I found this amazing Simplicity 5933 pattern (published in 1983) at Austin Creative Reuse and was super excited about making the short sleeve top, view 1. The striped knit might be tricky, but I thought it’d be perfect.

Measuring myself today though, the right size for this pattern would be a 14. And looking closely, you’ll see I bought the 8&10&12 pattern. Sigh again. It seems like I could find the right size pattern on Etsy, but let’s move on.

Another pattern I picked up from ACR is Butterick 6966 (published in 1988). I absolutely love all the tops.

I don’t wear crop tops often these days so I might start with the longer version in a sweatshirt material. The pattern calls for 2 and 1/4 of a 45″ bolt or 1 5/8 of a 60″ bolt. Plus 1/2 fusible interfacing.

Another sewing complication since the summer of 2018: The Cloth Pocket went out of business. That was the workshop where I could rent a serger and use their lovely sunny room with big cutting tables, irons, well lit machines. I’m now researching sergers to buy and BOY HOWDY! are they expensive. I can’t decide if I should go with an entry level overlocker, entry level combination overlocker and cover stitch machine, or a slightly more expensive combination machine.