Pattern Reviews
Sunshine Halter
09—October 2024
Read our review of the playful Sunshine Halter top pattern from Mad Made!
The Sunshine Halter is a beginner-friendly pattern for knit fabrics and would make a super cute staple to your me-made wardrobe! If you are yet to try your hand at sewing with knit fabrics, this could be a great place to start. It's low on fabric consumption, so would make for an ideal fabric scrapbuster too. We tested it out using a new striped merino jersey! Read on for our review, kindly modelled by Bianca from our online team.
Pattern Used — Sunshine Halter by Mad Made
The Sunshine Halter is a tie back knit halter top pattern featuring a cropped length, hitting just below the belly button. It has a scooped neckline and a rounded back that sits just below the shoulder blades, plus adjustable ties making it easy to fit as desired. The pattern also includes instructions for an optional shelf bra to add bust support if you need it.
We made a size C (approximately NZ 8-10) for Bianca, and the fit turned out well. This size used 0.75m of our new Four Stripe Merino Jersey in Orange / Blue, plus 50cm of elastic. We found the instructions clear and easy to follow, although felt that a little more detail in the illustrations would have been helpful. We did note that the elastic from the built in bra causes the side seam to pucker a little, which may be fixed by extending the elastic all the way around the back. This pattern was true to the beginner friendly difficulty level, with the only slightly tricker part being sewing in the elastic in the shelf bra area.
If you'd like to try the Sunshine Halter out at home, you can download the pattern from Mad Made on Etsy here.
Mad Made recommend using high-stretch knit fabrics that have good recovery for this pattern. Merino is super soft due to its superfine, hypoallergenic fibres and is a great machine washable choice for a variety of garments. We like how this halter turned out in merino jersey and if you'd like to try out merino for yourself, here are a bunch of newbies! From top to bottom is our AU Merino Jersey - Quartz, Icicle Stripe Merino Jersey - Blue, Merino / Tencel Jersey - Blue Mirage, Four Stripe Merino Jersey - Orange / Blue and Bold Stripe Merino Jersey - Deep Sea
Starting out sewing can be intimidating, so we've pulled together a few of our favourite short, sweet, oh-sew-handy tips for newbie sewists you can check out on the blog here. We'd love to see what you're working on too, share your makes with us over on Instagram and TikTok!