When is Spring Coming??

I'm so sick of winter weather.  The local ski hills are now closed, so in my opinion there's not much use for the white stuff that keeps falling from the sky.  What's a girl to do?  Well...I'm super excited about my spring SWAP plans and I've finally got some sewing time in.  I made a few pairs of pants that are tough to photograph (some day...), and as a result are still unblogged. BUT...I've also made my first top for the Spring in Prague SWAP.  As noted in my plans (found here), I decided on McCalls M7249 (I've just searched it and found its out of print but still on their website).  Because this is supposed to be a spring top (help me out here, Mother Nature!), I opted for view B with the short sleeves.

The McCalls website describes this pattern as "Close-fitting, pullover tops and dress have gathered front overlay, V-neckline and stitched hems."   I can attest, it is certainly close fitting, but I really like the v-neck depth.  The gathered overlays are a nice way to camouflage my winter weight.  I chose a mid-weight coral pink cotton/lycra jersey, which worked really well with the gathers but also worked well with the close fitting nature.  The colours are blowing out in the photographs a bit despite my mediocre photo editing skills, but it's a really pretty colour IRL.  It's hard to take photographs at night in the basement with only halogen potlights!

The front consists of two overlay pieces that are stitched to the wrong side of the underlay piece at the neckline, and flipped to the right side, which encloses the raw edges.  This creates a really clean neckline edge.

The only changes I made to the pattern were a 3/4" sway back adjustment and a faux full bust adjustment (adding a bit onto the side seams at the bust area), both of which are standard adjustments for me for knit tops.  I also shortened the body by 1-1/2" at the hem line and did a machine stitched 1-1/2" hem at the bottom.

The back neckline is finished after the front is attached at the shoulder seams.  I serged the shoulder seams, but next time I will stitch the shoulder seams with my regular sewing machine first, and then serge for a cleaner finish at the seamline - mine is a bit off, but likely unnoticeable by the uneducated.  There you have it - my first (blogged) garment for the Spring in Prague SWAP. 

I'm seriously going to have to figure out how to take photographs of my pants so I can show you my finished Lander Pants and the Vogue 8330 jeans.  My Kwik Sew motorcycle jacket is also almost done, it's just waiting for me to make a trip to the local fabric store to buy heavy duty stud snaps.

I'm off on a work related conference for a few days, so there will very likely be a lull in blogging for a bit, but hopefully when I come back I'll have all the mojo as a result of being separated from my Atelier!