New Year’s Eve Top

  • Difficulty Rating: Beginner
Tags

Beginner, Cutting, Emma Jeffery, Fabric, How-To-Projects, Winter,

Tools used:

Forged Scissors 8

Forged Scissors (8")

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New Years Eve Top

I have always loved New Year’s Eve but after my husband and I got engaged on New Year’s Eve several years ago, I have had even more of a reason to ‘ring in the New Year’ in style. These days, night clubs and trendy bars have been replaced by house parties with good friends as our sleeping children lay upstairs, but it still remains a great reason to get dressed up and dance the night away!

I decided to make myself a New Year’s Eve top this year and when I came across the Sorbetto by Colette Patterns, I knew it would fit the bill. It is available as a free download here. Simple and quick to make, I’m sure to use the pattern several times over and since it is available online, I don’t even have to leave the house to get it. Did I mention the pattern is free? And the way I see it, if you are saving money by spending $0 on the pattern, you’re free to splash out on some extra special designer fabric - it is New Year’s Eve after all.

The fabric I used for my top came from Hawthorne Threads. They have a huge selection of amazing fabrics at reasonable prices.

Downloading and printing patterns at home is much easier than you think, particularly for a pattern that only has two pieces like this one. When you print the pattern, you get a 4 inch x 4 inch ‘test square’ so you can check that your print scale is correct. You also get the instructions for making the top.

After laying out all the sheets, cut around the margins of each page. This is marked for you. Then use tape to join all the pages together. After determining your required size, you can either cut out your two pattern pieces from the paper or trace the pattern onto tracing paper and cut that out.

If you are unsure on your size, I suggest tracing the pattern onto tracing paper and making a muslin. Tracing the pattern (instead of cutting up your printed sheets) means that you can easily re-trace a different size if necessary. without having to re-print and re-tape all the sheets together.

Cutting-pattern

I also recommend making a muslin. I made my muslin in the time it took me to pre-wash and dry my fabric and I could check the sizing of the top before cutting into the good stuff. I found I needed to add about 6” to the length of the top.

Muslin

I chose this lightweight voile (which reminds me of New Year’s fireworks) for my top, but for a different occasion I could also make this top in jersey or cotton.

The pattern calls for bias tape for the neckline and armholes and I purchased a package of pre-made silver bias tape, though you can of course, make your own.

Bias-1
Bias-2

My top came together very quickly and it fits perfectly. I love the pleat at the front center and the bias tape at the neckline and armholes are a nice detail, especially when done in a contrasting color.

NYE-top3

This is a great beginner’s project but there are many ways a more advances seamstress could personalize the pattern. But the best thing of all about making your own spectacular New Year’s Eve top is that you can guarantee it will be one of a kind on the dance floor! Happy New Year!

Supply List

Pattern for Sorbetto top by Colette Patterns available for free here
1 yd of fabric (I used more because I am tall and made my top longer. I suggest you check your sizes)
1 package bias tape
Pins
Thread
Sewing machine