Gathers are not my favourite technique. I prefer pleats because they ‘do as they’re told’. Gathers have a way of moving while I sew them. I don’t own a gathering foot on my Janome.

The fabric is a poly jersey, one-way stretch with good memory. I bought this from The Fabric Store, Surry Hills for $10 (2m). This is a new pattern that I hesitated tackling due to the neckline, but the neckline drew my attention to this pattern. Wendy Gager also used this at her fabric showing late last year.

The neckline has gathers on the side attached to the front bodice. The gathers on the neck edge is created with 6mm elastic encased in the gathered ‘collar’. Depending on how comfortable you feel, you can add more elastic, or less to emphasis the v-neck shape.

Once I forced myself to complete the neckline in 60 minutes, the rest was a breeze. Yesterday was Formula 1 Sunday, so I either sewed or watched noisy cars for a couple of hours.

So then I wondered, how does this look using a pattern fabric?

I raised the neckline by 3cm, used a bit less elastic in the collar casing and enjoyed wearing it today.
I think using a contrasting collar pattern or using piping along the neck edge would emphasis the collar better.
This fabric was from Pitt Trading http://www.pitt-trading.com.au/, one of my favourite fabric havens.