As it turns out I do still have two more Sewjourn garments to share!  Argh!  I knew I was behind in blogging, but didn’t really just how far behind.  I’m getting there though, as evidenced by a sudden deluge of blog posts!  This post is about Butterick 6182.  It’s described as follows:

http://butterick.mccall.com/newsletters/img.sewingtoday.com/cat/10000/add_img/B6182.gif

I intend to sew the dress in linen at some stage, but wanted to first try out the overall fit of the top.  I sewed view A in size 14.

When I first tried this on I wasn’t happy at all.  It was restrictingly tight around the armholes and the length as drafted just felt way too short.  I tossed it into my bag and figured that I would think more about it later.  I did like the neckline and the centre front darts and seaming so didn’t want to get rid of it straight away.

When I got home I realised that I had kept the scraps of the fabric.  I don’t always do this – I find that scraps just pile up, and now only keep ones that I feel confident are large enough for another project.  I think that a sixth sense had been at work.  The fabric is an old sarong, one that I thought I’d bought on my first trip to Bali twenty-five years ago but now realise actually belongs to my husband – he used to use it as a decoration even before we’d met.  Sorry about cutting up your sarong!

Anyway, there was just enough of the scraps left to cut self-faced bands to sew to the hem of the skirt.  I folded the scraps lengthwise and used the pattern pieces as a guide to cut a band for the front hem and a band for the back hem.  Rather than sewing these together I bagged out the sides of each band so that the finished top would have side splits.  Then it was a simple matter of sewing the bands beneath the already finished hem stitching.  I did some snipping of seam allowances around the armholes and overlocked the seam allowances to a narrower width, which significantly improved the fit there as well.

This was definitely a save.  I like the finished top, especially with jeans, and now know that I can go ahead and sew the dress without major fitting issues (as long as I remember to do that short back waist alteration)!