Firsts

I finally finished my first Burda WOF! And I even did it in the month it was published (which means, of course, that I have several past issues to get working on!). This poor top has quite a story, actually. I have been a little nervous about diving into BWOF, mostly because I think of myself as a novice to early intermediate level sewist, but think of BWOF as rather advanced. I was also afraid of the lack of diagrams. Now that I have a few (also diagram-less) Ottobre items under my belt I was a little less worried about that, but I still opted for this months "Extra Pattern" which includes diagrams in the instructions. Yippee!

So, here it is. Now, in my head, this top has had many permutations. Initially, I planned to make it as a nursing-friendly PJ top. I had this length of blue rib knit - stretchy and soft - that just said comfy PJs to me. Then, after making my Hawaiian skirt, I thought it would be great to go with that, but some design changes were needed, although I planned to use the rib knit still, since it was a nice blue.

Here is the line drawing. I think the low, keyhole back is pretty, but there is no way that is going to cover the underthings, so I raised the back neckline, eliminating the keyhole altogether so that I could wear it out of the house.

Here is the new back neckline. I tried to preserve a bit of the V shape. I like the way that it echoes the front V. So far, so good. Alas that it all goes downhill from here. That comfy, stretchy rib knit was a very poor plan. Look at this sleeve!!! All ripply and gross from stretching in the machine. And that is with the differential feed at 2!

I stabilized all of the other seam and hemlines with French Fuse cut on the crossgrain. Worked great, as you can see from the lack of ripples elsewhere. I neglected the sleeve hems. Then, while twin needle stitching the last few inches of the second sleeve hem, Janome chewed it up. She was doing fine, too. I was compensating for the stretch by feeding the fabric slowly and bracing behind the presser foot with my finger, so I had a nice, ripple free hem. Then the fabric dove down into the feed dogs and shredded. I had to add a band to get the length I needed, and I didn't stabilize the sleeve like I should have. Oh well. After the fact I realized that this blue is too light for my skirt anyway, so it's PJs. I wore it last night, and it was perfect. Myra spent all night rubbing the fabric on her cheek, so at least she likes it!

In other exciting news, my sister has also decided to jump on the blogging bandwagon and has started her own sewing blog! How fun is that! Check her out at Varina's Costume Shop and Haberdashery.