More selfish sewing done!

Happy Labor Day to my American friends!  And so marks the end of summer and beginning of fall.  Only someone forgot to tell Mother Nature because we're having summer weather with no end in sight.  ;)  Oh well, I'm sure we can all enjoy our pumpkin-spiced everything in the air conditioning.

As I mentioned last week, I pattern-tested for Jenny again, making her Split-Neck Raglan Top.  It's so cute!  I, for lack of time, kept the neckline of my shirt rounded instead of the cute v-split she shows, but I still think the top is great.  She includes 3 sleeve lengths, different finishing ideas, and lengths for petite, regular, and tall hem-lengths.

One thing about pattern testing, is that you don't always come out with the perfect fit.  As Jenny is teeny-tiny herself, she has to use formulas and experience to know how big to size up a pattern for each gain in size and sometimes, it just doesn't' work right.  I'm a consistent large-medium or smaller-large, meaning my measurements call for a large, but I can often wear a medium with no trouble.  

So on this pattern, I cut just larger than the medium lines knowing that the top was not fitted so I'd have a little extra room.  But it ended up being too large for my taste.  Chris said it looked fine, but I felt like I was wearing a scrub top.  A beautiful one, but still...  It just wasn't quite what I wanted.

  So I played around with some ideas to bring in the width and tighten the neckline up a bit.  I'd have loved to do pintucks across the front, but really didn't want to take the bias binding all the way off the neckline to pin-tuck it and then put it all back on again.  ;)

I decided to go with a simple pleat to just bring it in a bit.  I actually took both sides in a good inch, removing about 2 inches from the neckline and probably could have adjusted a little more, but I feel like this is good enough for now.

This is me with no makeup, & wet hair from the shower--see what I do for y'all!  :)

The shirt is still a bit large everywhere for my taste, but it's done and I think it's going to stay that way.  I think it'll look great under a cardigan all fall & winter, and it's so light that it'll work perfect now for these steamy days we're still having.

The fabric is a Kaffe Fasset voile I bought a few years back to make a dress with.  I finally got around to said dress this summer before our Bahamas trip and ended up hating it.  I couldn't just toss such pretty fabric, so I re-purposed it for this top.  It's so buttery and light.  A joy to wear.

Jenny has taken the pattern in quite a bit to tighten up the neckline and width and the pattern is now for sale if you're interested.  I get no profit from telling you about her patterns, she's just a great person who makes easy-to-follow and cute patterns for women and kids and I love to spread the word about things & people I think are great.

So, have you ever pattern-tested?  What were your results?  Have you ever tested/made something that came out just awful?  What did you do?  Toss it?  Fix it?  Re-purpose it?