Magenta & Silver

I spent all day Monday sewing.  Come to think of it, I spent the better part of Sunday sewing too!  I seem to have a lot of projects on the go at the moment, but I'm just going to show you one today, as it's the only one that's finished!

This is my second Burda 7866, which appears to be out of print now.  This one is made from a magenta wool jersey - one of the fabrics that both Andrea and I bought at Fabrications in Michigan.

This top is just slightly different front to back.  I've found when putting on my leopard one that it takes me a bit of time to figure out which is the front.

The neckline on the front is a teensy bit lower.

BTW - this is closer to the true color

I was tired of having to spread the top out on the bed to figure out which was the front, so this time I added a little tiny tag at the back - made of some of my leftover selvedge from the binding of the quilt!

I like having a little bit of hidden leopard :-)

For such a simple design, for me this is surprisingly tedious to make, because I use all three of my machines.  The neck facing is sewn to the neck opening using the sewing machine; the seams are done on the serger and the hems on the coverstitch machine.  It's a lot of getting out and setting up, then putting away.

I like this one, but I don't like it as much as my leopard print one.  The fabric is less drapey, and since it's wool it's a tiny bit scratchy against my bare skin.   Also, I find that I have to ruche it around my tummy just so, in order not to draw attention to the little bulges there - both from my body and from the jeans button.

Still, the solid color makes it a great backdrop for some nice accessories.  I decided to dig out a couple of my old hand-made pieces that I thought went nicely with this top.  First is this drusy necklace:

Years ago when I was working in the studio, a friend purchased a bunch of drusy cabochons.  She offered to give me one in exchange for setting one in a bezel for her, so I chose this one and made this necklace for myself.  I also created the "chain" from sheet metal, giving a rough finish to the links, and formed the clasp.

I love this necklace, but don't have a whole lot of things to wear it with, so my new top fills that hole.  I layered it with another simple necklace I made - a super long chain interspersed with highly polished silver bars (again, cut from sheet) that I can wear doubled or tripled.  Here I wore it tripled.

And you may have noticed that I wore the top with my Jamie Jeans - I am loving these, and plan to make at least a couple more.  AND this top takes care of another piece of fabric from my stash!