Project 20, re-branded

I obviously needed to cut down on the number of Burda Magazine patterns that I’m considering, so I’ve removed this one from the list:

The right fabric for this was originally tagged for a wrap top from Butterick, which I’ve used before.  I like the shape of the top and I have a gap in my wardrobe in terms of a red top.  However, the more I looked at the Burda magazine version the more I loved it.  I quit smoking just before Christmas and have put on a few kilos since then and I figured that the flowing/draping style might be more flattering until I’ve got rid of them.  The downside of using the red to make this Burda top is that I’ve already committed to the red top as project twenty of my fifty-two projects.  Not that I really committed to the fifty-two, but I am keeping an eye on the list, even if only to discipline me to use existing fabrics.

Re-thinking the fifty-two projects, if I consider the list as motivation to use existing fabric, then it is the fabric, rather than the pattern that I intended to use that is important. 

So I decided to re-brand project twenty “Red Lycra mock wrap top” as “Red Lycra top” and give myself permission to use the Burda pattern.

In fact, I’m glad I did as I really like this top. 

Compared to a simple T shirt it wasn’t difficult and I knocked it up in a morning.  I did change the pattern slightly, using a thin strip of Lycra, folded over, to bind the neck line rather than the facing that the magazine suggested.  I’ve never had much success with lycra facing.  It’s such a slippery fabric that it just doesn’t give the neckline any body and doesn’t take well to iron on interfacing.  In contract, binding the neck line with a slightly stretched strip of the same fabric tends to hold it close to the body and prevent any unintentional underwear displays.