Well hello there!  We received our first small snowfall of the season the day I decided to take photos.  It is awfully chilly here in Indiana right now.  My neighbor saw me out and actually told me it was too cold to be out taking pictures.  But I braved the cold just so I could share two new tops with you all.

I have a probably some what unhealthy obsession with colorful jeggings from Torrid.  These are not the elastic waist leggings in “jean” like fabric though.  They are a stretchy denim with functional pockets, a zipper front fly ,and waistband.  They are more like colorful super skinny fitting jeans and I have eight pairs in wide variety of colors including mint, lavender, and coral.  Now I am on a quest to make nearly tunic length tops that pair well with my new colorful obsession.  I succeed on that quest with these new tops.

First up, I made Simplicity 1317 with the Peach on Peach Leopard Ponte De Roma.  Ponte is one of my favorite fabrics and I fell in love with this one as soon as I spotted it on the Cali site.  I knew immediately that I wanted to make it up in this pattern.  It is such a quick sew too.  I have made this pattern so many times that I can currently make it up in less than 1 hour.

The raglan sleeve is a favorite of mine as well. The loose fit of this pattern works so well with the skinny fit of the jeggings, in my opinion.  They balance each other out.  I only made minor changes to the base pattern.  Those changes were adding  6″ to the length as well as a hem band the same width as the sleeve bands.  The added length allows this top to hit me just below the hips.  That is my aim when making tops to pair with jeggings.

For my mini photo shoot, I chose to pair the new top with my olive green jeggings.  The combination of the peachy pink and olive green is one of my all time favorites.  To me it is a very spring like combination that reminds me winter won’t be here forever.  All in all, I am very pleased with this top.  I plan on wearing this top a lot in the near future.

For my second top, I took inspiration from a top I tried on at a store.  I really liked it but decided I didn’t want to pay $55 for a sweater that I could easily sew myself.  It was made in a medium weight sweater knit and was loose fitting with slits up the sides.  Instead of a medium weight I picked this lovely drapey lightweight heather red and ivory sweater knit.   I used Simplicity 1062 as my base.

I made only one quick and easy pattern change to get this top to look the way I had envisioned it.  Just like the last top, I added 6″ to the length so that it hit where I wanted it too.  The other changes I made were also quick and easy, but they were construction changes.  I left the side seams open 18″ and turned and stitched them to finish the edges.  The other construction change I made was to fold the sleeve bands in half and stitch them in place at the under arm seam.  In the end, this top is a good representation of my inspiration piece and I am happy with how it turned out.  I definitely want to make at least one more version of this top in the near future.

I chose to pair this top with my mineral red jeggings.  They are not a harsh bright red, but more of a muted red.  They pair well with the heather red of the top.  I also think this top would be great with the olive green pair from the above.  I have a couple of other pairs that will work well too.

Have any of you jumped on the colorful jeans train?  How do you wear yours?

Sarah blogs over at Musings of a Seamstress and is a apparel technical designer by day.