Fehr Trade VNA Top

The VNA top by Fehr Trade is one of the most fun things that I have sewn up lately.  The design lines are really cool.  With a pattern collection as large as mine, it is not often that I come across a pattern that is totally new, but I had nothing like this one in my collection.  It is a knit top, so can be completed relatively quickly and easily, but I did learn some new techniques along the way, making the actual sewing of it interesting as well.

I was a pattern tester for this project.  I never like to use my "good" fabrics for pattern tests, because it is a testing process after all, which means that the completed projects I show on my blog can be a little on the ugly side, but this pattern is such a great scrap buster, that I got to use some of my favourite scraps.  My first version is made from different scraps of rayon knits.

I found that my first version sat up too high on my neck.  I dug out my t-shirt sloper for comparison (okay, so sensible people would have done this before they made up the first version).  The front compares pretty well, but the back shows that I need to do a significant square shoulder adjustment.

I made a second version for a friend.  I made hers a straight XS, but using the same square shoulder alteration that I would use for myself.  The neck sits much better how, although the armholes still slide to the inside of my shoulder bone..so maybe a need some sort of prominent shoulder bone adjustment...I think I'll just cut the shoulders a littler narrower next time, making it a little more like a tank top.  This version was made out of merino jersey scraps left over from my cardigan.  I narrowed the binding so that I could use it as a piping between seams as well.  I didn't use the instructions second time around.  I had a lot more trouble with the v-binding on this version, and after the event, I realised that I forgot to stabilise them with squares of interfacing....won't forget that again!

 All up, this is a fun pattern that I am sure I will use over and over again.