Peasant Top Attempt #1

Hey! This is Megan and I used to room with Kelli in school. I was so excited when Kelli told me about this little group! I set out to make Top D, but as you can see, it ended up being Top D sans sleeves. I tried it on after sewing the yoke on and realized that I would have to wear a shirt under it. This, along with my trepidation that the sleeves might not fit my not-so-skinny arms, and the knowledge that puffy sleeves do not often mix well with broad shoulders, led me to fore go the sleeves and just hem up the arm holes. I have sewn only one other clothing item in my lifetime; pajama shorts in middle school and they did not need to "fit". Since I agonized over every step I was unsure about (23 out of 23 steps), this took me about 10 hours, minus dinnertime, some disappointing March Madness basketball, and the PBS Masterpiece movie.

Next time I will know to make the yoke smaller, take it in on the sides, and run the gathering stitches in the yoke a little longer. The did not want to stay gathered at the edges of the gathering seams. I did shorten it 3 1/2" and will probably lengthen it next time 1/2"-1". I tried taking a strip of grey fabric and running it across the chest like an obi and that was really cute so someone adventurous wanting to really modify things could try a fat strip across the chest with straps rather than a yoke shaped top.

I had some problems getting things to line up despite cutting and sewing meticulously - particularly sewing the tops of the straps together - which led to each strap having one small pleat and two asymmetrical straps. Don't look too closely me or the shirt - I didn't get the tripod out for this photo so you get a dark room and me leaning to try and be in the frame! Overall, I was just pleased that it looks like a shirt, that it fits fairly well, and that it doesn't fall apart when putting it on!