Hello all!

I recently sorted through all of my fabric and found a tiny pile of scraps left over from this Cleo Pinafore that I made with fabric from Minerva Crafts as part of the blogger network in 2017. I’d originally had the idea for this top in the summer of 2017 and went as far as to cut out some rectangles and gather up a frill, and then I must have been distracted by another shiny project! Luckily, in 2020 the idea of making a whale top with some ruffles appealed to me, so I made one!

I ended up starting from scratch, purely because I’ve learnt some stuff in the last 3 years and I wanted this to be a win! I drafted a princess seamed bodice from my block with the princess line coming down from the shoulder. Then I measured the front princess seam to determine my frill length. I drew a rough shape for my frill, working out the maximum width of it and tapering down to nothing at the bottom. This was then slashed and spread so it doubled in height and could be gathered down to the original measurement.

When I drafted the back of the bodice I also drafted a princess seam, discarding the majority of the centre back piece so that I could have some back on show. I did need some of the centre back piece however, so the ruffle could be sandwiched into the back princess seam. I took 5/8” out of the top of the back side seam tapering down to nothing as instructed by Suzy in her Building Patterns book to deal with low back necklines.

The construction process was quite simple, but the alterations took a little bit of work. The shoulders were fiddled about with until they looked good. One of the issues is that the shoulder was too tight at my neck and so pushed downwards, making the back gape. It was crazy opening up the shoulder seam a bit to allow it to sit further up the shoulderline and watching all of the other issues disappear! I also redrew the armholes and took in the princess seams a little from the apex of the bust to the shoulder, to contour a bit more.

All of the seams were overlocked and the raw edges finished with bias binding made from an old sheet. I need to do some more research on applying bias binding neatly to 90 degree angles.

Overall, I’m really pleased with this top turned out. It was a fun experiment to finally turn an old idea into an actual garment. I think next time I’d bring the side seam in a little. It sits very far back when it’s on the body because the ties are pulling it back, making the back more of a U shape than the straight down, across and up lines that I’d imagined. I also want to square off the front neckline a bit more. The frills do make me feel a bit like a dinosaur (the one that has a ruff all around his face), but I’m not mad about it!

Thanks for reading!

Lauren xx