Little summer top

It's now that time of year when I feel like I am just melting into a puddle, and anything that is not all-cotton doesn't even get a look in.

This little top was made from a dress pattern that I drafted last year. I didn't have enough material for sleeves, so I borrowed the sleeve caps from Simplicity 5190. I prefer sleeve caps over sleeveless because it feels like it only takes moments for the tops of my shoulders to sunburn in a dash from the car to wherever I am going.

The fabric was a lightweight Robert Cavalli cotton, with flocked dots that I bought from Apple Annie fabrics. After I started sewing I realised that the fabric was light enough to create "shadowing", which meant

1. Neat sewing was required!
2. I sewed the seams as for sheers...two parallel rows stitched close together, then trimming the seams close to the second row of stitching. The fabric was too light to use an overlocker to finish the edges.
3. Double fold-over for the hem.
4. The sleeve caps were already doubled over, so no changes there.
5. The facings I had cut-out weren't really suitable. A binding would have been preferable, but I had already used French seams on the shoulders which I did not want to undo. So I ended up folding under a narrow facing, so that it looked like a binding.

And happily, it was all stitched together in just a few hours.