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Ashton Top // Sewing For Women

Ashton Top // Sewing For Women

Hi friends!

I'm sharing my tester version of the Ashton Top, one of the two new patterns just released by Helen's Closet!

Pattern testing, especially for my favorite designers, is one of my VERY favorite things to do! I love to be able to be a part of the process in creating a pattern.

Ashton Top // Sewing For Women

I can seriously credit pattern testing with teaching me many valuable sewing skills, especially when I was first starting!

What I love the most about it is that it often pushes me out of my comfort zone and motivates me to try new styles, or to try sewing garments that I would otherwise just keep pushing to back of my queue because of time involved, or depth of skills required.

Basically it just keeps me motivated! :) And it pushes me. If you know of the four tendencies described by Gretchen Rubin, I am an obliger. Which can basically be boiled down to one detail, and that is that I perform best with external motivators. Which is exactly what pattern tests are! Lol.

Now that I've dove way down deep into that rabbit hole, lets move on and talk about the pattern, shall we!?

Ashton Top // Sewing For Women

The Ashton Top is a sleeveless A-line shell that comes in two length options; hip or high-waisted crop.

I chose the cropped view, mainly because I knew it would be the perfect scrap buster for this linen fabric I had laying around, begging to be transformed from scrap to crop-top! I had less than a yard to work with and had no big problem getting this top from it! I did cut the facing in two pieces rather than on the fold, but that was the only minor "fudging" I had to do to make it work. So get out those scraps for this one!!

Ashton Top // Sewing For Women

Helen does such an incredible job with her instructions, and this pattern is the absolute perfect beginner friendly project! She includes two options for finishing the neckline and armholes; the options are a bias finish or an all-in-one facing. I chose to do the facing, and I love how that turned out! The facing is generous, so there is no concern about it flipping out at all while wearing it.

Ashton Top // Sewing For Women

For this tester version, I ended up taking my shoulder seams up by 2 inches total. That is a pretty big adjustment, but I am also a bit shorter through the upper bust area. Since testing, the pattern has been shortened in the shoulder, and the armhole has been raised and brought in a bit.

Ashton Top // Sewing For Women

For my next version, I will start out by taking 1/2" out of the upper bust area (a lengthen/shorten line has been included here), I will also raise the dart, maybe 1", because by taking up the shoulder seam 2" on this version, the dart is now where it should be. I will also be adding in at least 1" in length to the next cropped version, just for my own comfort. Most of my higher rise pants fit just below my bellybutton, and I'm just not a fan of showing my mid-riff at this stage of my life. ;)

That being said, I will definitely wear this top as is, I will probably just wear a cami tucked in underneath most of the time, although with this pair of pants, I don't have to worry much! Maybe I just need to make some more high-waisted pants and shorts.... Hmm... :)

Ashton Top // Sewing For Women

 I can't wait to sew up several more Ashton Tops with some of my (way too many) 1 yard pieces hanging out in my stash!

Ashton Top // Sewing For Women
 
Ashton Top // Sewing For Women


Ashton Top // Sewing For Women

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend!!  ~Heidi

Pants are Lander Pants, blogged HERE.
The linen fabric I used for the top is leftover from this jumsuit, blogged HERE.

*Disclosure: I was given a copy of the final pattern in exchange for testing. All opinions expressed are my own, all materials were my own resources.

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