Another Stylearc Ethel

I have been visiting family near Noosa for probably 20 years now.  In that time, all of the fabric stores that I would look forward to visiting have closed down.  Now fabric shopping is not even on my holiday agenda.

So then, when I chanced upon this Merchant and Mills fabric, I had to purchase it immediately.  Gotta support fabric retailers!  I can't even tell you where I got it.  We had parked near the cinema in Noosa, watched a movie, caught the bus to the beach, swum, eaten ice-cream, bussed back and were making our way up the hill to the car when I ducked into a homewares / clothing shop.  The kids were ahead of me, so I only had a minute or two.  I wandered to the back of the shop and was delighted to find several bolts of Merchant and Mills linen and seersucker fabrics.  It was all beautiful. They stocked Merchant and Mills patterns as well.   I had to make a snap decision on which colour I wanted, straight to the cutting counter and then run out the door to catch up to the kids.  I only wish I had stopped to look at the name of the shop so I could tell you what it was.  I can tell you that it is somewhere in Noosa Junction, possibly on Sunshine Beach Road.

Seersucker is great for summer, so I sewed it up pretty quickly, it being summer and all.  The pattern is the Stylearc Ethel Top, with my addition of small knit gussets to the underarms.  I had a perfectly matching knit among other recent purchases.

This close-up shows more of the texture of the fabric.  I added top-stitching to the diagonal seams. I tried to match the top-stitching thread colour to the flecks in the seersucker, but the match is not perfect. 

Simple summer sewing.