I’ve been thinking about learning to sew garments for a while now. I am really enjoying sewing and learning, so this seems like a natural next step. There are also a lot of inspiring knitter/sewists out there, and I’d like to join their ranks!

After a fair bit of research, I settled on the Sorbetto top by Colette Patterns. It’s a free pattern and advertised to be very beginner friendly. It is beginner friendly in that it is very simple, you only cut out two pieces and the instructions are written very well.

With all that said, I had no idea how much I didn’t know about garment sewing. I had to google and youtube nearly every step. How do you arrange the pattern? How do you cut it out? (hint, I still did that sort of wrong) Why is my fabric bunching up so badly? How do you handle darts? How do you finish seams? Much less, how do you do them separately? Here are my lackluster, yet finished seams:

It was at this point that I discovered that, years ago, Colette Patterns hosted a sewalong for this very pattern. My game really stepped up after that. They had even more detail and instruction in the sewalong than the pattern. I still had to google a few things, but I was at least moving a long better.

It finally came time to attach the bias binding that I made to the neckband and armholes. I could not get it to look right! So I started back to googling. Evidently there is a handy foot that helps with edgestitching, but not a good one for my machine. While I was practicing and googling and looking at the sewing machine manual, I realized something.

It would appear that I have been threading my machine incorrectly for over a year. I’m always cursing the tension and the stitches look uneven and it’s a huge pain. Well, I had been not using the last thread guide the entire time. It is now well employed, and my stitches look so much better. I’m trying not to kick myself too much for that one. With that, I set to work finishing the neckband and armholes.

I thought I would really like that part. I love binding quilts. Turns out it’s not the same. I am not a fan. But with that and a hem, it’s all done.

It’s a real top! It even goes on my body! The fit could use a bit of work and there is lots of room for improvement, but my first garment is finally complete. Some of the details:

I really like it. I like the style, the fabric, and most of all that I made it! I did learn about a million things in the process of making this top. I am really excited to make my next garment and utilizing those skills plus learning new ones. Making is such a process!

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YoM day 250-251: Sock and shawl knitting

YoM day 252: Sock knitting, quilting, sewing

YoM day 253: Sewing

YoM day 254-257: Shawl knitting

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Happy making!

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