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I had that moment when one buys a magazine just for one pattern. Well, it happened to me recently with issue 43 of Simply Sewing, when I saw that they had The Silk Cami pattern from Sew Over It.

To make my first one, which is a wearable muslin, I used some leftover fabric from another project, some pirate heads cotton.

I decided to cut a size 12 and do a FBA to add 2.5 cm rather than cut size 14 (which would have resulted with the top being too large for me on the back). I also shortened the bodice by 2.5 cm raising the neckline and making the armholes smaller. For the FBA I used a similar process as in the tutorial on Helen’s Closet blog . You can find it here if you want to have a look at how this is done. I did not add interfacing to the facings on this one because I used some scrap fabric that was stiffer than the one for the outer shell.

I only checked the instructions for the seam allowance, so I cannot comment on how good or bad they are. Usually, indie patterns have detailed instructions and I found that Sew Over It has on their blog a Silk Cami sewalong that one can follow to make their top if they need more than the instructions.

Later on checking the instructions, I realised that I’ve used a different method to add the facing to the top. I get better results when I use the following order of construction:
1) sew the shoulder seams on both the top and the facings
2) sew the shell and the facing together at the neckline
3) under-stitch the all the seams to the facing so that when finished the facing does not peak out
4) use a partial ‘burrito’ technique to finish off the armholes
5) sew the side seams and them hem the top.

It took no time to make it. And it’s cute. I am cute wearing it. I think I had a cute top to wear this summer.

I found the finished top a bit too tight. So, next time rather that lengthen it by about 1 cm, I’ll just use a seam allowance all over of 1 cm and problem solved. I should not have been so carried away to shorten it the much in the first place. Usually I only take 1.5 cm, no idea why I thought 2.5 cm was the way to go wot this one.