A Patchwork Athina Top

When I started my sewing journey I only sewed dresses and skirts. I never wanted to tackle tops because I found them daunting. Was there a reason for this? Not at all. But that was the case nonetheless. I still relied on ready to wear tops to get me by. It wasn’t till last year that I was chatting with my friend Emily and decided I was going to take the plunge. It really couldn’t be that hard right? I had made dresses and technically they’re made of a top piece. What I didn’t count on was the vast selection of patterns. Emily helped narrow down the list with her recommendations. I finally landed on the Athina top, a free pattern, from Tessuti Fabrics.

I made the largest size but took two inches off of my version. I ended up using linen remnants from Robert Kaufman that I had in my stash and for the abstract floral section I used a linen towel I picked up from Gorman Clothing a long time ago. It was from their collaboration with Miranda Skozek and I found it too pretty to use it the way it was intended, for drying dishes. Funnily enough, once I finished this top, I really disliked it. I don’t know why. Probably because I had an image in my head and it didn’t turn out like that image. So I packed it away until we moved into our new house.

When we moved into our new place I had taken out all my older makes and hung them in my sewing room. When I was doing an Instagram story some of you with eagle eyes spotted that top and flooded my DM’s. So I decided then to try it on again and to my surprise I loved everything about it. So a big thank you to you all there. It’s now one of my favourite go to’s. Considering it was super simple to put together I hope to make more soon with remnants again. I just love piecing things together from my stash. You never really know what you’re going to end up with until the end.