FO: My New Favourite Top

So Kids Clothes Week starts tomorrow and to say I am organised for it would be, well, a lie.  I do have a few patterns traced and things cut and I should be doing more now but instead I thought I would catch up on here with my new favourite top.  I actually made this a couple of weeks ago now and I still haven't managed to get any decent photos so I have given up waiting.

When I received my copy of Ottobre Women 2/2013 last year I immediately fell in love with this yellow top.  To be honest I'm not sure what drew me to it, I love the way it drapes nicely but isn't huge and balloonish, and the soft gathers at the neckline.  I actually made another design from this mag last year (which never made it to the blog) but when I had a hankering for a new top in my wardrobe I knew I wanted to use this pattern.

Thankfully I also had the perfect fabric.  Last year I went to a big fabric market with a friend and while there one of my finds was a slightly mottled purple soft knit for $7.  I wasn't sure how much I had but when I went and measured I had exactly the amount needed for the pattern, fate!  Now the construction of this top is quite intriguing, probably another drawcard for me.  The front and back are cut as one piece on the fold and the whole thing is cut on the bias (confused yet?).  The upside of this is that it's cool to have a funky construction, the downside is it takes quite a lot of fabric, I made the size 34 and it took nearly all of my 1.5m piece of fabric.
Once I had it all cut out the piecing together was really simple and I had the top made in less than an hour (including interruptions from small people).  And the result I love, it's so comfy and easy to wear.
Here is the shape of the finished top, I told you the construction was strange.  The angle on teh bottom right is the fold and the shaped section on the bottom left is what becomes the hem.

And here it is on, a very bad bathroom photo.

Usually when  make a size 34 I need to take the seam at the top of the sleeve in a bit but I didn't have to this time, I'm not sure if that is because of the bias cut or not.  One thing I would suggest though is that you make sure you prewash your fabric as is suggested in the pattern.  I thought they mentioned this as they used a bamboo blend and I know bamboo often shrinks a LOT, and since I don't usually prewash my knits I just forged on.  While I don't think my knit has shrunk as such I have noticed when wearing it after a few times through the wash that one of the shoulder seams sits a bit further forward than the other, I can only put this down to the bias cut of the pattern and the laziness of the maker when it came to prewashing.  The other thing to note about fabric choice is that it suggests a 30% stretch and recover for the knit fabric.  While for this drapey style I would usually think this wouldn't be necessary I think because of the shape of the hem on this top a certain amount of stretch is really needed in the fabric.

When I come across other suitable knits in my stash I will definitely be making more of these.