Liberty crop top

I just absolutely love working with cotton. Viscose, silks, whatever else – all of that is great and make for beautiful garments. But when it comes to the ease of working with fabric, cotton is my favorite! I had so much fun with this gorgeous liberty print in my previous project, that I had economized while cutting my Epic liberty shirt dress so that I would have enough fabric left to make a crop top. And as expected, this was an absolutely lovely project, too!

In fact I have squeezed the most out of that fabric! When I was done with these two projects, there was almost nothing left. For this top I had only like 90 cm of fabric to play with. While cutting it for my previous dress I had been considerate enough to leave a decent rectangle of fabric, instead of some odd shapes and forms. And still, I did not have enough fabric for facings pattern pieces, so I ended up cutting them out of a simple white batiste, which was a solid solution in this case. Mind you, I would have loved to have had just a tiny bit more fabric, 10 cm more would have been great, because this would have allowed me to make my top a little bit longer. But it was not to be. So this is the story of one small crop top.

The pattern I used this time is by Grasser patterns. When I saw it first, I figured that it would be a perfect pattern to use up leftovers of fabrics, and soon enough I had this liberty leftover piece to try this pattern with. While investigating the pattern in the first place I had determined that the garment was likely to be very short, probably too short for my comfort. So I decided to purchase the pattern in different height range than my height. Grasser sell patters in single sizes and single height ranges. I am 163 cm / 5’4” tall, so I bought the pattern in the range of 164-170 cm.

When I cut paper pattern pieces and checked the front piece on my dress form, I had to conclude, that finished hem would sit well above my waist. This was not quite what I wanted. But there was a problem – I literally had only like 3 additional centimeters of fabric to use for lengthening of the top. So I managed to squeeze out extra 1.5 cm for my front and back pattern pieces, and additional 0.5 cm out of seam allowances. Thus finished top is 2 cm longer than intended, even considering that mine was initially meant for taller person than I am. All in all, next time I’d add some 5-6 cm of length to this top to be able to wear it comfortably with lower waist pants. This time, it is what it is, and I like my crop top as it turned out.

This style features wide gathered sleeves. Sleeves here constitute a part of front and back pieces, so some time is saved while sewing as there is no need to set the sleeves in. The hem is finished with the casing for the drawstring. This time around I decided to avoid overlocking seams – this fabric seemed too delicate to be overlocked. So I ended up using French seam method for side and shoulder seams. Everything else is either neatly hemmed or encased, so that all the seams would be nicely finished. It took me one evening to make this top, and it was one smooth project! It just went on without any incident or mistake, it was a real pleasure to work on it!

I made this top out of 90 cm leftover piece of Liberty cotton that I had bought from Guthrie&Ghani online store. Fabric is called Soho a Tana Lawn. Since I did not have enough fabric for the neck facing and hem casing, I used white cotton batiste for those pieces instead. This pattern is by Grasser patterns, #491. I cut it in Grasser size 42 (European 36). Other notions were: a little bit of light weight interfacing, a little bit of interfacing tape, and coordinating thread. This top cost me 32 Eur. It was made in June, 2021.

I dearly enjoyed both projects with this gorgeous fabric – shirt dress that I’ve written about in the previous post, and this crop top. This top will have to go with high waist jeans or pants. It is so light and summery, I am sure I will just LOVE wearing it this summer!

Let’s all stay healthy!

~Giedre~