Sometimes I plan my sewing in advance. Other times, I see a pattern or a fabric and I just instantly want to make it. I can’t even say exactly what it was about the Thorndike Tank (the Cashmerette Club pattern for July) – it’s just a basic woven shell top, really – but when it dropped it just felt right to sew it.
It didn’t hurt that I had the perfect fabric already in my stash – 1.5m of Mind the Maker “Splash” viscose in Mint, bought from the Village Haberdashery (RIP) in June 2020 for £30.
Since I’m measuring myself regularly alongside my weekly weigh-in, I made size 18, with the longer hem length (because even when I was thin I never felt comfortable in cropped tops!) and the C/D cup option as that’s the smallest cup size offered.
This is a very straightforward shell top with neck and hem facings, which are nicely understitched, then topstitched. So in the end, since only the side seams are raw, I just pinked these and didn’t bother with French seams.
The instructions for the neck facing have you sew the interfacing to the fabric along the bottom edge, flip, and fuse. I love this technique when I remember to do it so it was a lovely touch to have it specified here!
However, the method for the finishing the armholes with bias strips is way too fiddly to end up with the same result as a narrow bias edge so I just did it my way instead.
My only other change was to insert a bias tube into the back neck seam for a button loop rather than making a thread chain. The button I found in my stash and looks perfect! Unfortunately I’m finding my hair is getting tangled in the button when it’s not up in a bun, which I would’ve never anticipated. But I also can’t think of a single other top in my wardrobe that has a button on the back neck, so I hope it doesn’t annoy me too much, or I’ll need to remove the button and loop and sew on a hook and eye instead.
This viscose wrinkles just to look at it (and I wore this for hours before taking photos, so forgive the wrinkles from wear), but I really like the finished top! Plus it cleared a little bit more space in my fabric stash…
