Fibre Mood Mabel Top

I’ve sewn quite a bit in the past months, now I just need to blog about it. So I will start with the Fibre Mood Mabel Top.

After having found out that I’m quite partial to a nice balloon sleeve (Sagebrush Top, Esther Blouse) I finally found a fabric to make a Mabel Top from. I rarely make something from knit fabrics, but this aubergine coloured loop-backed heavy viscose jersey just seemed to fit the bill perfectly.

I made a size M (as according to my chest measurement) and I needed about 135 cm of 150 wide fabric- BUT: this only worked because I altered some of the pattern pieces and tetrised my way around it all. If you want to make this top, you should go for 150 cm just to be on the safe side.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the finished garment but for a quite straightforward knit pattern I was surprised at the number of modifcations I needed. Since I didn’t have any knit fabrics lying around to make a muslin from I had to gauge the fit by comparing the pattern pieces to those from other tops I have made and I am so glad I did.

My modifications:

• I knew from making Minnie for my daughter that I had to lengthen the sleeves, so I added 5 cm in length. In hindsight, I would add 2-3 more cm to allow for more arm movement without the ribbing sliding up my arms.
• I also took 2 cm out of the sleeve pattern piece (roughly where the top of the shoulder notch is) to slim them down because they looked enormous. Since I was afraid of overstretching the sleeve ribbing because my fabric had an asthonishing amount of vertical stretch but rather poor horizontal strech I slimmed down the sleeve piece even further at the wrist: I took out 3 cm at the left and right sides of the pattern piece, tapering to nothing at the armscye. This means I reduced the circumference of my sleeves by 2 cm in the shoulder area and 8 cm at the wrist. And I am so glad I did because there would have been no way I could have squeezed 8 more centimetres of fabric into the wrist ribbing, gathering or not.
• If you sew this pattern make sure to only baste the neckline. Mine was too tight to get over my head without evetually damaging the top. So I after seam ripping, I cut away 1 cm around the neckline (so I basically chopped of the seam allowance) and then I cut a new neckband ( having added 4 cm to it) and now everthing fits nicely.
• I also struggled to attach the waistband (mind you, I quite liked the way the top looked without it) and I had to tug it rather severly to make it fit the bodice but that might be due to my particular fabric and not a flaw of the pattern.

If I ever come across a nice and drapey knit fabric I can see myself making this again. And since I already made two other (three if you’re counting the as of yet unblogged Alix skirt) I made from this edition of Fibre Mood it was basically a free pattern. Hooray!