Weekend Project: Lotus Cami

The Ladybug wears no disguises.
She is just what she advertises.
A speckled spectacle of spring,
A fashion statement on the wing....
A miniature orange kite.
A tiny dot-to-dot delight.

~J. Patrick Lewis

Ignoring assorted chores and responsibilities this weekend, I hid in my sewing room and made my Amy Butler Ladybug Lotus Cami!


For some reason, the ladybugs on the fabric were facing sideways. I wanted them to face upwards on the top, so I had to come up with my own arrangement for cutting out the pattern pieces. Luckily, I had plenty of fabric.


The pattern has two significant princess-like seams - I was concerned about my ability to get a good match between the curved pieces of fabric and the straight ones, so I tried something that I've read about, but never done before. I basted along the seam line of the straight pieces and clipped to the stitching, to help these pieces curve to fit.


Here you can see the 2 strong curves. The pre-clipping approach worked pretty well. :)



For some reason, her arrangement of the back neck facing and the back center seam facing seemed odd to me - she had the center seam facing on top. I don't know why, but it seemed to me like the neck facing should be on top...




So, that's the way I did it. In hindsight, her approach may have been better because with this method you can see 2 folds of fabric (although, no raw edges) along the top inner edge of the back seam...



Getting the neckline facing on and preserving the sharp inner corner was challenging. On the other hand, I think that the bias strips make an adorable armhole finishing. :)



I also like the big buttons up the back.

It was a fun project and I can't wait to wear the top to work tomorrow! This was my first Amy Butler pattern, and it was interesting - she definitely does some things (like the darts) differently from the Big 4 pattern companies.

Make sure to stop by on Wednesday, because I'm having a give-away!

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and is as ready as possible to face another work week... :)