Thread: Need ideas for tops - gypsy

Hi everyone,
I love coin bras and chain/coin belly drapes. Problem is I'm a bit self conscious about wearing just the bra. I'm a 34DD and while I love my cleavage, I'm not in love with my looks from a side view (side boobs are not our friends).

I've gotten pretty good at making turkish vests (with and without sleeves) to wear with my bras but I'm looking for some different ideas. I will say I hate tie front tops (they don't work with belly drapes and I don't like the look). Our troupe's style is very gypsy - lots of circle skirts, lots of layers, think renaissance faires.

Does anyone have any ideas for tops to wear alone or with a coin bra? Pictures would be greatly appreciated. One of the other ladies in our troupe is a 40DD and very uncomfortable wearing a bra. She prefers to be fully covered so any ideas that would work for her too would be great.

I'll look and see if I can find some photo's but here is an idea that our troupe uses with coin bras from time to time. Take a hip scarf (with or without coins, rectangular, triangular, whatever) and hold an end of the scarf in each hand with the scarf behind your back. Bring the ends in front of you underneath your arm pits and tie the ends behind your neck. It covers any side boobage nicely.

You could also do Ghawazee coats as a more full coverage idea than a turkish vest. They look nice with coin bras.

L Rose stretch velvet u tops with sleeve drapes. Or is that too similar to the Turkish vest?

If I have a mounted set, I just wear a flowy sleeve top (usually silk), tucked into the bra - see my profile pic.

If I have an unmounted set, I add a Turkish vest to pin the bra cover to - see the attached pic.

Just noticed - same skirt in both pictures ;-)

A lot of commercial sewing patterns for shirts can be shortened into dance tops. The classic, pseudo-ethnic style is what they would have called a "peasant blouse" when I was younger (round neck, raglan sleeves gathered into short puffs), only cropped at the midriff. The longer version seems to be coming back in style--I've seen them showing up in all kinds of places. You might even be able to find ready made tops that you could just hem up and add a casing to keep it in place, and then attach your coin trims.

There should be a pattern version of the peasant blouse available, but you might have to get creative to find it if it isn't the "Tops" section of the book. Sometimes the same style shows up as a costume (particularly in square dancing costumes), or as a nightgown. If you use the elastic-edged style instead of the gathered-band variation, it is extremely easy to sew, and the style itself supports nearly an infinite variety of options for pimping out necklines, sleeves, and bottom hems. (Plan before putting in the elastic, though--sometimes it's easier to attach the decorations before the edges are gathered.) The only down side is that if members of your group are unusually well endowed, they might not want any extra fullness around the chest area, or the pattern may require tweaking to proportion the fullness so that there is enough in the front without having too much in the back.

On the other hand, there are a lot of shrug patterns on the market now, and some of them will work with decorated bras. There's always the classic genie vest, which is like a short, open bolero jacket without sleeves. I'd suggest hitting the pattern books to see what can be cropped up for dancing. If the peasant blouse idea doesn't work out for your group, there should be plenty of other tops that have bust darts to flatter larger ladies. Empire waists are really popular now, and sometimes those patterns are extremely easy to convert to midriff length.

Artemis Imports has a lot of good patterns which would work well. Personally, I would lean towards Sa'aid's Vest or Parie's Peasant blouse.

Artemis Imports

The LRose option is good as well.

{{{HUGS}}}

Thanks everyone for the great ideas.
Tahira - it's funny that you mentioned the Artemis patterns. My instructor just loaned me a few of these patterns last night to look through.