The Black Zara Top

Lets face it, there is nothing more comfy than a knit top. I like comfy things and I like leather so why not combine the two.

This is one of the items I had on my Wardrobe Planning post back here. I love it, but it was not without it's troubles. I did use Burda 09/2012 Top No. 123, which has been quite popular around the traps. Fabric was a Japanese rayon knit blend from Spotlight, really nice fabric which I would use again. I didn't make up a muslin, I figured something made out of knit is pretty forgiving and shouldn't be too hard to get the right fit.

I made the pattern up based on the bust size, but those sides were super fitted so I re-drew to be a little wider. I also had a super amount of trouble with getting the neckline to fit properly. After inserting the leather shoulder panels the front neckline had quite a bit of drooping going on. I unpicked the panels and brought the front up some, re-sewed the neckline after hacking some off, re-attached the facing and it was still droopy. So I did what my impatient sewing brain told me to do, I cheated and put a pleat in the centre front to bring it all together. It worked, wasn't really what I wanted but it's quite a nice "design feature".

I used some left over pleather for the shoulder inserts, and followed my inspiration picture and ran some quilting lines on the panels. I think the weight of the pleather had something to do with the neckline drooping.

Then I was a smarty pants and thought all tops are made too long and proceeded to cut a few cm's off the hem and then realised it was too short. Lucky I kept it so the top has another design feature of a double hem with an added seam.

Even though with all the troubles, I still really like it. It ticks alot of boxes for me and something that can be zhooshed up or dressed down.