Boat Top

It's been quite a while since I've posted, but that's only because I've been working on presents that can't be seen yet!  One of them is this dress that I made for my brother's girlfriend.  The fabric is from Spool and is really soft.  I love how it turned out, although I'll need to make some adjustments for it to fit her.

But back to the main reason for this post: I decided one night after work that I'd like to make another top from scratch, now that I'm a bit more familiar with shapes and darts.  I'm also getting ready to make the coffee date dress and wanted to try out an all in one lining.  I used a shirt from H&M to get an idea of the pattern and just cut around it.

I wasn't really sure how to figure out where the darts should go, so I just approximated how far down from the armhole they should be, and how far in they should go (next time I'll have them go a little further in). 

Then I sewed one side together (with French seams), cut out the facing pieces and sewed them together at one side.  Next, following these instructions from Grosgrain's Frock by Friday Sew Along, I sewed the facing to the shirt, right sides together, everywhere except the top of the arms.  Then I understiched where possible (sewed the seam allowance to the facing), and notched the curves.

Next came the fun part of figuring out how to sew the arms together at the top.  I really have no idea how to explain it.  I just followed Grosgrain's instructions, thinking the whole time that there was no way this could work, but magically it did!  I'm so excited about this new technique--its not really complicated, you just need to do it once to understand how it works.

I finished the shirt with a French seam on the other side.  I realized after making the darts that I had cut both front and back pieces the same length, but with the darts the front was significantly shorter.  I didn't want to waste any material in the hem as it was already just the right length, so I used this great tutorial from Adventures in Dressmaking to add a hem facing.

I love my crazy geometric boat shirt!