Butterick 5283, Supplex Asymmetric Twist Top

When Cidell and I visited NYC last November we dropped in Stretch House to pick up Supplex technical wicking fabrics for athletic clothes. It's funny to compare our purchases (mine and hers--scroll to the bottom of the post) because you can see how different our taste is in color. I've got saturated brights and she has delicate pastels.

I'll be sewing mine up in the next couple months in preparation for my bike trip. I will try not to make this the all activewear, all the time blog, but you're gonna get a lot of it.

This is the third time I've made this view of Butterick 5283, so I don't have much more to say about this project. It was my first time doing it as a sleeveless top. It has an extended/drop shoulder, which is not my favorite look for a blouse with sleeves. However, the extended shoulder is perfect for a bike top. I don't want sleeves because it can be too hot and I don't want my armpits strangled with too much fabric, but at the same time I want my shoulders covered against the sun. This is the perfect compromise!

The outer edge of the shoulder kind of sticks up. I thought it was due to my sloping shoulder but if you look at the pattern illustration you see even in the drawing that it is designed that way (this being a rare exception to the rule that you shouldn't trust a pattern with illustrations and no photo). I don't have strong enough feelings to unpick my twin needle sleeve hem and correct the shoulder slope, but for future iterations of this top I might taper that shoulder seam.

As drafted, this is a somewhat unfitted top, with plenty of ease at the side seams and no shaping in the back. For athletic wear I prefer more fitted clothing for better range of motion. Not that I need that much range of motion in my torso for biking, but whatever. I cut a 12 below the bust to the waist and hip, but ended up taking in the waist a total of around 2.5 inches at the side seams and an additional 1.5 inches in back darts.

I usually add a center back seam to allow for swayback correction, but I had previously made this one with back darts and decided to do the same for this version. Marking darts on yourself is hard, lol. To work with my particular shape, the darts are widest at the waist and for about 3 inches below the waist, where my swayback curvature is most pronounced. They run to the hem foldline and up to the shoulder blades. The hardest part was getting the darts evenly spaced from CB. I'm going to have to mark the pattern with these next time so they will be symmetrical!

The only problem I had was that I *swear* the last two times I made it I sewed the diagonal twist seam and then did the twisting, but on this one I could NOT figure out how that is possible. I had to unpick the diagonal seam, twist, and then re-sew. Odd.

I want my biking tops to be wearable, fitted tees, but the thought of having just plain sleeveless t-shirts strikes me with horror. So I've been combing my patterns for interesting but not *too* crazy knit top patterns. This one fit the bill perfectly and since I'd made it before was a no brainer to be included in the mix. One down, five to go (or more--I just made an order from FFC after swearing I'd never order from them again; we'll see about the quality of their $3.95/yd wicking knits)

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.