The thrill of a frill - Simplicity top finished!

Bearing in mind my weakness for frills and ruffles and my great liking for patterns that offer separate pieces for B, C or D cup sizes, I really don’t know why I didn’t get around to making up Simplicity 2599 earlier. This pattern has been sitting around in my stash since it was issued last year – as soon as I saw it I leapt on it. And I’ve had the coral coloured silk I planned to use for it since the spring of this year. All summer I kept meaning to make it but, somehow, it never reached the top of the pile - until now. But, as they say, better late than never and here it is

In case you’re wondering, I’m wearing it with the skirt I made from the April issue of Burda Magazine (blogged about in this post). So I’ve got ruffles at my neck, a flounce round my hem and a bow at the back! Is that too much?

The top is pretty easy to make but the ruffles do take a bit of fussing with to get just right, especially with a slippery silky fabric. As I mentioned in my last post, I tried out a new technique to make this easier and did the gathering of the ruffles with my new best friend, my serger. This way the ruffles get the edges finished at the same time as the gathering threads are put in – you then just pull up the needle threads to adjust the ruffles to the exact length you want them and sew them to the front. Here’s a close up of the ruffles

And here’s one with a ruffle lifted up so you can see how it is attached to the front.

At the back of the neck there is a button and loop closure. If you want to make this top quicker you could actually do without this (I can take the top on and off without undoing the button). However, I like the elegant look of the closure and I found some cute looking rose shaped buttons in my button box (I have no idea where they came from – do things mysteriously appear in your home?!), so I used one of them


I think that this pattern is definitely worthy of another outing at some time in the near future but, in the meantime, I’m starting to think that summer sewing has to stop now …… I need to do some serious planning for my autumn (fall)/winter wardrobe.