spring top

After the week of lemons, symphony and a geometric top (1st draft) I wanted to try out another top in the same design just to see how it would look in a brighter colour combo. I have this lovely green fabric by Liberty of London in my fabric stash and I combined it with a magenta fabric.

The reason for all this brightness and colour is because we are off on vacay to Maui (see the Panama hat in the pic!). We will be staying on a 2 acre property in the upcountry where it rains most of the time – which means it will be lush and wild and away from the condos and people! We are planning to hang on the beach and hike and check out lots of yummy food. I have been busy planning the itinerary for the week as we want to make the most of our time there. The Road to Hana is on our list and I will have to get prepared with the ginger candies for travel sickness as I mapped the route and there are many turns and bridges, so best to be prepared.

Hope this top travels well as I will wear it with some jeans and my beloved Campers for airport security – you know take those shoes off and wander around. After the airport fun, I cannot wait to go and swim in the sea and check out some turtles. The countdown is on!!!

Liberty of London fabric and Magenta

Big V at the back of the top

Saturday the local library had a Ukelele jam and what better way to get into the spirit of Aloha than to get out my Uke. It was a fun time and I learned some songs and how to hold my fingers on the strings to get a G note – looking at the picture, it IS as tricky as it looks!

My ukelele out and about

Oh and just for some fun and to bring in some cat energy – Cat Cafe in Mountain View anyone?!? I have been reading on the neighborhood forum boards that there is an interest in having a cat cafe in Mountain View. There’s one in Oakland, one to be crowd funded in San Francisco, one in Melbourne and there are at least 39 in Japan! Kitties, Tea and pats what a lovely way to pass the day…

Yay to the Cat Cafe says Macaroni

Kitten Art Ms Bella

I have this stash of fabric that I just buy not knowing what I am going to make with it, so I finally that I design a pattern from a little top of Holly’s that I just loved. I enlarged the pattern pieces and made a fabric version from the paper that I could modify on my body which I used to transfer back to the pattern pieces I had made and it turns out for me that this is a great way to make a custom pattern!

The fabric I found was from my trip to Portland last year to this amazing fabric store called the Mill End Store. I had such a fun time finding all these treasures from back in the day – the owners had scored a collection of fabrics from as far back as the 1950’s that I could not resist! The justification was I will never see fabric like this again so it has to go home with me 🙂

So the cross back top was a fun and challenging project to make as I had to use lining as the fabric was see-through. After I decided to use lining then came the challenge of sewing the straps together with the seam on the inside. Lucky that I had made bags that are of a similar design and I just crossed the straps at the back and with a bit of unpicking and resewing they came together. There is no zip or buttons on this top as it just crosses at the back and it is flowing. The only thing I will look at for the next version is not to cut the neck too wide as it just sits on the shoulder and may fall down, still I think it looks cute the way it balances on edge of the shoulder.

This is definitely designed for a really hot day as there is lots of space to breathe and you can never have enough cute tops to go with the utilitarian jeans that mammas wear around the traps. I will have to see how this goes with a skirt? Still the challenge of making a pattern from scratch and designing it to customize me was something that I have been missing in my sewing for a while – looks like in future posts I will be playing a bit more with missing pieces for my spring/summer wardrobe!

Flowers outside my craft room

The flowers for the tree above are just so beautiful in the Spring and remind me of fairy floss or what is it called here cotton candy. That’s a great name for the top that I made as the neon of the check fabric against all the other pastels really made this fabric pop. The lining of the top is a vintage feed bag cotton that is of such an incredible quality. They made a perfect pair!