- by:Joanna Florence
- date:April 22, 2021
Shell tops aren't really my style but after watching the first episode of The Great British Sewing Bee, series 7, I felt inspired to make one myself. I was mainly intrigued by the “bagging out” technique for the facing which I had never tried and wanted to learn.
The pattern I used is free to download as a PDF and is a very similar shell top to the one used in the episode. It can be found on Sew Mag’s website here. In fact, I think this pattern is from a previous seris of The Sewing Bee!
The pattern is great for using up a left over bit of fabric as it only takes about a metre to a metre and a half, depending on the size you are making. I found a metre of this gorgeous peach crepe covered in royal blue foxes in my stash that I thought would look great as a shell top. This was just enough for me to cut out the top as well as the facings for the smallest size. Unfortunately, I went on to burn the facing with the iron (at least it wasn’t the top!) and subsequently had to cut out the facings in a plain white cotton. I think the contrast actually works quite well. I didn’t really think about how the fabric is very sheer so the facing is completely visible through it, but it works well with a white camisole underneath.
The pattern is simple and easy to follow. It describes the “bagging out” technique very well and I had no trouble creating a lovely neat finish using it. I had some trouble when I got to step 10 as I didn’t really understand how it was telling me to finish the back. So in classic Joanna style, I winged it. I sewed the facing to the back seams, right sides together and turned them back out so that the ribbon hoop was on the outside of the garment. I then sewed the back seam from the hem to the bottom of the facing, right sides together, as it says to do in the pattern.
I decided to take up the hem at the back a bit as the dramatic scooped back was a bit too much for me. It’s still curved on mine, but doesn’t dip as low. For finishing the hem, the pattern tells you to zig zag over the raw edge, then fold over and stitch… but this just wasn’t going to cut it for me. I think that would have looked a bit messy so I opted for a nice neat rolled hem.
Something I learnt whilst watching episode 2 of The Sewing Bee was that you can sew on buttons using a sewing machine (who’d have thought it?!) and I finished the garment the morning after episode 2 aired by using this technique. I’d previously sewn all buttons onto garments by hand, but this just looks so much neater and takes less than half the time!
When I showed off the finished garment to my boyfriend he called me out for not pattern matching - the cheek of it! There’s only so much you can do with a metre of fabric.
Overall, this is a great basic Summer top that has a lovely straightfoward pattern with some good diagrams. I would recommend it for confident beginners to learn techniques such as darts, bagging out and sewing a button loop with a button.
Joanna Florence Makes
Joanna Florence Makes
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