Greenstyle Creations Clara Wrap Top

I have a confession to make. I was a pretester for the Greenstyle Creations Clara Wrap Top. I made my test garment gave feedback and declared - I will never wear this! I then sent the test garment to my cousin who still actively does ballet. She even sent me a selfie of her wearing it to class. It made me so happy to see her enjoying the top.

When the "real" test came along for the Clara Wrap Top, I didn't participate. I don't recall if it was because I was busy or if it was because I had sworn off wearing it and didn't want to waste my time or fabric. Either way - I had this idea in my head that I wanted to make a wrap dress, but I hate wrap skirts. So I thought I need a faux wrap top with a skirt attached. I looked through so many patterns and couldn't find anything that matched the idea in my head. Then I remembered my friend  Sharon's blog post awhile back about making a faux romper and she used the Clara Wrap Top for it.

I received the final pattern for the Clara since I was a pretester and I quickly printed it up and got to work making it. 

Instead of attaching a skirt to the wrap top, I decided to make a sleeveless dress to wear under my Clara Wrap Top. The sleeves on the Clara are quite fitted and I knew I would be uncomfortable trying to wear something with sleeves under it.

I made the Ellie & Mac Sunny Day Dress to wear under my Clara. I wanted a really full skirt and decided to use the full width of fabric for the front and the back. I often make my Sunny Day just using one full width of fabric for the entire skirt. So this one is twice as full as I typically make.

All the fabrics I used came from Zenith & Quasar. The Sunny Day Dress is made from Tactel. Tactel is am amazing lightweight athletic knit. I find that is travels well as wrinkles tend to release after hanging the garment awhile, it packs up super small, it's very breathable, and it dries super quick.

My wrap top is made with athletic brushed poly. This print should be available soon. It's called colorful concrete and it has such a cool looking texture and a mix of beautiful colors. I also love athletic brushed poly for all kinds of clothes. It also packs well and I think I will take this ensemble with me on my next cruise. Here's a closer look at the print.

And it has pockets!

There was one thing that I didn't like about the Clara - that the ties were not lined. I really didn't like how the hemmed edges were visible. And I really didn't think that would look good when using a printed fabric with a white backside. So, I decided to make my ties lined. I unfortunately did not have enough of this print to use it for both side. Okay - I probably did, but did not take the time to lay everything out before I started cutting. I ended up using the Tactel for the lining and I really love how it came out. This was a pretty easy hack and I will probably make another for a separate blog post to show step by step how to do it.

Here is a look at my Sunny Day Dress I am wearing under the Clara. Ignore all the rippling at the waist seam. I think the shear volume of the skirt is the culprit. I even tried using my sewing machine to sew it together and still ended up with some rippling.

I even topstitched the seam thinking that might help, but I think it made it worse. I'm contemplating cutting the skirt off and  re-attaching it. I definitely do not feel like seam ripping it off. I'm also thinking of leaving it alone. I'm not sure I'll ever wear the dress without the wrap, but I also think I could just make a wide wrap belt with the tactel to wear with the dress when I decide to wear it on it's on.

Something about this dress just made me want to twirl and twirl. Scroll to see what what I mean.

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