Blue Cowl Neck Top

Blue cowl-neck top

After (nearly) finishing the pink micro-pleat cowl-neck top,  I decided to make a few more of this top. I dug through my stash of “I’ll make a top out of this, at some point” knits in my stash (mostly purchased at the grandmother’s fabric sale, or gifted to me by a former teacher) in colours that I don’t normally wear a lot of (ei: not black) and picked out this one, a sort of wedgewood blue slinky polyester knit.

I honestly love the colour, though the fabric is very light weight and not something I’d normally be drawn to. This one was from my former teacher, along with another similar fabric in dusty pink.

Gothic Cathedral circle skirt

Wearing the cathedral embellished circle skirt

If you follow me on Instagram, you might remember I got a shipment of Heat Transfer Vinyl back in December. The main reason I bought this… was for this project – a Gothic Cathedral circle skirt.

I have been loving the iconography of cathedral windows (as visible in the papercraft project and the cathedral pillar I did) but also loved the sketch Emma Rubini did for her Harrow the Ninth/  Harrowhark cosplay concept.  I wanted to take this same concept, and apply it to a skirt for myself.

One pattern – how many ways? Draped-front top/dress

Teal and black draped front dress worn with a trumpet sleeve shrug and mesh corset

Over the past month or so I’ve showed off a number of different garments, all based on the same original pattern.

The pattern is actually a “knock off” of a store-bought top that I ADORE, and have worn a lot – so much that I’m a bit nervous about when it finally gives up and is unwearable again… so… I copied off the pattern, and have subsequently made a number of NEW tops with it.

While in the process of making the first final top (vs a draft in inexpensive fabric I’d likely never use for anything else) I also thought “this would make a cute dress too!” and copied and altered my pattern to also turn the draped-front top into a swingy, comfortable knit dress.

I thought I’d do a little run down showing off how different fabric combinations, colours, and woven/printed patterns look in the same sewing pattern.

Pink micro-pleated cowl neck top

pink micro-pleat sleeveless cowl-neck top

Years ago I had a red slinky knit cowl neck top I loved. Of course, I ended up spilling salad dressing or something on it, and it was stained. I ended up taking it out of my closet, but knocked off the pattern to make an eventual replacement.

Initially I made the top up in a silver micro-pleat, and wore it for years before it succumbed to the same fate, getting stained with something oil-y. Boo!

At the grandmother’s sale a while back (not this most recent one!) I found some pink micro-pleat, which admittedly I don’t love as much as the silver (I also had plain top in gold, and a long housedress in black micro-pleat!) but I figured I’d use the same cowl neck pattern to use up the pink micro-pleat since I already knew I liked the style in the fabric.

Dark Grey Embossed Velvet Draped-Front Top

Dark grey embossed velvet self-made draped-front top

After making the black draped-front top, I decided to look at some of my other lightweight knits that I had allocated to make tops from. After digging through a few different boxes of regular knits, I decided to look at some of my stretch velvets, and pulled out this dark grey, almost black velvet, which has an embossed floral design on it.