A while back a friend gave me a few lengths of fabric that had motifs printed centrally along them.  They came to her via her husband who works in the clothing trade.  I suspect that they may have originally been destined for scarves.  I love the colours and have been wondering for a while what to do with them, and eventually decided on turning them into a top.  I chose the Style Arc Meg raglan.

This is a pattern that I have used before. Style Arc describe it as follows: MEG RAGLAN TEE: This gorgeous elbow length raglan sleeve Tee has a relaxed fit that is designed to flow with the body. It features a high low hemline and a high scoop neck. This style is beautiful made in a soft flowing silk.  FABRIC SUGGESTION & DESCRIPTION: Silk, Rayon, Crepe, or any soft woven fabric.

I love that this is a raglan pattern for wovens, and that it includes a shoulder dart so that the raglan sleeve is able to conform to the body nicely.  The mitred corners on the hemline are another example of Style Arc’s excellent drafting.  I chose to combine the scarf fabric – which is something slippery and probably polyester although I suppose that the potential is there for it to be silk – with linen for the sleeves and neckband to tone things down just a little.

I sewed size 12, as I had done in the past. I attached the narrow bias cut neckband in a similar way to how I would do it on knits, with the strip folded in half wrong sides together, joined to the neckline right sides together with a narrow seam allowance, then turned, pressed and topstitched. I think I’d do this differently next time – maybe just cut a wider bias strip and bind the neckline so that it sits a little flatter.

The panel fabric was very tightly woven and did not particularly like being sewn. I swapped to a finer sharps needle to topstitch it, but it’s still pulled a bit along the stitching. I suspect that only a sewer would notice.

Since I was working with a limited amount of fabric I wasn’t able to match the print exactly at the side seams, but I don’t think it is entirely problematic. Style Arc patterns are usually full sized, which really helped with getting the print placement how I wanted it. So, to the pants!

The pants were sewn in linen from Tessuti, and definitely show the characteristic wrinkling of linen. Please note that these photos were taken at the end of a working day after about nine hours of wear! I have to take the opportunity to get my photos done whenever it presents itself. I ordered the linen online, and when it arrived it was a much lighter weight than I had anticipated.  I was quite dubious about using it for pants, but went ahead anyway and as it turns out it was okay.  I have sewn the Style Arc Lola pants a multitude of times – just do a search for them on my blog if you want to see the previous pairs. Size 10, elasticised waistband with a flat centre front insert, front angled pockets, and a nice little elasticised back hemline feature. Definitely one of my favourite patterns for lighter weight pants.

Style Arc also have a dress pattern that I suspect is very similar to the Meg raglan tee, that is already in my stash. Maybe it should move up the extremely long to-sew queue! However I’m still focusing on sorting out my winter work wardrobe. And since Stella went back to school yesterday, Clare goes back to school on Monday, and I go back to work on Monday, I’m not going to have much time for non-seasonal sewing!