A Lemonade Break?!?!

When life hands you lemonade,

don't try to make lemons. 

~ Vince Gutherie

I've got a tried-and-true (TNT) pattern for a work-appropriate A-Line skirt and I have made it three times with cotton prints:  

Now what I really want is a TNT pattern for a casual, comfy, yet still work-acceptable, top - one that I can wear with these skirts or with blue jeans - depending on my mood and the day of the week.  

I have been hoping that this pattern will meet the bill:  

The version that I like is the v-neck with short sleeves.  

I bought these three, light weight knit fabrics to, hopefully, make in this pattern:  

Luckily, my memory is bad enough that I don't have to embarrass myself by telling you how long I've had this pattern and these fabrics sitting in my stash, but over the weekend I finally made some time to start on one.  

My first impression?

Hmmmm...  Shall we say that the pattern is a bit pleat heavy?  ;)

There are 10 pleats on the front, 6 pleats on the back and 3 pleats on each sleeve - for a grand total of 22 pleats!  

I used scissor snips to make the outer point of each pleat and pins to make the inner most point of each pleat and then connected the dots to re-create the pleat lines on the fabric.  

The waist pleats get folded up and the bust pleats get folded down.  

I had put in all the pleats, added the v-neck facing, stitched the side seams - all without problems.  

Then I spent quite a bit of time puzzling over some instructions to begin inserting the sleeves.  I finally got them sorted out and was feeling quite proud, when I turned the page over and came across this:  

What?!?  The instructions are actually telling me to take a lemonade break!?!?  And they are warning me that the next few bits are going to be complicated?  Yikes!!!  

So, I took their advice and called it quits for the day.  Here's what I've got so far:  

The sleeves are only connected part-way - they are still open at the neckline.  Also, they don't connect at the underarm - part of the underarm is formed by the front and back of the top, I guess...  

I am pretty happy with how my v-neck came out - you can see the facing, but it isn't stretched or distorted in any way.  :)

The pleats in half their glory - 5 in front, 3 in back and 3 on the sleeves.  The top is much too big for the dressmaker's dummy.  Hopefully it will hang more nicely on my body.  

I guess it's time to read the instructions three times and then see if I can make it work!  ;)

Wish me luck!