There's a hole in my wardrobe....

Anna has a CD full of children's songs which includes the very annoying song "there's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza....".  Please forgive me if that line is now stuck in your brain, because it's been looping around on replay on my internal ipod for a few days and is driving me nuts!

But it does aptly describe the way I felt when my favourite top came out of the wash like this:

After many washes and soaks in whitening powder, this simple white shell top made from a white cotton waffle weave finally waived sayanora with a little tear in the neckline in the centre front.  I made this many years ago, pre blogging days in fact, so I certainly got a lot of wear from it.

I suppose I could have undone it and cut the neckline a little lower than that tear, but that probably would have taken more time to do than just to sew a new one.  So I just made a new one.  In fact I made two new ones, because even though this is just a plain sleeveless shell top it's actually quite a versatile garment: I wear it under suits because there's no bulk or collars to worry about, it looks good with full skirts because it's quite fitted and it even wears well with jeans because it's long enough to wear with mid rise cuts.

Using Vogue 1826, an OOP Michael Kors pattern, I made a replacement one in white from another piece of textured cotton I had in the stash. 

Actually this is a remnant from another white shirt I made, because this top is sleeveless, collarless and princess seamed there are only four skinny pattern pieces and I can eek it out of the smallest amount of fabric.

The pattern calls for a zipper at the centre back, but I like the look of the buttons so that's what I went with instead.  The top is fully lined with a thin white cotton poplin, and I made this using the method for lining sleeveless dresses - sewing the side seams last and pulling the back through the shoulders.  I also bagged the lining and sewed the buttons on by the machine, which meant that this top was entirely done on the machine - so much quicker than hand sewing that's for sure. 

In fact this was so quick I made it Monday night and wore it work on Tuesday, and then on Tuesday night I made another version which I wore to work on Wednesday.  And this second version isn't a plain white version, but rather a bright orange and navy blue patterned wool crepe that I picked up in an opshop a few years back.  To make this one a little different I used navy satin piping around the neckline and armhole, and navy blue buttons down the back:

It's much brighter than I would normally wear, but I guess it's good to break out of your mould once in a while, especially for office wear which can get pretty dull at times (especially with my predilection for grey).  But since it is winter around these parts, it was mostly hidden under this navy RTW suit I wore it with:

These two tops are actually versions 4 and 5 that I've made from this pattern, with the original white top being the first, a black one the second and white/beige print the the third, but I doubt they'll be the last!