Experiment: Nursing Top

I came to a point of needing a mental break from orders. And it was really great to take a break! If I don't take time for some creativity I'll go crazy with all these custom orders that require me to pay close attention to details all the time. This was my mental break... I took some time on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning to finally put this idea together! It had been sitting, cut out on my table for at least a week. And this idea has been rolling around in my head for about a year now. Its a criss-cross styled nursing top. I had one cut out last Summer and just never got it all put together. Its still in pieces. Just recently I cut out 2 from this shiny teal fabric I'd gotten in. It was light weight and sparkly! Like I said, I cut out 2. Both would look exactly alike on the outside, but the nursing access would look different on the inside. I had asked a friend if she'd be willing to try them both out and tell me which she liked better. Well, I put one together and decided it would definitely be the better of the 2 options, so I didn't bother putting the 2nd version together. I will still let my friend try it out and see what she thinks :-) As soon as I tried the first one on, I knew I wanted to make modifications to the neckline (I would personally like a lower cut on the black neckline) and cut of the front bodice (the teal fabric needed to come over and cover more of the chest.) Also, the black neckline was gathered too much with the neck binding (the binding needs to be looser so there will be less ripples at the neckline.) So don't judge too harshly, this is only the first attempt! :-)

This is me, Wednesday morning, just after 4am. It was one of my 'all hours of the night' sewing nights. Sometimes I go to bed about the time that other people are getting up! When the hubby is out of town, the wife will play (work/sew/pattern design) I went to bed directly after this (for a few hours)

Later on Wednesday my sister was over and she was able to take some pictures of me, for me. lol!

This is me at just after 4pm on Wednesday. I don't look the greatest since I didn't get a lot of sleep that morning. If I'd thought about it, I might have put some makeup on ;-)

Oh! The scrunching at the side.. I meant for it to be more scrunched than this but once it was all together I realized it wasn't cut long enough to have as much scrunch as I wanted. So I only gathered it up a little. I plan to cut it longer and have more scrunch.

After my sister left, I took some more photos on the dress form. 

I cut this one with a slight curve in at the back armhole, to sort of give a racerback feel. The fabric is light and airy. I thought my friend could use it as a workout/swim tank. That is, if she likes the design. The top part of this tank has 2 layers of the teal fabric, but the waist only has one layer.

The next few photos show the nursing access details...

Nursing panel pulled aside and pinned to show how easy nursing would be.

And now the inside.. :-)

 

Pretty Detail :-) 

So, what do we think???

~*~