I cannot remember exactly who gave me this idea, but I am pretty sure it was one of my testers. During the testing process, I always like to open my designs up to being hacked and for my testers to share their ideas with me. I love the free-flow of creativity and energy between myself and all my testers as they are all so talented and come up with some really wonderful concepts!
One of those concepts was the idea of creating the Sandrine Tank to be a beach cover up. I know that @dillyshambles_makes created hers to be a swimwear coverup during the testing process, but another tester suggested the neat idea of making a lace Sandrine and I. Was. In. Love!
(Psssst! If you were that tester, let me know so I can thank you and give you credit!)
Now, I didn't happen to have any stretch lace in my stash... or any woven lace for that matter. What I did have was this incredible woven material that has this cool geometric design on the front of it. I believe I snagged this remnant from my Ethical Fashion Professor when I took night classes at FIT in NYC. I have been holding on to this fabric for 5+ years! It's just patiently been sitting in my stash, waiting for the right project to present itself, and finally, that day arrived.
I know that I probably won't be seeing a beach anytime soon as summer is coming to an end (or perhaps I'll get lucky with a mild winter and a chill out by an inflatable pool!), but that didn't stop me from putting on my favorite little red swimsuit and lounging in my sun room, soaking up the natural heat the windows created.
This is me, pretending I'm laying out on a beach and not just in my living room with my fiddle fig sitting on my floor, haha!
This hack was SO SUPER EASY to achieve. Thanks in part to my Sandrine Woven Hack test, I already knew what size I should create. The only area I was concerned about was the finishings of the underarms and the hem being that this fabric really seemed to enjoy unraveling as I worked with it.
I also found that the fabric was incredibly... stiff? Crisp? I think that's the right way to describe it. Basically, my fabric really enjoyed standing away from my body and didn't want to flow as I had always intended the Sandrine to do.
You can't tell from the images because I worked hard to fix those small issues by:
- Taking the side seams in by an extra inch and grading that into the underarm seam. This allowed the sides to fall straight and not flare as much as they had prior. And,
- Making the front curve hem less severe, allowing the fabric to fall more gracefully and less into a pointy mess.
As for finishing the raw edges, I opted for a similar approach as I did with my Woven Sandrine: Bias tape!
Instead of leaving the bias tape exposed, I pressed it towards the inside of the garment, understitching it close to the seam edge and then stitching it once more to the garment fabric along the tape edge. I think this finishing gives it a really luxe, clean look, which is a perfect complement to the geometric pattern.
Now.... I just need to find a pool!
