Another Nessie Top Hack

This is my best CINO Nessie Top yet.

An essential element of any capsule wardrobe is a white tee. Last year, I made Elena a really basic long sleeved, crew neck tee. Yawn. I even bored my practical self with that one. It did get worn quite a bit, but my sewing skills and embellishment techniques have grown so this year I wanted to do better.

This sweet knit interlock top (from Joann's) was made by hacking the CINO Nessie top again. In case you are new here, you may want to see my previous Nessie's here. It's a bit of an addiction.

So to make this one, I modified 2 pieces of the pattern and I'm going to show you how to do it too.

I started with the top portion of the front piece which is just a half piece cut on the fold. I traced both halves to get the full front.

Then I marked a diagonal line from the neck/shoulder point to a point on the bodice seam. I was going for a nice looking angle and also avoiding going all the way to the armpit because I didn't want the extra bulk under her arm.

Now that would make the neckline really high and closed in so I drew a new line with a bit of a curve to soften that.

The other change was to the lower half of the front piece. (The pattern comes with the color block options already.) I just added 1-1/2" to the center fold so I could add a box pleat.

I measured the length of the neckline along my two front pieces and the back piece and multiplied by .8 to determine the length of my new neckband. I used the width as given with the pattern piece. I cut out the 3/4 sleeves and my back piece straight off the patterns too. Here are all my pieces. There are 2 of the slanted bodice pieces of course and that neck binding piece is shown folded in half. It's a good idea to mark the center of those bodice pieces along the bottom edge.

To sew it up, I started by serging the 2 shoulder seams. Then I serged on the flat and opened out neckband to the right side because I wanted to do it as a binding instead of a band. I folded the binding to the back side and sewed it down by hand using a herringbone stitch and white DMC perle cotton. Why? Because herringbone stitch is a stretch stitch. Oh you meant "why did you sew it by hand?" Because slow sewing is fun to me and it adds a nice touch. If it's not fun to you, go ahead and sew that sucker down however you wish. A double needle would look nice and retain the stretchiness.

After that, I just overlapped the 2 bodices matching those center marks made earlier and basted them together. I formed the pleat on the lower portion and basted it too. From here on out, it's just the basic pattern except that again I hand stitched the sleeve and bottom hems with that herringbone stitch just to prove to myself that I can do slow. I have had many opportunities to practice patience lately and it's helping me to slow down in other areas as well.

That's all there is to it. I love how the Nessie dips down just a bit in the back. There's just enough curve to look nice but not make it tough to hem.

I really love the swingy shape of the Nessie top. With all of the options Jess provides in the pattern and a little bit of creativity, you can do a million different things it. Have you ever tried it? And no, I have no affiliation with CINO, just sayin' this is my favorite tee pattern. A close second is the GYCT Tinley Tee and I have one of those coming up soon too - with more hand-sewn embellishments. ;-)