Zadie Top

The Covid-19 shut down has presented an opportunity to catch up on my blogging.  While I am working from home, my work load has slowed to a trickle so among other things that I simply don't get the opportunity to do, catching up with my blogging is on my to do list.  Now while today's photographs certainly don't reflect my current work attire, they do reflect the way my latest top was worn in my former pre Covid-19 life.  Please don't look too hard at these photos because makeup is another casualty of the current stay at home situation.

The fit of the Zadie Jumpsuit lends itself to hacking into a top so beautifully it would be a mistake not to try it.  I find it quite difficult to find a wrap that stays put without pins or snaps and showing too much skin is not something I am at all comfortable with so the Zadie was a pleasant surprise.  Not only does it stay as intended, it does so without any help from snaps, hooks or pins.  

Now I am by no means the first person to try this hack, in fact there is an entire hashtag on Insta dedicated to the Zadie Top.   I had already tried a wrap top earlier in the season which was a failure, so wasn't completely convinced that it would actually work.  For this reason, I used a piece of op shop crepe to make a wearable muslin of sorts.  

I had great plans of showing you how I modified the jumpsuit to become a top  but with the chaos of the  last few weeks, I seen to have misplaced my modified pattern pieces. So now I need to rely on my memory which is a dangerous thing at the best of times!  To create the sleeve you see here, I took the sleeve as drafted and cut vertical lines at 3cm intervals and expanded these a further 3cm along the splits from the wrist edge to create a Bishop type sleeve.  I added an extra 15cm of length to the bodice length and finished it with a 4cm invisible hem.  

The sleeves were gathered and finished with self made bias tape.  They ended up being a little less full than I intended after removing 10cm of  excess length but still retain enough fullness for the Bishop effect.

I am really happy with the finished top.  I think for my next one, and yes there will be one, I will reduce the width of the front a bit.  I think I may have also inadvertently cut the back too wide as well because my pattern was cut on the wrong line.  I must check this before I make my next one.  In the drapey crepe though it is definitely a winner.

Zadie Top
Pattern (used before) $0.00
Fabric $5.99
Total $5.99