SEWN: THE IMPOSSIBLY PERFECT TOP

Sometimes a fabric just screams to be scooped up and taken home to be loved and stroked and perhaps even made into a garment that makes you squeal hell yes!

Special fabrics. Delightfully soft and spongy woolly fabrics.

In the most unusual and vibrant shade.

A golden shade. A shade of perfection.

In a boiled wool that surpasses all my previous experiences of boiled wool.

Even when said fabric is a small remnant 90cm x 150cm from Pitt Trading and you're in the habit of making voluminous tops of the trapeze/sack variety.

And that's where Japanese pattern books completely come to the rescue yet again.

This is Pattern S from a book with ISBN 978-4-579-11517-4 and my translator app tells me is titled The Form of Clothes. But I like Christy's interpretation after making up a piece. She made up the title Rectangles and Circles with Head Holes, which is kind of an accurate description!

As such it is untranslated, but after making up many many Japanese patterns before and based on the utter simplicity of construction it was a breeze to sew up. From tracing the pattern, to lengthening said pattern, to cutting and sewing - all up maybe 90 minutes max. That's partly due to the beauty of boiled wool which requires no edge finishing or hemming. Yeeha!

This is a very cropped over-top as drafted and since I am long bodied it would have hit at a weird place on my torso. The pattern calls for 90cm of fabric and my remnant when I measured it was closer to 1m. As a result I was able to add 5cm length to the top and I'm so pleased with the result. It's cropped, but not too cropped and in fact hits basically at the top of my jeans waistband when viewed from wearing height (all my photos are taken on a mound so the camera has to point up a little. It makes me look tall and my clothes short!).

The pattern calls for applying fusible stay tape to the neckline, lower hem edge and sleeve edges to stabilise those edges. I followed those directions except for the sleeve opening, as it would have been visible during wear. I also stabilised the entire length of the shoulder/sleeve top seam with the same fusible tape applied to the back seam allowance only.

The raw edges of the neckline, sleeve openings and hem are finished with a row of topstitching 1/8" in from the edge as directed by the instructions. This is to assist in ensuring fraying doesn't get out of control, which is not necessary with a boiled wool, but I figured it would stabilise those edges further.

My skin is normally quite sensitive to wool, but this fabric is so delightfully soft I can wear it directly against my skin. I am wearing a tank under the top in these shots, and in colder weather I'd add a long sleeved tee. I didn't pre-wash the fabric as... wool. It will have to be a dry clean only garment which I'm ok with as I will always have a layer underneath and wool is very good at repelling soiling. Famous last words??

I don't care, this top is such an impossibly perfect surprise I'm gonna kiss it and hug it and maybe even sleep with it. Yep, you read it here first!

And dang if it doesn't look fabulous paired with my new gold lace ups. It's a good day people, a good day.