This is the Colette Sorbetto tank, a simple and flattering sleeveless shell with a front pleat detail and bias-bound neck and armholes. I stitched this one up last year out of some Amy Butler voile (and a couple eagle-eyed readers spotted it on me in the video from my Craftsy class). This top is one of the four patterns featured in my Fall Wardrobe course starting next week!
I realize it’s called the Fall Wardrobe class, but in reality the course is designed to be an online guide to sewing with commercial garment patterns. I wanted to include as wide a range of the pattern types out there as I could, so we’re working with a couple Big Four patterns, along with an independent printed pattern, plus this one, which is available as a PDF download. If you’re looking to work with sewing patterns, and have some experience but want more or have no experience and want to get some, it was really important to me that you get a good overview of how each type of pattern is put together, how to manipulate and work with each one, and how to interpret all the various symbols and instructions. To leave out PDF patterns would have been foolish, since so many great patterns today are coming out in this format. My goal is to equip you to sew fearlessly–and knowing how to work with all these different types of patterns is a big part of that!
We start with this pattern, too, because it’s such a transitional style. It allows you to make a garment you can wear now, while the weather is still warm (at least, here in the northern hemisphere), but then layer under other garments once it gets cooler. And I don’t know how things operate in other parts of the country, but here in the South, when office buildings turn on the heat, they turn it ON and I am always grateful when I can take off a jacket and have a simple, classy sleeveless shell beneath so I look professional but I’m not sweating like a pig. It’s bad enough that forced-air heat sucks the moisture out of my skin, I want to at least stay comfortable, knowwhatimsayin?
The construction here makes it a fun project to stitch up, a good place to start working with darts and full/small bust adjustments, and an opportunity to work with bias tape as an edge finish (woot!). The simple pleat is a springboard for piles of ideas for ways to customize this top–or any other pattern down the road. And really, that’s what I want this class to be: a chance for you to get past any discomfort you might have at the thought of sewing with patterns, to ask questions one-on-one that you haven’t had the chance to ask before or that you just can’t get answered by reading blogs, and some projects to work through that give you the opportunity to play with these techniques and ideas as you build your comfort level in sewing garments.
It’s already looking like a really great group, and I’ve got a few spots remaining! Imagine how excited you’ll be to have made your very own sweet little tank to layer all autumn long, right at the start of our class time together. Right?? See all the details on the Fall Wardrobe e-course class page and I’ll “see” you in class!
