Liberty Linden Love

Ok, so I wear, a lot, of Melbourne Black, 

and navy....

and some other colours..... 

which escape me at the moment...

One colour that's pretty much missing from my wardrobe is shocking pink.

Of course, it's the perfect colour to add a bit of brightness to my winter palette. Primarily as it can't clash with anything ;)

I'm not usually a huge Liberty print fan (sacrilege, I know), I adore the feel of their Tana lawn, but the prints don't often grab me. This is Kindle* a tonal print with subtle little florals and foliage, totally gorgeous, and, well, yes, very, very pink.

*(from the Liberty of London website): Kindle Liberty print was sketched while listening to the Elysian singers perform at The Royal Festival Hall. The final hand drawn repeat has the design Elysian woven into its sound waves.

I actually had a shopping cart open on The Fabric Store's NZ  site when the word went out that it had landed in the Melbourne store... I blame Instagram (you know who you are... yes ... you... and yes, you too....)

And yes, a family trip was made the next morning so I could feel it IRL and once patted, it came home with me.
It's very perfectly fleecy, and even more so after a trip through the washing machine.

Essentially it is a woven though. I considered making another drop shouldered top, in the style of my much adored black wool awesome thing:
And then my love for my new vintage wool woven Linden won out and I made View A.
This is the size 8, with 2cm taken out of the back raglan seams, reducing to nothing by 7cm.
The sleeves are simply turned and stitched. I know much has been discussed of the long arms of the pattern as drafted and I didn't include the cuff. I do like warm hands however and would use the same arm length if I made it again (with added cuffs)

Silliness prevails. The weather conspired against this photoshoot for nearly a month.

Removing 4cm from the back neckline has brought it in nicely as well, as drafted, the Linden is a tad wider than I prefer in a rounded neckline. The boatneck on my black top is just a bit wide for many layering options and I wanted this top to be a non-drafty winter staple.
I felt very indulgent as I cut my neckline on the bias - such an inefficient use of fabric! It was worth it though. I had previously stabilised the entire neckline with iron on stay tape (yes, I love it!) and after carefully stitching the bias on, it was 'sticky-uppery' ;( I nearly cried.

I do love the cross over of our fibre arts though, I channelled my inner knitter, went into blocking mode and ignored that I wasn't playing with wool . I simply saturated the neckline pieces and patted them back into shape. After some steaming with my iron, the neckline was perfectly snugged - yes, I'm rather chuffed with my neckline.

The hip hem is taken straight from my black jumper. It's a piece of straight grain fabric, the circumference of my hips, folded and sewn to a slightly gathered bottom edge of garment. It keeps out any winter breeze and allows the top to blouson over a belt or winter padding.

Silly poses aside, it's the first top in a while to have elicited random unsolicited compliments - although, they were mostly on how lovely it was to see me in pink....

*For a hint on my previous (BL, Before Liberty) pink aversion, I mentioned a pink 80's windcheater with koalas in my 2014 black post...