The Fab Four.

These are the fab four... a charcoal one, a purple (one of her colours) with coral/orangey back (not her colour), the rust red one and the taupe one.

I thought I'd show the four singlet tops I made for my niece in more detail. They were made from scraps of merino knit that was from the fabric sale I went to a few weeks ago. It is a lovely slubby merino and behaved very well. I traced the pattern - pretty easy for a singlet - front and back. The original has bindings on the armholes and neckline but I didn't have enough fabric for binding for the armholes. In the photo above I cut two fronts or backs at a time. You can also see the leftovers were not much - I had to cut the neck bindings out of those tiny scraps. The fabric was also about 5 cm shorter than the original top (and serendipitously just wide enough). The original tip was very long on Zoe's body (she's a stage manager and does a lot of bending and stretching so for work wear it needs the length). At the shorter length however, it sat perfectly right on her hip bone (which I was always taught was the exact length for a top... if it wasn't a crop top etc.).  She tried the rust red one when it was done and it fit perfectly; I didn't want to make 4 that didn't fit. I took out the extra length from the middle to keep the shape of the hip in the pattern. Of course on the original, it must sit way too low.

Very original naming of my pattern as I am sure she will want others at some time.

The taupe one I made with a wide binding and didn't top stitch it as I though it looked much smarter like this. I could do this also because there was an extra piece of taupe and originally I though I would make contrast bindings for all of them, but realised my niece wouldn't like that really and then probably wouldn't wear them.

The purple/coral one was a 'colour block' one to use the one piece of purple and the one piece of coral. The coral and the red I just couldn't photograph to show the true colours. The others are pretty accurate.

Like the original, I put my label on the hemline. I used a fancy stitch on my sewing machine that is like a "L" all joined up. I really liked it on the samples and it makes a simple feature.

The coverstitch was still threaded with red so I coverstitched the red one and if you can see the stitching lines I made a little feature of the start and finish. Small things.. I really like this!

The purple thread was a near enough situation as I didn't want to go out to Trad's for thread and I liked the slightly different look of the purple on the purple and the coral. I kept the front quite plain for the purple one, it being her colour, and leaving the coral on the back so she couldn't see it.. as it happens she really likes it.

Of course I didn't have thread to match this taupe colour so to Trad's I went anyway! I really like this colour, lovely hand  and the slubby texture of the merino. These tops were Zoe's Christmas present and a huge hit. It made me happy. I love sewing things that my family love and appreciate. It is way more satisfying than sewing for myself.

It's been nice reading about all the lovely things people have made for Christmas. I hope you all had a great celebration if you celebrate and if you don't I hope you enjoyed your time with loved ones.