Unintended Sleeveless Matcha

Like approximately 1,000 other sewers, Made by Rae inspired me to take another look at the Matcha Top. The shape of the long-sleeved version suddenly put in mind a much-loved and over-worn blouse from yesteryear. The blouse that I wore so often that once before meeting my friend for after-work beers I said I would be wearing “the same blouse as last week, my favorite blouse” and she knew exactly which top I was talking about. The only blouse anybody ever stopped me on the street in NYC to ask where I got it (years before at an outlet store). The blouse I reluctantly tossed into the trash only after it developed more than 1 hole. I considered keeping it one day recreate, but I talked myself out of it because I was never going to to start sewing, after all.

I had just the right fabric on hand, a cactus-print lawn that I picked up a few weeks before Christmas that would be just perfect in the long-sleeved version. And then I proceeded to tape the pattern together without realizing that the front and back pieces were different between the sleeved and sleeveless versions and thus two completely different sets of pages to be taped together. Oh, well. I decided to turn lemons into lemonade, or in this case pears into… pear juice? by using this stash fabric that had been waiting too long for the right pattern to “pear” it with (ha ha and no, I’m not done with the pear jokes) and was on the brink of becoming that fabric end you just never end up using either because you don’t remember what you liked about it in the first place or it’s become too precious to cut into.

Pattern: Matcha Top by Sew Liberated
Size: 6
Fabric: Robert Kaufman London Calling in yellow pears

I sewed the front to the top notch, but it was way too high for me. I don’t know what I did there – it was a squeeze to get the finished shirt over my pin-sized head and unflattering besides. I had flat felled the front seams, but I managed to pick the stitching down at least an inch and a half, far enough that I had enough thread when I was done unpicking to make a square knot and bury the thread ends.

I’m hoping some of that volume in the side view will settle down with washing and wear. I LOVE the collar and the gathers from the front. I think they suit me very well.

I got a tripod and remote for my camera for Christmas and get to have fun posing like a store mannequin. Upon reflection, the fact that this is how I think mannequins are posed reflects how little time I spend in stores. Or that in my mind we’re already living in a dystopian wasteland dotted by distressingly posed mannequins.

Hubs, when I was hand sewing the collar because 1) I’m rubbish at stitching in the ditch; and 2) I can hand sew while netflixing, asked if these were pineapples. I can’t tell you why I was so offended by his fruit mis-identification, but it has become a running joke between us.

Other pear jokes and observations considered for this post:
– A pear-print shirt for a pear-shape body.
– Pears may be in season, but this top definitely isn’t.
– A-pear-antly I’m super into yellow these days.
– It was a-bosc time I got around to using this fabric!
– This make was a result of pattern-instruction-reading im-pear-ment.
– Some reference to the fruits of my labor
– Pear fabric is ripe with joke potential
– Here is wishing you a fruitful new year!