While I am already missing Summer, I tried to jump in and embrace fall this weekend and we took a trip to a local orchard to go apple picking! I wore my most recent make – The Forte Top – and snapped some pics while we were there!
The Pattern
The Forte Top and Dress from Love Notions has been a pattern that I’ve been seeing popping up all over Instagram since it’s release a couple weeks ago. The pattern is a t-shirt based pattern with tons of options including four top views – a gathered skirt peplum style with a scoop neck, a waterfall skirt with a v-neck, a classic scoop neck tee or a gathered inverted v-neck, two dress views, and six sleeve options – short with flounce, bell, gathered, plain short, plain mid-length, and plain long. The pattern also has a FBA bodice piece along with the regular bodice.
Like so many of the patterns I like, I love when there are multiple options included in the pattern. It allows for you to use the pattern over and over again. In fact, this weekend I made both this version (Version A with gathered peplum and mid-length with gathered sleeves) I also made Version C – a classic scoop neck tee with short sleeves with flounce. Being able to make multiple versions of the same pattern makes it totally worth the money!
The instructions were also so easy to follow along. With lots of different views, I was nervous that it would be hard to figure out what steps are for which versions but Love Notions has that all figured out. To save paper/ink (gosh it goes so quickly and is so expensive!) I’ve been trying to read the instructions from my computer and the Love Notions PDFs have links in the instructions so you can click from section to section. It also has separate instructions for each view and includes a print guide for the view/sleeve style you choose which allows you to only print the pages you need. Similar to Patterns for Pirates, they also have no trim pages which makes putting together the pattern a breeze!
The Top
I am always up for a good peplum top and this was no exception. I love how feminine they are while being so comfy and easy to wear. The Forte Top fit all of that and was such a fun top to wear apple picking on Sunday.
I love the way the top turned out! I am absolutely horrific at gathering knits (if you have any good suggestions I’d love to hear them!) but it didn’t go terribly. Also, in my stubbornness not to hem knits, I didn’t hem the sleeves or skirt. In hindsight, I probably should have done that. I probably could have hemmed them before attaching them which would have made the process a bit easier.
Also, remember how I said I made two of these this weekend? I was able to use the same fabric for both. Two shirts out of a 2 yard cut is pretty good – except I ran out of fabric for the sleeves on this version. I pulled a total sewing no-no and cut them cross grain. Fortunately it worked out perfectly fine (minus the fact that the flowers are sideways).
The only thing I would change (other than my lack of hemming) is that I might add some shaping to the bodice. I really loved how fitted the Favorite Tee was through my bodice and this has basically no shaping through the bodice. A little bit of shaping would make it even better than it currently is! Other than that, I wouldn’t change a thing.
The Fabric
I have recently been on a knits kick and have been buying bundles from So Sew English Fabrics. They have really beautiful combinations and I’m always looking for solids to compliment floral knits! I picked up this bundle (currently out of stock) and used the floral rayon spandex for my Forte tops. All of their fabrics are so pretty. I recently bought a bunch of their double brushed polys to make joggers out of (currently wearing a pair I made – so soft and comfy!).
Forte Top SUMMARY
Size Made: Small
View: View A Peplum with Gathered Skirt and Mid-Length Gathered Sleeves
Fabric Used: Rayon Spandex from So Sew English from [sold out] bundle
Notions Used: Wonder Clips (my favorite for knits!)
Ease of Construction: Easy minus my trouble with gathering knits!
Fit: Good!
Repeatable? Yes!
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This fabric is nice! I’d try using the narrow hem on your serger in grey threads, instead of actually doing a real hem.
That is such a good idea – I’ve done that on a woven before but never thought to do it on a knit. Thanks for the suggestion!