Bonnie Woven Top in Orderly Fashion

A little over a month ago, I received a package containing these gorgeous goodies in the mail!

Looks like a work assignment for me, right? Right! Well, sort of. To me, it’s more fun than work. But yes, it’s a number of sewing projects, because Jess has a new line of modal rayon fabrics out that she designed for Cloud9 Fabrics.

Of course rayon fabrics mean garments, which are usually larger projects than bags, so for the first time I needed to flip up the other leaf on my new cutting table and see how everything fit in the room. It actually worked quite well… close, but still with room to maneuver.

So, I proceeded in Orderly Fashion, which just happens to be the name of the fabric line. See the selvage?

This first fabric design that I worked on is called Nevermind. As you might (or might not) guess from looking at the pattern pieces above, the first project was a top, the Bonnie Woven Top by StyleARC.

I decided the best (and quickest) way to finish the seams and all those facing pieces was to serge them, so that’s what I did.

It was a pretty simple top to sew. However, the instructions in the pattern were minimal, which I guess StyleARC is known for. That was okay, because I’ve sewn lots of garments, and something like this should’ve been fairly easy… but the way they said to connect the back neck facing to the center back had me tearing my (also minimal) hair out, because I simply could not figure out what they meant to do! I did some googling to see if others had had problems, and sure enough, there were some frustrated sewers. Most had gone ahead and done it their own way, and the ways varied, which was visible in the photos.

I figured out what I ‘thought’ the instructions meant and did it that way, which seemed to work out okay and looked right. I also, out of curiosity, emailed StyleARC and asked them about it. I received a very helpful reply the next day, and it turns out that the pattern has an update, which they sent me the pages for. That made all the difference in the world! I wish they’d sent the update to their wholesalers right away (the pattern is several years old - not like it was something just discovered). It would’ve save a lot of frustration. Also, as it turned out, my method was not correct, making the center back fold in the wrong place. Since it was too late to redo it by then, I had to do a little “fudging” when adding the buttonholes and buttons. But it turned out okay and is not really noticeable.

So here’s the Bonnie Woven Top… front…

… and back:

Here is Jess modeling it:

It’s wearable, although the armholes are a little bit snug and it’s a tad small across the back. I’ll be making another one in a different fabric soon, and hopefully my plan for adjusting it will make for a better fit. Thats’s the trouble with having Jess live so far away. Fittings for garments aren’t very handy.

Bag making is fine, though, and when I mailed the top to Jess, I sent the Two Zip Hipster (see my previous post) along with it. She loves it, and I guess she likes the fabric/strap combo so much that… well… have a look for yourself:

Fun, right?

Part of my next project is completed, but I won’t be showing you until it’s ALL done. So I’d better get at it. By the way, all of this rayon sewing is being done on my faithful old Kenmore. My Sailrite could do it (except for the buttonholes), but it would mean a lot of tension adjusting, and I’d rather leave that machine set for heavy fabrics. I do still enjoy sewing on the Kenmore, anyway.