Pineapple tank top — Victoria Martinez

My baby girl had a wild 4-hour nap (lifetimes ago), so I made a tank top! This was a real spur-of-the-moment make. I’d actually purchased the pattern in question (an eighties New Look 6233) for the skirt (it’s got a cute belt-loop-drape situation going on), but this simple tank top waved at me on that hot May day as something I could really use more of in my wardrobe. And looking around my sewing room, I wondered if the scraps leftover from my Asaka robe would fit a tank top.

I am truly a slow-ish sewer because this took all dang nap and then a little bit to complete, and there’s really hardly anything to it. But I wanted to do it right, so it took a minute. Going slow normally suits me, but I’ve been going a bit project mad, as my son will be home full time with me in July and I sense that sewing will go very much to the backburner for awhile then.

I tried out the size 16 for this pattern, based on my sometimes-38 inch full bust. Which I assumed would be too big, and it was. I tried out the concept of tissue fitting, but really couldn’t make heads or tails of anything from the half-body tissue on my body, so I moved on to baste-fitting. The arm holes were giiiiiant, but I kind or liked all the ease on the body for summer heat. I pinched out a 2-inch dart from the sides, and another from the sides, grading back out to the pattern shape. This solved the problem but I probably should have made the darts a smidge shorter, because the essentially end at the high point OOOPS.

I didn’t feel like tracing/ cutting out the facings from the pattern and applying my edits to paper mid-project, so I just traced the facings off of the body fabric. Now, I truly had a tiny bit of fabric left to work with and they’re all pieced together. And that’s after cutting the top itself out in whatever directions my scraps would allow - hence even the front is an upside-down print!

I didn’t want to add bulk but I wanted all the seams finished nicely, so I sewed all the facing seams, and the back seam with clean finishes. Boy is that a time-consuming finish! And here I still want to do hong kong seams if I ever make a jacket… One of the outer side seams is frenched, and as always, I screwed up the other side seam, sewing right sides together first and trimming before realizing my mistake, and hence having to zig-zag just the one. I seem to do this on every project. A signature move. The open end of the facing is finished with a single-fold hem, again, to avoid any bulk, with the stitch itself in a zig-zag which I hope will prevent too much fraying.

This is the first time I’m using Kylie and the Machine woven labels on a project—v. cute and clean and nicer than my homebrew /spoonflower “Victoria” ones (tho I still adore those).

I didn’t bother with the pattern instructions, rather opting to test out a burrito roll method for attaching the all-in-one facing. Which was honestly a pretty intuitive way to go about it. Burritos 4evr.

The last thing to do was to finish off the hem, which I lopped 3 inches off of evenly across the front, then easing out to 2 inches at center back. The hem is roughly an inch, since I eyeballed 1cm fold-over-ing. I also forgot that I had the stitch set to zig zag still, so there’s a design detail for you!

I need to take a wedge out of centre front if I stick with this edit/size, since as always I have some weird droopiness there. Me and necklines, man, it's no good.

It’s cute! I traced out my edits to a new pattern since I’d like to try this out again but in the 12, but if that isn’t a vast improvement, I want to be able to recreate this shape. For the this-version trace, I took out 1 inch from the top center front, slicing down to nothing at the bottom, since there’s a big of gaping at the neck that I don’t love. All this is what i get for using a too-large size! I should probably move the darts back a smidge when I make this tank again, but that didn’t get added to the pattern changes, because I’m not 100% confident of how that would change things.

Anyway, I wear this all. The. Time. And likely will continue to even in winter office times, with a lil blazer. But girl, is it ever perfect for summer!

Current measurements: 38 full bust
Pattern: New Look 6233 (circa 1980’s)
Size made: 16, took out 2 inch darts + reduced side seam to 12 at the armscye, easing back out to the 16; cropped 3 inches from front, grading to 2 inches at center back starting from side seams
Fabric: Leftover pineapple-print rayon challis from Matchpoint Fabric (originally purchased 5 yards, used for this and Asaka Robe)
If there is a next time: Either make the 12 or use this edited pattern - if the latter, consider bringing bust darts back a smidge. Dz Staystitch staystitch!