Burda Style 01-2013- 119 knit tunic - ruched sleeves and silk neckline

All these office clothes are not very exciting. Practical, neat, possibly stylish, but the fun factor is rather low.
Here is a suitable antidote to the serious sewing.



There are a lot of things I like about this pattern.
First, it is an easy- sew knit.
Second, it has fun to sew and wear details.
Third, it is quite an unusual garment, but not too strange to wear.
However, it was not entirely delightful in construction.

technical drawing source .burdafashion.com

I had no trouble with the sleeves. These are cleverly cut so there is no excess bulk.  Treena of The Slapdash Sewist wrote a clear and detailed post all about the sleeve construction so I didn't take any photos, but this was a good trick.
The neck however, required some lateral thinking.
Burda has you use a nice strip of bias, sewn into a ring, folded lengthways, then offset to form a rippling neck band. This twisted neckline finish has been intermittently popular on knits for quite a long time now -Sigrid wrote a great tutorial on it that I have used before.
However, Burda's neckline finish is slippery silk (mine was charmeuse), and is, in my opinion, not nearly wide enough for a nice finish. It looked skimpy and cheap. In addition, the neckline is gathered after the offseat pleating, so I should have known it would lie in a floppy and turning out fashion once worn.
It did.
I added lingerie elastic to the neck. It pulled the neckline in nicely once understitched, but unfortunately, the extra wide neckline of the t shirt meant that it still flopped outwards at the back unless the posture was of military uprightness.

I  then added an extra wide silk organza bias strip, treated according to the Burda Instructions. This looked terrific, but the raw (bias) edge of the organza was itchy. Sigh.

Next step was a long strip of the black cotton lycra of the t shirt sewn right side to wrong side of the organza, and turned in to make a facing. This was tacked to the raglan seam lines, and at last provided a successful neckline, with a clean inside finish.

In the end, I am very pleased with this top, it seems casually luxurious. I am thinking just vaguely, that it would make a terrific knit dress with a more fancy fabric.....

Stashbusting statistics, 1.4m of cotton-lycra knit, 2012, and about 50cm of silk charmeuse and silk organza scraps from deep in the little useless bits pile that is still taking up far too much room in my  fabric cupboard.