FO's: Tops for me - a Burda and a Bronte

So, still catching up with posts.  Here are a couple of tops that I made for myself earlier this year, both of which made appearances in MMM16.  I have made both of these top before and made a couple of tweaks to both.

The first is the Jennifer Lauren Vintage Bronte Top. I first made this in 2015 in a lovely coral jersey and have really enjoyed wearing it.  I bought some amazing light teal jersey with a brushed reverse, from a local shop that has since closed down. I remembered that I had wanted to lengthen the top the first time round, but had made a cutting error.  This time was more successful and I had a lovely top pretty quickly.  I think I have enough left over to make something else.

I thought that having any embelishement on the top might make it feel a bit twee but, I found some buttons left over from making Husband a couple of shirts and they match perfectly! Looking at the picture below, I think I may need to cut a smaller size in the shoulder as I don't think that the shoulder seam is supposed to sit off the shoulder like that. 

picture nabbed from MMM16

The second top is a Burda youth pattern that I made some years ago in a drapey magpie jersey that I got from Marie of A Stitching Odessey at a meet-up in London. The magpie top is still going, although I may have to retire it soon as it is looking a bit faded. It had a very long body and a deep band at the hip - if I wore opaque tights or leggings it would almost be dress, but I wear it very ruched on the hip.

The new top used up some fabric that I bought sometime ago, with the aim of trying to recreate a dress from Cos that I had tried on:

 

I decided that a- I couldn't get the dress out to the quantity of fabric in the way that I wanted, and b- I would get more wear from a top.  The fabric is quite striking and I wanted the pattern to come up from the waist with a plainer area at the neck.  Once I decided on a top, I knew that I wanted to use the Burda pattern to show off the fabric.

Having noted how long the magpie version of this is, I reduced the length of the body (can't remember by how much)  and reduced the depth of the band by half.  It seemed like a lot, but was perfect.  I started this one morning and amazingly for me, had it finished by the end of the school day - extraordinary what you can get done if you make a conscious decision not be distracted by other activities!

on my way to a party

With the party girls  husband

Two very successful tops that have seen a lot of wear since they were made.