Peek-a-boo! Lace see thru | Week 45 | #52wonderfilledweeks

I am still behind in my blog but so determined to get back on schedule this week.   I'm starting to get my energy back after being laid out flat sick for a week. I had a few light days this week which helped immensely, and I finally got my studio back together after our party so I was pretty excited to get back to creating.  I've had the idea for this top for about three months.  As a musician I am always on the look out for new "concert black".  I sort of feel bad that the men in my field have to dress so "formal" a good portion of the time...but then I think they don't have to put much thought in what they wear, whereas women have to put outfits together and might get a few looks if they wore the same things several days (concerts) in a row.  I bought a bunch of lace over the summer for some under garments and straps and I started thinking about ways I could incorporate it into some of my wardrobe makes for concerts.  So I took the easiest pattern ever, Pattern for Pirates - Sweet Tee, and hacked it.  This was so simple to do and I feel like it really dresses up a plain black shirt for the stage! I also love that you can't really see my bra strap through the lace, a super pet peeve of mine.

I started by measuring my lace width and deciding on how much of the lace would overlap the shirt.  I settled on about half inch of lace on the shirt on either side of the shoulder "seam".

Then I did some math and determined that I'd need to shave off about three quarters of an inch from each shoulder (so a total of 1.5 inches from the shoulder seam).

I serged my shoulder edges, and folded under one half inch and clipped in place.

Then using my rulers I laid out and pinned my lace over the shoulder edges.  I made sure to use ball point pins and took my time.  With the lace top-stitched over the shoulder edges you can continue with the shirt construction per the directions! A little tip is to make sure to cut your lace longer than the actual shoulder seam.  This is especially important in the neck area as you will need to trim the lace in an arc to match the shoulders and neck line.  I choose to turn under my neckline one quarter of an inch and used a double needle to top-stitch instead of banding or binding the neck.

Admittedly I wish I had made this a short sleeve version with a band but because this is for work, it's pretty much mandatory that we wear at least three quarter length sleeves. But I am excited at the possibilities for non-stage wear!!