Butterick 5857: Or I should have made a muslin

In my quest to sew some new things for an upcoming vacation, I pulled both a pattern and fabric that were in my stash. 

The fabric is a black and burgundy stripe, probably about 8 ounces, from Girl Charlee. I really like this fabric, and am having a bit of buyer's remorse for using it for this top. I really hope I get a lot of wear out of it!  This is a case where a lighter fabric (say 6 oz.) might have been perfectly fine. Especially for the ruching. It's not too heavy, but the weight does add up here. 

I cut a medium, which was kind of a stab in the dark since there were no finished garment measurements anywhere. But hey! It's a knit, so surely it's designed with negative ease! They must have thought finished measurements would be unhelpful/misleading! These are the things I told myself as I cut. I liked the idea of the lower crossover back, but being a person who is always cold (and travelling to Paris before it's even really spring), I knew that would be a poor choice. So I lined the center back marking up on the fold, and used another knit back piece (tonic tee) I had handy to cut the neckline. 

This alteration actually worked out nicely. 

Then I started sewing. Those ruched panels are super long. It's okay, they'll be ruched, right?

Well, I got them onto the top pieces, tried it on, and it was closer to dress length than top length. Long even for a tunic! (Which is not what it is supposed to be.) I know I'm short, but not really in the waist. Again, finished measurements would have helped. The shirt was also really wide. Really wide. So I pinched some out of the side seams, basted, and then sewed and cut new side seams. In the end, my new seams were more than two inches wide! In the final line of stitching, I angled them off into the sleeves, about an inch higher than the original sleeve separation point. Oh, and I resewed the high waist about an inch higher. 

And then I cut about 4" off the bottom, and made a generous hem. For the record, I highly doubt the hem meets my normsl standards for evenness. But hemming something this seriously ruched? I don't really know how that's supposed to work. But you put the thing on, and arrange the ruching/hem in the process, and voila!