Sobretto Tank, Colette Patterns

As you know, I recently made my second Sobretto Tank, by Colette Patterns. For my first post, which describes how I fitted the pattern to myself, click here. This is my second post, which describes my embellishments. If you would like to see the ways other people have embellished the Sobretto Tank, check out my Pinterest board here.

I am very interested in fabric manipulation, especially smocking. While surfing the web, I found this example of ribbon smocking, and decided to give it a try. I found this tutorial of how to smock ribbon.

I couldn’t figure it out until I checked out a tutorial for shell smocking fabric, which is a kind of Canadian smocking. Here is the graph that I used.

Shell Smocking Graph From Sewn Up by TeresaDownUnder

That helped me to figure out how this worked. So, here is the result, where is am almost finished tacking the smocked ribbon down to the neckline of my Sobretto. You can see both the front and the back of the ribbon, which is a one-inch polyester grosgrain ribbon that is smocked with matching thread. I chose an orange sorbet color, as the fabric already had some much pink in it.

Tacking Shell Smocked Ribbon To Sobretto Tank Neckline

The ribbon trim is supported by a self-drafted continuous facing. The facing is made from some batiste that I had left over from making my daughter’s baptismal gown years ago. It is interfaced with a very light knit fusible interfacing.

To fancy-up the top a bit more and to cover the tacking stitches in the middle of the shells, I decided to add a few seed beads to each of the shells.

Auditioning Beads For Shell Smocked Ribbon Trim on Sobretto Tank

I decided to use the first three beads on the ribbon trim. You can also see the herringbone weave of the fabric.

Beaded And Shell Smocked Ribbon Trim On Sobretto Tank

I made a tiny hem, so that I can tuck this top into my skirt/pants.

Hem Of My Sobretto Tank

And finally, I added a hand embroidered label, so that my husband will know what to do with this when he is doing the laundry. Thread lingerie carriers (not shown) were added to the shoulder seams, so that I can attach the top to the straps of my brassier.

Washing Label

And again, there is my final result. I am really happy with the results and will be making more Sobretto Tanks. They will be perfect to wear under a suit jacket during the Summer.

Me In My Ribbon Embellished Sobretto Top

There are few changes that I might make to this top. The first thing that I might do is raise the neckline a small amount. When I tried this top on, under a suit jacket, it seemed pretty low. With the bias binding, it would have been slightly higher. I might also add sleeves. There are lots of patterns for adding sleeves to the Sobretto on the web. Also, I would like to try other sorts of fabric manipulation. For inspiration, I put together a Pinterest board of other Sobretto tops that other people have made and other embellishments that might be great on the Sobretto. People are very creative! I will definitely be trying some of these out.

Happy Sewing!