Colette Sorbetto tank with pin tucks

Last summer, while drooling over sale fabrics in Liberty of London, I picked up a three 1-metre pieces of tana lawn. Two were used for my Grainline Studio Lakeside Pajamas, and one sat in my stash, waiting for inspiration.

Inspiration hit about 3 days before we left for our summer holidays. I had just enough to make the Colette Sorbetto tank, and decided to add pin tucks down the centre. I liked the look of the sleeveless top on the Guthrie & Ghani website. Instead of modifying the basic pattern, as she suggests, I decided to sew the pin tucks into the fabric first, and then cut the top from the pin-tucked fabric. This works well if you want the pin tucks to go all the way down to the hem.

Colette patterns has re-issued the Sorbetto tank pattern with modified sizing, but I used the original pattern since it fits me pretty well. It doesn't appear that the original Sorbetto is still available online (it's a free download), but maybe I haven't looked hard enough. 

The only modification I made was to add 1/4" to the shoulders at the neckline (and remove a corresponding 1/4" at the armhole side) - I find all Colette and Seamwork patterns are too wide on my shoulders. 

I love sewing with cotton lawn. It's the perfect weight for clothing in Singapore, and doesn't wrinkle nearly as badly as linen. It's hard to find nice lawn in Singapore, so the few pieces I bought in London were treasured!

Pattern: original Colette Sorbetto tank with pin tucks

Size: 6, with adjustments at shoulders

Fabric: Liberty Tana Lawn (1 metre piece)*

*For some mysterious reason, Liberty of London puts giant stickers on their 1m remnant pieces in the sale bins. The glue on the stickers is REALLY hard to get off fabric, even with washing.