy.  So whilst I don't know yet if this top actually fits Kathy it looks as though it could!!

For the pattern alteration I decided to remove 10 inches from the circumference of the garment and 1.5 inches from the length.  How I removed the width was a bit unorthodox.  I marked 2.5 inches from centre front / back and put the pieces on the fold of the fabric at that mark point.  I cut around the pattern apart from at the neck edge.  I then repositioned the pattern piece for the neck edge so that only 1.25 inches was removed from the width.  The neck is quite wide in this garment and I worried that if I cut the neck the original size it would just look odd and be irritating on my petite friend.  For the length I just folded it out of the main body piece for front and back. The neck and hem panels in the plain merino fabric are unchanged length wise.

The sewing

Nothing very exciting here that I haven't described before.  It was sewn on the overlocker with the hems folded over and stitched with my Featherweight.  I did mitre the corners at the points of the front hem panel. I am happy with the overall finish I achieved and my work colleagues thought it looked very RTW.