2 Sleeveless Gilbert tops

Years ago I used to have a sleeveless white blouse together with a chambray one. They were perfect for both warm work days and as breezy tops for holidays to wear with shorts when you wanted to wear something a little more than a T shirt. I wore them until the collars frayed – a sign of a well loved garment.

I wanted to reproduce them for my upcoming Greek holiday, so when I saw many sleeveless versions of the Helen’s Closet Gilbert Top, I knew this would be perfect.

The Gilbert Top is a button up shirt with a camp-style collar and a relaxed fit. View A has short sleeves and a tie-front. 

I followed the sleeveless hack on the Helens Closet blog which was brilliant. I never would have achieved such success without it. I had no idea about the changes to the armscye that were needed so that it didn’t look like you’d just chopped the arms off.

Helen also advised to size down, as you need less room to maintain movement when you have no sleeves. The advice was spot on.

My white one was made with a lovely weight White cotton lawn from Minerva

The printed one had been in my stash for many years, just waiting for an appropriate pattern.

I choose to include 2 pockets on both shirts, the pattern only uses one, so you couldn’t see my bra through the light weight fabrics.

My measurements put me at a size 12, so I sized down to a size 10. I used the ‘B’ cup pattern.

With the relaxed collar, the shirt came together very quickly.

Now I have the tie pattern as well as the armscye adjustments from the blog post, I shall hack other shirt patterns in the future, like my favourite Liesel and Co Classic Shirt.

It looks like this holiday is actually going to happen and I might get some tan on my shoulders!!!

Love, Lucie xx