My Knock Off lace twin-set completed

Do you remember me posting a photograph of this set from the Madeleine fashion range of this lace cardigan and matching lace top.  The two pieces cost 10p short of £170.

Last week I traced around a RTW cardigan and made this sort of wearable muslin (which I have worn for work) and it looked lovely on (sorry nobody around to take a picture of me).

So I wanted to do the same cardi again, but the black lace one above is clearly longer, so I added 2" to the length of the body and this is what I have come up with.

Above are the two pieces together, and left just the cami top on its own made using McCalls 5978.

Needless to say I will not be wearing a white bra like Edna.

I didn't have enough lace to make both the cami and the cardi completely from lace, so found a nice black knit that works really well with each other.

For the neck edge of the cami top, and the sleeves of the cardi, I used an elastic lace.  This was serged on to the cami neck edge, right-sides together, and then top-stitched using a conventional machine.  I also used the same method on the sleeve edges.  It wasn't used for its elastic properties, but more for the lace edge.

The original cardi called for a self bias trim, so using my now very popular continuous bias binding method I took a 6" square to create some bias trim out of the same lace used for the cardi.

I serged it, right sides together round the area required - from the first front point left front, round the back neck edge to the second front point.  I then gave myself a marker on the serger foot, used that as a guide and serged the raw edge before turning it under and top stitching using my Bernina giving this result.

Again following the RTW example, I serged a rolled hem for the bottom edge of the cardi.

I found some cheap pearls - not white (they are at the flat) but it gives an idea of the final look.

You may recall that the first thing I made from this black lace was my Jalie 2905 which will also work well with the lace cardi, especially for those colder winter nights when a sleeveless cami top with lace cardi may well be still a little cold.

The three items cost less than £10 so quite a saving from the original items.

So that completes another item on my to do list. Next month I am flying to Dubai for work, but will be going to the Burj Al Arab hotel for a special dinner.  This is one of Dubai's most famous hotels, so I need to look as good as I can.  I am really thinking about wearing my twin set, I have some fab black shoes I bought in Macy's a few years ago, so I now need to decide if I make a skirt or an evening pair of pants to go with the twin set.

Burj Al Arab

  I did manage to complete another two squares for Alana's quilt today, and I have found some pretty lemon cotton that will be perfect with the white but that will have to wait for when I post up the finished item.

Time for bed and a couple of pills to kill this sore throat.

More later...................................