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Hello everyone,

I am super excited to share this post with you as part of a blog tour for the newly released Lilian Top from Pattern Review. When Deepika reached out and asked me to participate, I needed to see the pattern first and honestly I was hooked. Cap sleeves and a yoke are some of my favourite features so I was like “yes count me in. Plus I also loved the story behind the design. Here is an except from the designer Deepika:

Ever since I read about Lillian Weber, the amazing woman who sewed 1000 dresses to donate to Dresses for Africa, I’ve been yearning to do something to support this great cause. Dresses for Africa is an organization which not only clothes little girls in Africa, they do lots of other projects there, like building wells and community centers to improve lives of people in villages in Africa. And that is why I am dedicating this pattern to Lillian, hence the name. 20% of all sales from this pattern will be donated to Dresses for Africa. So when you buy this pattern, you too are joining me in this cause.

I read about Lillian Weber and I was so moved by her story that even though I was given this pattern for free I decided to make a donation to Little Dresses for Africa. Even if you are not interested in the pattern please read up on Lillian Weber – its not often I come across such a such a positive and inspirational message.

Ok. So the Lillian pattern comes as a dress and top. It is described as a knit top or an a-line dress with a V-Neck Yoke and cap sleeves. I selected the dress because I wanted something I could wear with tights and boots. I loved this pattern so much I made two dresses, one after the other. The beauty of this pattern that it sews up real quick.

The PDF went together beautifully. At only 16 pages, its ready to cut very quickly. The directions are quite concise and even beginners would feel confident to tackle it. There is even a Youtube tutorial on the trickiest part – the neck binding. The instructions have been very well thought out keeping this a very simple and quick to make pattern. I cant stress how quickly this sews up.

For my first one I knew I wanted colour blocking. I used my colour wheel to select what are called split complimentary colours – choosing burnt orange as my main colour then the split complimentary colours are the 2 either side of its compliment – deep blue and apple green. I chose blue for the yoke because of the striking contrast with the orange.

For my second one I used some grey ponte and lace bonded ponte that has been in my stash for far too long. Actually all these fabrics had been stashers for far too long (stasher is a noun I use for fabrics that has been in the stash for over 6 months). So yay for stash busting :-).

I drafted the poofy long sleeve lengthening the cap sleeve to the desired length – in my case it had to fit the half meter length of bonded lace ponte. Once I had the length , I then cut and spread at 5 evenly spaced lines inserting about 4″ in total.

Constructionwise ,I stabilised my shoulder seam with fusible bias tape. I have found that this is the next best thing to twill tape for shoulder stabilisation on knits. I have used clear elastic and after a dozen washes and driers it begins to get slack. fran-visit-plus-october-photoshoot-635 lilian-top

I can easily see myself making loads more of these especially since I have seen some fantastic versions by the other seamsters on the blog tour – the possibilities are endless. There are plans to make a couple of summery ones – am thinking of lengthening to maxi and sleeveless..it has a seventies vibe to it no?

Thank you for stopping by, tell me which you like better the grey lace on or the colour blocked one? Oh and here it is in (wobbly) action..