Cardigan plus top equals a twinset!

So I originally bought 1.5m of this thin but warm leopard print jersey, and the cardigan only used up about 70cm so I still had bit to play around with.  At first I just tossed it back into the cupboard where I store all my fabric but then it occurred to me; if I made a matching top then I would have a twinset!  How quaint and fifties and prim and proper!  And using the leopard print, which is kinda exotic and has a slightly decadent seventies vibe to it saves it from being too prim and gives it a bit of an edge…
Tops are so easy; I can see no need to buy a pattern; here I simply did just like I did for the cardigan and traced around a top I already had…

Sewed the shoulder seams…

Luckily I had a tiny bit of the same grosgrain ribbon left that I had used for the cardigan here, and used this to stabilise the shoulder seams the same way, now they match too!  Satisfies the obsessive side of me…

Sewed up the side seams…

Now as there was still a little bit of leftover fabric to play with I decided to try out a different hemming technique than I used for the cardigan, which was all invisibly hand-stitched.  I cut strips of about 4cm in width and used these to bind the raw edges on the wrists, the lower hem and the neckline.  All these edges were finished in the following way; firstly the strips are cut to the same length as the edges to be finished.  Then sew together the short ends of the strip to form a loop; this is one of the wrist loops…

Fold the strip in half longitudinally with wrong sides together, and apply to the right side of the edge to be finished, raw edges together.  Sew all around…  Here are the wrist edges finished, one of them inside out to display the loop edges from the inside, and one right side out to show how it looks when finished.  If you do have enough fabric leftover, this is a good way to finish the raw edges of jersey knits.

And here is my new twinset…