The Sewover50 team are currently hosting a colour blocking challenge. The lovely thing about this challenge is that participants can show previous colour blocked makes – so good! The only rule is that it must be a garment and it must not have any patterned fabric. I could not think of a single colour blocked item I had made that didn’t have some sort of patterned fabric so I set about making something that would fit the theme. Of course, I did finally remember quite a few things that were appropriate, which I have uploaded to Instagram, but I had already started on this top.

I wanted a wool top for the current cold weather, so I found a scrap of beautiful cerise wool that Sarah had found at a deceased estate and gave to me, and I had some scraps of double faced wool from Knitwit Fabrics that I used in this zero waste coat and in the Japanese top below (that I initially thought was a contender for the challenge until I remembered the checked bits). This top is from the Japanese sewing book Piecework mentioned in this blog post.

I really like this top and it’s designed for colour blocking, but it takes a surprising amount of fabric and I just didn’t have enough. So… I got out my Pattern Union Cora blouse as it never fails me.

Because the blue and grey fabric can be worn either way I decided to make the top reversible, and to make the entire thing on the overlocker. For some reason I didn’t try it on until it was finished when I realised that the bust darts were far too low. I had stitched them down because of the reversibility of the top, so this meant a great deal of unpicking, but I got there in the end.

I am absolutely loving the colour combination. I originally cut the neck from a straight piece of the pink but it wasn’t stretchy enough so I joined both the blue and the grey to it and recut it on the bias. I really like the effect of this.

My test photos show that the hem dipped on one side, so that had to be rectified. The back photo shows it best. The corrected version is on the right, don’t be distracted by the ladder and scaffolding!

You can see that the overlocked seam lines of the stripes are on the outside. I really like this look, but I didn’t like the side seams treated the same way, as it looked too much, so they are overlocked on the other side. This means that both sides look inside out and I did wonder how soon it would be before someone pointed this out. Turns out I didn’t have to wait long at all as Mark asked me when I was at the try on stage!

I thought I’d make a video to show this particular side. I think my phone camera lenses need to be cleaned as all my photos turned out blurry, but you get the idea. I thought you’d like to hear the cockatoos as they come to the dam for a drink. They can get very noisy – we have both red-tailed cockatoos and the endangered Carnaby cockatoos.

One of the things I love about this pattern is that the collar can be worn up or folded over. It’s been really cold at our holiday place so it was lovely to snuggle into the neck.

I used a different label on each side – still matching the labels to the fabric!

I took very few photos of this side but loads of the other, so here are a selection.

I am really pleased with this top, I have very small scraps left which I’m sure I’ll use and it basically cost me nothing. The only thing I might do is blanket stitch the bottom and sleeve hems as the overlocking can get snagged on things.

I also have a shown seated photo, which shows how high that collar is – hides my double chin, so not all bad!

I was pleased to receive two photos of our grandson, L, in a Brindle & Twig Breezy romper I made for him, it’s so lovely when makes are appreciated. This little one is growing fast, he’s two months old now and I cannot wait to get my hands on him!