I’ve decided to give my smallish capsule wardrobe a name — Sand, Sea and Sky — inspired by the RTW catalog’s color theme and photography. See two posts ago.

First item in the capsule pile of fabric is done in a tried and true (TNT) Renfrew Top by Sewaholic Patterns. I’ve made this top many times and reviewed some in posts long, long ago. A short recap: it fits me well in the top half (16) as long as I swerve out to accommodate my pear shape on the lower half. It has a small armhole, which I love! If you type in Renfrew Top in the search box in this page, you will see other versions. This [attern has worked out well because a striped version has been in rotation for a few years!

To begin this particular capsule, the Renfrew is sewn in 11 oz jersey, a deliciously lightweight knit from Sew Much Fabric . I used the round neck version and full length sleeves (minus the sleeve band and hem band). Since you already know why I like this pattern (see above paragraph), let’s get into a “down-in-the-sewing-weeds” and focus on seemingly minimal stuff. I’ve already touched on the basics of sewing on knits in previous posts, but will recount them again with a later knit capsule reveal for new sewers who have joined us here.

Stitch manipulation:

The pattern calls for topstitching a zig zag line after the neckband is attached, to keep the seam in place. I chose Stitch #3 that my machine manual calls a “running stitch” which is really a serpentine stitch where each zig or zag consists of three stitches. So, here’s a bit of “weedy” information for us geeks: when you play around with the length and width of the serpentine stitch, the look changes; the closer stitching you see at the neckline in the photo is adjusted to a width of 1 and length 2 where it kind of looks like a regular zigzag. Then, I changed the width to 2 while keeping the length at 2 — it becomes more serpentine with a different vibe from the first setting. It’s worth playing around with your machine settings.

Thread color choice:

I pulled out the closest two colors from the thread stash, and decided to sew with the darker shade — because conventional wisdom says go with the darker shade and it’ll match better. So I did, and noticed that it wasn’t that great a match; oh well, I’ll pretend I was going for a contrasting look. That is, until it ran out after the neckband topstitching was done. I pulled out the lighter and brighter thread, and what do you know, it was a better match than the darker shade.

That’s all for today, folks! As I continue with more items from the catalog inspired capsule, I will get lower into more weedy stuff.

Hey, it’s the Fall season according to the calendar, a time to expand your wardrobe even if it is 92 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Next capsule piece coming up soon-ish.

Samina