I’ve never colour blocked a garment before. NEVER EVER!

I got some navy French terry from a fabric swap. A lot of it. It went into the fabric collection. Where I found a remnant of some creamy white terry with a red stripe, but I cannot recall from whence it came – very likely another fabric swap. Sadly there was not enough for a jumper, but enough for the front and back. They were roughly the same weight and drape so I decided to colour block a top.

I chose the Lane Raglan from Hey June Patterns.

I’ve made it several times, in a few different weight fabrics. Unfortunately these two fabrics were reasonably heavy and had no recovery. Consequently the neck stretched out rather a lot. This picture shows the difference when compared to another terry top I made, with the same pattern. On the right side they are lined up at the seam, not neck edge.

Making this top involved so many decisions – what overlocker thread colour? Do I use the same colours everywhere? If I do swap out the thread colours what order should I construct the top? Does it really matter if the threads don’t match the fabric? I vacillated for so long that a few weeks of my life went past.

So I used white for the attaching the sleeves to the bodice parts, then navy for attaching the navy neckband, underarm and side seams. I finished the sleeve hems with the navy.

I used the coverstitch machine on the neck line and sleeve hems, using navy overlocker thread in the needles and a navy stretch thread in the looper.

Eventually I realised that swapping threads is easy and matching them to the fabric matters to me. I swapped out the navy threads for white/ivory and hemmed the lower edge. Then coverstitched with navy in the needles and ivory stretch in the looper.

The details

Fabric – French terry, navy cottton and cream/red stripe. Free, from a fabric swap.

Pattern – Lane Raglan from Hey June patterns –  bought a while ago and effectively free.

Label – “Sewing is Sexy” from Kylie and the Machine – $1.00

Annoyance factor – Unbelievably high – due to the thread matching dilemma.

I made this top before my Melody Shirt. I’ve always had a thing about colour matching the overlocker threads. I have noticed that stripe and pattern matching are becoming a new  obsession. The neckline has stretched so much that the sleeves are too long. I will have to shorten them eventually.

I’m not colour blocking again for a long time. The next top will be in a plain fabric.