Bellevue from Straight Stitch Designs

It is Mid-February in Missouri and the snow keeps blowing around.  No worries, I am taking on Old Man Winter in new me-made garments.  This one is 

Bellevue by Straight Stitch Designs and available at IndieSew

The desciription for this patterns is

A knit tee with raglan sleeves, wide scoop neckline and a woven bottom panel with shirttail hem.

I have discovered something after making this top, I really like the wide scoop neckline on me.    This pattern is quick to make, perfect to jazz up the closet as a season comes to an end.   For this one, I used a stripe sweater knit from Mood Fabrics and a rayon print from Imagine Gnats.  These two fabrics have been in my stash for quite sometime, so not sure if they are available.

The stripe sweater knit is pretty bulky, so I used a navy lycra knit for the neckline binding.  The navy matched perfectly and was a good fabric to use for the neckline.  

With the fabric bulk in mind,  I took some in on the the side seams and used a size smaller in the back versus the front.   The bit of tapering helps to keep this sweater knit contouring to the curves and not sticking away from the body. 

 I did have a terrible time with my remote for my camera today.  When it is below 20 degrees the remote and the camera do not want to play nicely!

I did add an inch to the length of the body of the shirt and tapered the arms just a bit from the elbow down.  I did not taper this sweater knit as much as I did the navy one which is at the end of the post.

To match the stripe, I draw a line at the underarm points of the front, back and sleeves (Grainline tutorial).  This method always works nicely and gives great stripe or plaid matching.  You can really see this on the photo of the back view.

My second Bellevue is brought to you again by the color navy!  I bought this lycra jersey knit from Girl Charlee and coordinated a  Girl Charlee's cotton voile

I actually like this shirt more than the sweater knit but it didn't photograph very well.  The wind started blowing and the shirt was moving with the wind, too.  The photograph above from inside shows the shirt and the fit the best but is just a bit dark.  

You can see the details of the shirt better outdoors but I have too many wrinkles.  I should of pulled the shirt down a bit after carrying out the tripod and camera.

No, not any dust on my camera lens or lint on my top - that is snow/sleet blowing around.  This pictures shows the curve of the shirt tail hem and how the front and back meet perfectly at the side seams.

The fit and look of the Bellevue is fabulous and it is such a fun pattern.  I plan on using this pattern for some knit shirts and omitting the woven bottom panel.  While we are on the subject of woven panel, note the woven panel stabilizes the bottom hem.  What does this mean?  Well, make sure you get the right size at the hips as there is not any stretch.  Also, you want the right size for taking off the shirt, do not try to taper the hem too much, 

So Old Man Winter, I am going to have some great new tops for the last few weeks of winter, plus I hear 60 degrees is coming in just a few days!

 Disclosure - I was provided the pattern as a part of the Indiesew blogger team  but the opinions are all mine.