Sagebrush Top in a fun print

I chose this fun Ruby Star Society fabric to make the Sagebrush Top by the Friday Pattern Company. (See my interivew with Chelsea Gurnoe, the designer behind the company.) The fabric is part of the Adorn collection, designed by Rashida Coleman-Hale. I got the pattern and the fabric (citron colorway), from Stonemoutain & Daughter Fabrics way back in May. It was still in stock as of this writing but there are only a couple of yards left in citron. Check out the other colorways in berry and peacock.

Here’s the closer look at the colors and images from Stonemountain’s website. I love the ladies on this print, especially the one with the beret! The chartreuse background color is a bit out of my comfort zone but I wanted to try something new. I’ve paired it with a maxi denim skirt and a wool tweed cap I made using a pattern I drafted a few years ago.

I wasn’t sure I liked the ruffle detail so I made a mockup in a quilt-weight fabric I had in my stash. I think it was a fabric I got from my mom’s stash, not something I bought. The pattern goes from XS (bust 32-33″/81-84cm; hip 34-35″/86-89 cm) to 7X (bust 59-60″/150-152 cm; hip 62-63″/157-160 cm). I cut a size L because my bust is 39″ but graded up to XL in the hips to allow for more ease. My hips are around 42/43 inches.

After I made the mockup of the Sagebrush Top, I thought, hmmmm, the fit seems fine but the sleeves are too puffy. The pouf is no doubt due to the quilt weight fabric but I decided the ruffle and the elastic on the sleeve hem was too much for me. So I cut my Ruby Star Society Adorn fabric but decided I would leave off the elastic when I sewed it up. This fabric is really soft and drapes nicely so the sleeves aren’t as puffy as my mockup. The fabric is a lighter weight 100 percent cotton (3.4 oz per square yard /115 gsm).

Then I decided I should try the mock-up on one last time and then scruntinized it at little more closely and realized there were slight drag lines going from the shoulders to the neck. I’m pointing to that area in the above photo. Oops – square shoulder adjustment needed! I don’t know if you can tell but there’s a dragline from the neckline to the shoulder on both sides. I had already cut my Ruby Star fabric but it was a minor adjustment so it was fine.

Sagebrush Top adjustments & construction

Here’s what the pattern cover looks like.

For Sagebrush Top in the Adorn fabric, I made the following adjustments:

• 1/4″ (~6 mm) square shoulder adjustment – I marked a quarter of an inch (~6 mm) near the neckline and then zeroed out to the opposite shoulder on the front and back piece. Then I lopped it off the shoulder
• graded up to size XL in the hips
• hand stitched sleeve hem and did not finish with elastic
• handstitched hem

Warm colors

Here’s a closer look at the Sagebrush Top sleeve and the fabric. I’m so glad I took a chance on this fabric. I bought it online when Stonemountain was still closed to the public. I usually avoid fabrics with a yellow tone, especially near my face because my skin has warm undertones already. Somewhere I absorbed the idea that Asians shouldn’t wear yellow because it won’t look good with your skin. But I do like yellow, which is a bright and cheery color. Think Tweety Bird, lemons, and sunflowers! I’m trying to expand my palette beyond my usual, red, blue, purple, and black.

Thoughts on the Sagebrush Top pattern

This pattern is well drafted and easy to construct. The neckline is finished with a strip of bias-cut fabric and the ends of the bias tape become ties in the back – a clever finish. The trickiest thing is stitching in the ditch around the neckline. To finish the ends of the tie, I folded the ends under and sewed them rather than tie a knot.

As you can see, I wasn’t paying attention to the bow so it’s a bit askew. That’s one of the challenges of tying something you can’t see. If I make it again, I might change the back closure to a button at the top – maybe a button and loop or maybe make a button hole. (Excuse the wrinkles, I had already been wearing the Sagebrush Top for several hours when I took these photos.)

I do like this pattern in lightweight fabrics. If I make it again, I would try a fabric with an even softer hand, maybe a rayon. Then the sleeves would be less puffy, even with elastic at the hem.

Note on the photos

It was an unusually overcast day for the Bay Area when I took these photos with my phone last weekend. There’s usually blue skies and no clouds. I tried lightening the photos on my laptop but that washed out the color of the fabric. So I only made the photos slightly warmer so the chartreuse was a closer match to the actual fabric.

We’ve been in the midst of a drought in California and had very little rain. (This California drought map is really scary.) However, I took these photos the day before Northern California was inundated with an “atmospheric river” on Oct. 24. It had rained all night the night before and then throughout the following day. We likely had more rainfall in a day than for the entire year. I was fortunate to live in an area that did not lose power or have any mud slides.

This past year has been full of fires, floods, hurricanes, and other natural disasters around the world. The planet is in a state of emergency but if we can reduce greenhouse emissions, we can stop further warming and avoid what the United Nations calls “catastrophic changes in the Earth’s climate.” Yikes. (You can read the U.N.’s Emissions Gap Report here.) We all need to hold are local, state, and federal governments and corporations accountable and cut down the emissions.