I found Meg McElwee of Sew Liberated, through Rae, another sewing, pattern-making blogger. I loved Meg’s artsy aesthetic and layered style. I purchased a couple of her PDF patterns over a year ago, but I never printed them out to use them.

Fast forward to this spring – two years since I made anything meaningful. I’d just committed to taking a fast from buying RTW (ready-to-wear) clothes.

Last year’s #memademay felt like a total flop for me, but this year as May swung around I thought to myself, I’m going to start with May 1 and just stop when I run out of handmades to wear. No pressure.

I knew I didn’t have enough clothes to wear something I’d made every day of the month. I was cool with that. As though permission to fail was all I needed, I started sewing again. I got two more patterns from Sew Liberated, and ordered a ton of fabric.

I spun my wheels for a week, homeschooling and tediously taping together the individual printed pages of the PDF patterns, waiting for my fabric to arrive (I no longer do this. Patternsy is totally worth the money if you can swing it). Also, I was waiting for my kids to let me get to work. Finally, I stopped by a local quilt shop and picked up some gorgeous rayon batik so I could get started sewing again before I lost my mind.

I started with the Strata Top, because it looked like the simplest, quickest make.

The unmodified design looks cropped, with a high low hem. I have a long torso, and I was pretty sure the front was going to be shorter than I wanted it. I found a blog that featured the top and the sewist had added 1.5 inches to the hem. Seeing this adjustment on another human helped immensely and gave me a number to start with.

I made a size 6, and added the extra 1.5 in. length, but didn’t do any other mods at first. I just wanted to make the shirt and see what happened.

For that first rayon batik top, I used flat felled side and shoulder seams. I saved the neckline for last because the pattern included a facing and I am terrible at facings. I didn’t even try to follow the second half of the very basic instructions for the neckline on the first attempt. The result wasn’t horrible, but definitely not good. (Meg’s new video shows exactly how to do the facing and is really helpful.)

I picked the neckline out and tried a second time, this time trying to follow the instructions. The pattern is very bare bones, which is made clear from the product description. Despite searching high and low for info on what other people had done with the neckline, I couldn’t figure out what the instructions intended and I hated the results I was getting. I liked what the finished shirt was supposed to look like with the facing, but it just wasn’t happening for me.

After two attempts, the neckline was stretched out from all the exertion in spite of stay stitching. I cut it down about a quarter inch all the way around to get rid of the notched and stretched fabric, and pulled the front piece up at the shoulder seam by a quarter inch on each side to get rid of some of the stretching distortion, then did a bias bound finish. It isn’t perfect, but it’s way better than my other attempts and I can totally live with it. It doesn’t scream “An amateur made me!!” and is likely one of the imperfections that only other people who make their own clothes would notice.For my second top, I was working with scraps of another rayon batik fabric from a different project. The pattern instructions suggest, “Try using beloved scraps to piece together your own storied fabric, experiment with natural dyes, or add some Sashiko embroidery. Enjoy both the craft and the art.”

I used French seams to attach each of the scrap fabric pieces, and tried for the most part to keep the grain of the fabric going in the same direction. I did add a couple of perpendicular pieces at the end to get the size I needed, and I love how those parts look. I had purchased fabric for the Sew Liberated Metamorphic Dress, 2.5 yds of 44″ fabric, and had enough left after cutting the pieces for a size 6 dress to get full back piece for the Strata and a scrapped front piece.I also used French seams for the shoulders and sides of the top. I really like how they turned out and will use that method to finish future Strata tops. I carefully did an eighth inch seam to connect the wrong sides together, then pressed it and did a quarter inch seam on the other side. I figured the math for that was close to the 5/8 seam allowance called for in the pattern and didn’t want to lose any ease at the sleeve openings.

Since then, I’ve learned how to do do a French seam from Meg McEwee at a slow fashion retreat I attended in August 2019 – wrong sides together 3/8 in. seam, trim to 1/4 in, then right sides together 1/4 in. seam.  I have muscular arms in proportion to a slight mid-body – which means a lot of patterns that fit my chest and waist measurements end up being a little snug in the shoulder or sleeves, so I’m happy to keep the ease I gained with my method.I didn’t try anything fancy with the neckline, but instead went with a bias bound neck from the beginning. This top’s neckline didn’t get stretched out as a result.

While I was working on my dusky purple Strata top, I found where the internet hides this shirt – under the #stratatop tag on Instagram. It was clear from the photos that many of the other sewists who attempted this pattern had the same trouble with the neckline. It was comforting to see how many people had ended up finishing the neck the same way I had.

Now that I knew from my first Strata what an additional 1.5 inches of length looked like, I knew I still wanted a little extra length but was willing to dial it back a little. I ended up adding just a half an inch. It’s just about as short in front as I’d be willing to go, and I’ll be going back to an extra inch of length for my next Strata make.

I knew what I was doing for the third Strata top, made with black tie dye rayon. For the front, I joined two pieces of fabric with a French seam down the center, and used one solid piece of fabric for the back. I used a beautiful painterly voile for the bias binding at the neck. I avoided a lot of the problems I encountered when I first started making the shirt. With the second and third versions, I started being able to slow down and enjoy the process more, which is the intention of the pattern.I will definitely come back to this pattern. I want to try a reversible version in a lightweight cotton or double gauze. I also want to try taking in the sides a little for a more fitted version. I think I need to get a thrifted sheet to experiment with removing some of the ease, or perhaps just use my sewing clips on the tops I’ve made already.

Since I published this post, I made another Strata with less ease by swinging the bottom of the back pattern piece over the fold by an inch and a half to remove 3 inches from the bottom of the back.

Summary:

Top One: Size 6, Rayon batik, flat felled seams, bias bound neck using same material as rest of top, added 1.5 inches to length.

Top Two: Size 6, Rayon batik, scrapped front piece, French seams, bias bound neck using homemade shot cotton bias tape, added 0.5 inches to length.

Top Three: Size 6, Black Tie Dye Sandy Lane Washed Rayon, pieced front for a center front seam, French seams, bias bound neck with contrasting voile, added 1 inch to length.

Rae once said something like, “I can make clothes, and I can iron clothes, but I can’t do both.” And I concur. My pics may be rumpled sometimes, but I’d rather be wearing my handmades, and sometimes photographing them late in the day after I’ve been living in them all day rather than having them perfectly pressed for photos.