Cute but stinky

Sometimes you want to make something today to wear tonight.  Well, that happens to me all the time.  Last Saturday my running club was having a progressive dinner and it's still to hot and sticky to wear the Fishy shirt or the Bells and whistles shirt (as an aside: I was looking at my Google Analytics page the other day and that shirt was a hit when someone searched for "ruffles on a shirt, ALL THE RUFFLES" yep, it's got ALL THE RUFFLES and more.)

I'm decidedly riding this ruffle wave till it crashes.  I've had this sheer poly in my stash for a few years and have wanted to use it for something this summer. 

This is the ruffle shirt, 117 from the August 2009 issue of Burda, it was either going to be this or 105 from the April 2010 issue.  I was inspired by Toy's version of 08-2009-117 and Eugenia's version of the 04-2010-105 top. The decision came down to having already traced 08-2009-117 last year and never having gotten around to sewing it.  From start to finish, this is pretty fast to go together, just 5 hours.... even with a mistake that I made partway through where I managed to sew the center front seam in such a way that I turned the top into a Mobius strip and had to unpick the french seam and sew it again.  What a pain!  As a result, the facing in the front doesn't sit quite flat because I had to unpick that as well and it didn't line up right after being sewn again. 

I love this, even though the fabric is, well, polyester.  It's sheer but it really gets sweaty and clammy, and stinky.  It's like those cheap technical fabrics that dry and keep the stink in the weave.  Yuck!  I assure you the hem isn't uneven, I'm just standing weirdly.

Another note - the ruffle is enormous.  When I was walking to the subway, it was billowing around my chest.  Handy for a dinner party, it's like a bib!

Here's the part I'm particularly proud of: the narrow hem on the bib.  I've tried applique scissors to trim the seam allowance, but I find that using my straight scissor is the best way to get close to the stitching without slicing it.

I could see making a few more of these, maybe playing with the fit.  It's really loose and shapeless, but because it's shapeless it's airy and comfortable.  So maybe there won't be any adjustments in the future if there's a repeat.