Periwinkle Tie Tee

I'm trying to finally start working on the huuuge pile of garments I have earmarked for refashions.  This top started life as a large gathered skirt, so lots of fabric to work with.  I do wish I'd remembered to get a before pic, because before and after pics for refashions are always such fun!  Alas, you'll have to settle for just the after...

I took my basic tee shirt block and altered it to make this top.  It mostly just involved turning the scoop neck into a V-neck and making a tie instead of the neck band.  Note, that for whatever reason the front on these shirts (that's right, there's a whole other one of these you haven't even seen!) so add some length accordingly.  If you wanna be super fancy add length and a dart.  I don't know why this pattern doesn't quite work as easily as the scoop neck, but both versions I've made could've used just enough length in the center front to warrant a bust dart.

For the tie I just measured the neckline, multiplied by .85, then added to that the length I wanted for the ties. In this case, I actually just went with "as long as I can make the ties without having piece them" which, as it turns out, is just a wee bit short for a full bow.  It makes kind of a cute mini bow, though, if I can be arsed to actually tie it.

I can't recall where I got the 85 percent rule... but it's almost always spot on.  How long do you make that neck band?  Just measure the neckband and multiply by .85 et voila!  That is how long to make your neckband.  It's only failed me once, and in that case there was some very stretchy waffle knit jersey and some almost equally stretchy rib knit.  (Post on that whole mess coming soon.)

This material is very drapey (almost, dare I say it: slinky?) but also very synthetic.  It flows and gathers nicely (those aren't actually gathers, btw, it's the way the fabric is made), but I definitely won't be wearing it during summer.  Of course, summer has yet to even think about hitting Seattle, so I'm confident this will get plenty of wear for Me Made May!

The weird ripple of this fabric made it come out kind of wide.  I ended up taking it in quite a bit at the waist... but I think I angled out too much for the hips.  You can see above it stands out a bit.  But peplums are still in right?  And I don't think it bugs me enough to actually switch out the thread and needle in my machine just for that!  You'll probably see more of these as I come across appropriate knits.  It's as comfy as a tee shirt but the tie brings it up to business casual level (Seattle business casual, anyway, which is pretty lax).  Maybe I'll even post the first one I made eventually!