Hi guys. I wanted to show you a few tops I’ve made recently with the same pattern. I made one a few weeks ago, which you might have seen if you follow me on Instagram. But then I immediately looked out for some fun horizontal stripes so that I could make a couple more straight away, because I love the shape so much.

It has a longer length than most tshirt style tops, and its lovely vintage feature is a slash neckline, which I think is so elegant.

The first fabric I got for this was a vibrant and fun mint green jersey from Like Sew Amazing, which has red, navy, black, brown and green swishes all over it. I bought it when the weather was warm and I had decided at the time that I wanted the shorter sleeve version. I did grumble when I went to make it in chilly January and thought I could give it longer sleeves though, as I was frugal and only bought just enough for the short sleeve. To be honest, I think the short sleeves work for the busy print though. Long might have been a bit too much print maybe? I did consider getting in some blue ribbing, as View Three offers you the chance to have long cuffs. But I was eager to just get on with it one weekend. Summer Nickie will thank me, but for now, I’ll settle for a nice bright cardi to go over it.

This is probably one of my quickest garment makes. I cut the fabric out and was completely finished by the next day (busy mum, the odd hour snatched here and there). Now that I have an overlocker, a lot of it was made with just that – rather than the standard machine. But some seams needed what I call proper stitching, and some stay tape to stabilise shoulders and so on.

I graded between sizes 14 and 16, to accommodate my mum curves and I kept it at the 16 to cover my hips comfortably. That’s just nice as it hugs my middle without looking like it’s stretching across that area, which I would hate.

I decided to keep the neckline as high as the pattern calls for. She gives you options to try out the neckline and choose to lower it if it feels like it’s too much across your throat. But actually it’s sits really softly across there for me. I don’t usually like things too hard across my neck, even the Nikko tops I’ve made, I have to make sure it’s not throttling me too much. But this sits really nicely, I was pleased about that.

Once I made the first one though, I knew immediately that I wanted to make some more. I still want to make some from plain block colour, make them kinda look more vintage, and I shall do in time for summer (I’m thinking of making some pedal pushers which I think these will look PERFECT with, little neck tie, belt around the middle, can you picture it?! 🥰😍). But for now, I thought I could do some stripe matching which I haven’t done in a while. I think the neckline really calls for a stripe, to emphasise the shape across your collarbone. But I didn’t necessarily want to go nautical.

So I found some striped looped back jersey from Material Girl Laura in EXACTLY my colours. 😍😍 The looped back type jersey is a little thicker than other jerseys so is great for this time of year. I then popped into Sarah’s shop and got some black ribbing to complement it, for View Three. Oh and some black overlocker thread, so that I could change up the white and feel like the inside would look nice too.

I did really well with stripe matching the terracotta version. As you’ll see, each stripe is slightly different but there’s obviously a repeat after a few of them. I’m not sure I got the correct repeat for the ochre version though, for the sleeve at least. But I haven’t worried too much. The side seams on both colourways are spot on, so that’s the main thing.

I had a slight wobble when I realised after tumble drying the black ribbing, ahead of cutting, that I didn’t have enough for both tops. Tumble drying is how I manage most of my laundry unless it’s summer, so I may aswell get the worst of the shrinkage out of the way before the cut. I just cut it about 1cm shorter to get both cuffs out of it. Mercifully once it was all put together, the cuffs are still lovely and long. I really wanted these tops to be the one where my sleeves weren’t halfway up my arm after a while. It will still shrink a little more, but nowhere near as much as other things have done. I hate having cold wrists as they get “clicky” sometimes (especially the side I use for working my mouse at work). So I wanted some lovely warm tops that covered them.

I’m looking forward to soon making some cardigans in complementary colours for my palette. These will have stupidly long sleeves! Hahaha. I’m even going to pop a thumb hole in them, so they stay put. But that’s next on the To Do…

As for this, I may check back later, in the Spring sometime, when I’ve made some plain block colours with this pattern. These stripey versions have turned out to be quite fun looking tops – slightly more casual but depending on how you accessorise, still really versatile.

Love them 🥰