Welcome back! Today I am going to talk to you a bit about using neutrals to stretch your wardrobe to it's fullest point.

Now when I say 'neutral', I don't necessarily just mean color - although with color I consider black, white, cream, tan, brown, denim, navy, and grey to all fit the bill. A wardrobe neutral is anything that you can easily dress up/down, pair with a variety of staples, or in simpler terms - wear every week without wanting to throw it away ;o)

I have wanted to make the Belinda Top by our affiliate Go To Patterns since it's release last year, and yet somehow I just never got around to it. How many of us here have patterns like that sitting in our files??? Raise your hand, it's ok, you are among friends. This is one of the things I LOVE about planning out a wardrobe.... you can look at all those un-used pattern and finally SEW THEM!!!

So most of the examples I have seen of the Belinda are in a mix of fabrics, and often in bright colors or prints. While these are all adorable, I just knew I wanted my daughter's Belinda to be more neutral than that. So into my stash of fabric I went, searching for the right knit to sew up. I came up with an acrylic grey knit - warm and sweater like with just enough stretch to work.

This pattern sewed up beautifully, was easy to make, and I only made a few alterations.

The first thing was that I left off the bottom band - I keep going back and forth on this decision.... I did it because I was able to use the existing blind hem of the dress, and I was worried that the shape wouldn't be as flattering on my girly. But I will certainly make another with the band because it adds such a touch of whimsy to the pattern.

Pockets are perfect for collecting rocks!

The second thing I did was to make two pocket bags rather than having the entire front be a big pocket. I did this because there was not enough fabric to make two full fronts - ahhhhh the joys of working on the fly with upcycling!