A Bloomin' Lovely Cara tee

Eliza top (Megan Neilsen's Cara pattern)

I blooming love this top! As I mentioned in my maternity sewing plans post, lately I have been wearing anything that fits, which has been pretty much exclusively jersey basics for a good while. I've been getting so bored with all the black and grey I've been wearing, and longing for some colour and fun prints. 

Enter: colourful fun print jersey from Fabric Land which is just beautiful. Such good value too, £3.99 a metre and great quality. I will be browsing more of their jersey section for sure! 

I decided to make a Megan Neilsen Cara tee with this fabric, and thought it would be a good idea to make the long sleeved version for winter. Then I can always lop the sleeves off to the short length when the spring weather comes. Hopefully this will work out and this top can cross seasons easily! 

I made a size medium, going by my usual pre pregnancy size. I'm really happy with the fit, it has plenty of room left for my bump to grow more but doesn't look too baggy now - amazing! Also super duper comfy. Big thumbs up. 

My one fit gripe is that the shoulders are way too wide, which is a bit of a surprise to me because I actually have very broad shoulders. Hey ho, it doesn't bother me very much. To be honest I don't even think I will alter the shoulders for subsequent versions of this pattern (oh, there will be more!), since it's such a short-term make. 

The only alteration I made was the sew the long sleeve seam at 7/8" rather than 5/8". The sleeves were really baggy on me, but I do often have this problem as my arms are disproportionately slim! 

Construction wise I loved this make and really, truly enjoyed sewing this. It was such a quick sew - only a few hours start to finish! And I am not a quick sewer so I can imagine some of you speedier stitchers would have had this whipped up even quicker. 

Excitable mama-to-be

On another note, I am having some real trouble with my overlocker. I think I'm going to have to take it to a repair shop for an expert opinion, since I cannot for the life of me figure out what is going on with it. It was absolutely fine, then one day just started skipping stitches, the tension kept going weird (even without me touching the dials!) and now just behaves erratically overall. I have rethreaded the thing more times, and more meticulously, than I thought I could stand to, and have adjusted the tension so many times and in so many ways - I really don't know what else to try. It's the fact it keeps changing without me twiddling any knobs that is making me think maybe it has a fault. Any advice welcome! 

Good timing, overlocker, just when I want to make all the stretchy clothes!!! Haha. 

Well, I shall leave you. I'm sure I'll have another Cara top to show you soon!