My red cotton lawn Sapphire top
In the leadup to the Sapphire launch, I thought it would be fun to do a series of posts about each of the Sapphire dresses and tops I’ve made for myself (this is the fifth). Plan is to post some photos along with a few notes on each one so you can learn about the fabric I chose and any mods or adjustments to the pattern pieces that I made.
Patttern
Sapphire (coming soon!), with the shorter sleeve and top length. Just one note for this version:
Lengthened sleeves and hem
This top has longer sleeves and a slightly longer skirt than the pattern does — this was my first "Sapphire top” prototype but later I shortened the top by about an inch, and if you look at my leafy version or my blue version, you’ll see that the sleeves hit me a few inches below the elbow, compared to this one where I would call this sleeve a true “3/4-length” sleeve. If you like it better this way, just add length - this one has about 3” length added to the sleeve pattern piece. Though be warned that my arms are super long, so it might hit you lower than you think.
Fabric
This is a cotton lawn featuring cootie catchers from Heather Ross’ Sleeping Porch collection for Windham that came out in…maybe 2017? It felt like that collection sold out everywhere immediately because of course the designs were gorgeous (Jess’ Trillium with a bow was also made with a beautiful green lawn from that collection) but then Windham never did a lawn line again as far as I can tell, which always baffled me. Maybe it didn’t do as well as I thought? Maybe there’s more money in quilting cottons? Who knows? Not me. The weight is more similar to Anna Maria’s Free Spirit voiles (anyone remember?) than Liberty lawn, it’s super light and perfect for spring when you don’t want a short sleeve yet but the weather gets hot by afternoon.
The print is fun because most people don’t notice the cootie catchers until they’re up close. I kinda love that. The word “cootie” is so odd. When I was little we had a game at our house called “Cootie” that consisted of plastic bug pieces like thoraxes and legs and antennae; you took turns and had to be the first to complete a whole “Cootie” bug, can’t remember if there was more to it than that. What a weird game that was (and THAT, my friends, is how you know this post wasn’t written by Cha+GPT).
How I wear it:
I mostly just wear this top with jeans, though I’m super into this outfit right now:
Good news - the Sapphire Pattern is coming soon - so watch this space for updates on when it is ready! Get details and see more photos and posts over on the Sapphire page:
And get ready for this pattern with the notes and charts in my Get Ready for Sapphire! post.
PS. Sign up for my newsletter or substack if you want to be the first to know when it drops!