Simplicity 4264

Trying to find things to sew for Lu that are tasteful to me, but that she approves of gets a bit harder all the time. Sigh. But how cute did this turn out?


I would absolutely wear this myself! I used a "That's So Raven" pattern from Simplicity, the tee view. We've made the tank and the skirt before from this pattern, and I have the knit wide leg capri's cut out in hot pink to match this top. This pattern turned out to be a real keeper for us!

I cut out the 16 because she wasn't here to measure. I thought it would be fine because the top has elastic in the back and in the shoulders (similar to a peasant top). I was wrong! It was a little gapey in the front, since there is not an elastic casing there. I fixed it by taking a small box pleat at CF. This is covered by the ruffles anyway.

The other problem I had was that it was too short! Quite a bit too short, actually. I remembered (too late) that the tank had been too short too, and I had added a ruffle. So...we added an elastic band with tie sash out of the contrast.


I cut 2 strips (selvedge to selvedge) about 4 inches wide. Then I followed the directions in Simplicity 3887 to attach it (3887 is a ladies pattern with a similar waistband and tie). I love it when mistakes end up making the garment better!

I added 1" elastic to the waistband too, instead of gathering the top to the band. I just cut the elastic shorter than the bottom of the top circumference and left the band topstitching open at one side seam (actually both sides of this side seam) so that I could thread it through. Then I stitched through the ends to hold it in place.

I also added the ruffles from View D (tank) instead of the shoulder ruffles. They were a bit finicky at the neckline, since I didn't use the front facing. I just serged and turned the top edge under to stitch. I had to topstitch the top ruffle to get it to lie flat. The others are just stitched through the (serged) header. (The pattern doesn't call for finishing these edges before doing this, but that would be a mess I think!)


These 2 prints have always been Lu's favorite and I was saving the last bit for a special project. This little top took less than a yard, so we have enough left over for one more twirly skirt or some other project I think.

And she loves the top, which is the important thing!