Two grey tops, Vogue 8634 and Burda Style 01-2013-119

A casual winter wardrobe for a young woman at University is greatly enhanced by a couple of knit tops to wear with jeans. My daughter rather liked my repetitions of V8634, and thought it might look good on her too. I made it in a tunic length so that she can wear it with leggings as well.



She knit the fancy cable scarf herself - Jo Sharp Knit 8, in Alpaca Silk Georgette in Peony, knit together with SohoSummerDK cotton in Fog, which just happens to blend in beautifully with the grey marle knit.

Grey looking so smart with her new pink coat, I  then made her a BurdaStyle 01-2013-119 in  the same grey marle knit, with a doubled rolled edge neck, using black as the under layer. She likes this one too.



I am on a roll with knit sewing at the moment, but there is a fancy wool coat lurking behind all this quick easy sewing, I might be missing in action for a while.


Stashbusting statistics, 3m of cotton lycra knit Stretchtex, 2012

Lazy sewing, loungewear, Jalie 2215 and Burda Style 01-2013-119

Is there any sewing more lazy than sewing knit garments you have already traced out?
I have spent a very lazy sewing weekend sewing lazing about clothing for my teenage fashion panel. They are suitably grateful, and even pretended that these are clothes for yoga. Ha!
Lounging about on the couch reading their Kindles is more likely. Books are so passe!

The tops are variations on Burda Style 01-2013-119. You might remember that I made this previously for daughter-the-first with the Burda extravagance of silk frou-frou at the neckline, that gave me considerable trouble and retrofitting.

Here, I have sewn a rolled edge binding at the neck (thanks, Hen) which is terrifically easy, and looks nicely organic, if I do say so myself.
ETA Shams has pointed out that this technique was actually posted about a year earlier by herself. Hen, in her comprehensive post of several different neckline finishes to which I refer regularly, did attribute this neckline to Shams (tutorial here), and I am sorry to have neglected to pass on the attribution. I greatly admire Sham's work and her frequent posts about interesting and innovative additions to garments.My only excuse is that I saw the neckline in real life on Hen, so I went looking for the instructions on her blog first.

For the hemming, one has a rolled edge (sneaky excuse for non finishing if you ask me) and one is hemmed with a coverstitch.

The ruched sleeves add some much needed oomph to this lounging garment. You could go the the mailbox in these and not look entirely as if you were wearing jammies.

Underneath, we have the Tried and True Jalie 2215 yoga pants. Here we have repeats 5 and 6 of the same pattern this year. Number 4, I must admit, whilst intended for daughter the first, now belong to daughter the second, due to a certain lack of stretch in the polartech 100 wicking fabric for which I had not allowed there are actually 3 new pairs between them, not the two pictured). Nevertheless, this fabric makes very sleek and comfortable yoga pants.
You could even do yoga in them instead of lounging on the couch.

See the waistband? This is my very own addition. On the the left you can see it worn upright, eg: in a yoga class where one might prefer not to display one's belly, and on the right it is worn turned down, eg: whilst going for a run in rather cold weather, and finding half way through that it is warmer than one thought. The waistband is made from cotton-lycra knit (Stretchtex) and is attached so that there are no raw edges for chafing.

Aren't these gorgeous garments on slim teenagers. If only I looked this good in my lounge around clothes, I might actually display them on the blog......

Stashbusting statistics: Approximately 2.4m of polartech 100, oops 2013, not stashbusting at all, but approximately 3m of cotton lycra knit, Stretchtex 2012.

The socks on the left are handknitted. Not by the teenage fashion panel. To answer Carolyn, I have been knitting socks constantly for the past 6 years or so. Socks are addictive, be warned.

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.

Burda 01-2013-110 tunic

Sometimes I read scathing posts about Burda's homewear/loungewear sections, which are often published in January, but for me, these are some of the most useful clothes in the magazine. It is quicker for me to sew a pair of leggings than to go to Target to buy made-in-China from nasty thin fabric.
This year, the loungewear section had some very luxurious pieces, mixing jerseys with silk satin and silk chiffon. How unusual, I thought to myself, and difficult for washing, such practical considerations being close to the forefront of my mind due to my unfashionableness.
However, the January stashbusting challenge had brought to the forefront of my stash many smallish pieces of lovely fabrics, which are too lovely to throw away, and there just happened to be 80x80xm of off-white cream silk satin (remnant from a christening dress, so you guess how old it is) for which I was very pleased to find a use - and it has been pre washed in the machine with no apparent harm.

 Technical drawing from http://www.burdafashion.com

Essentially this pattern is a raglan a-line t-shirt with a neck insert. It comes in version 109, long sleeves and tunic length gathered over the hips (to increase apparent fatness?), and version 110, with short sleeves and dress length. The magazine photos disguise most of the garment, but are very artistic, so I suspected it might look rather like a sack when worn.



Here is the sack at tunic length, no hip gathering, and with side seam waist shaping added.
It is quite pretty on a 17 year old with long legs, worn over shorts, although she thinks it will look better over leggings. I changed the self fabric tie to an extra long rouleaux tube as I thought this would look more elegant than the flat fabric tie which I thought a bit clumsy in the magazine photo.



The neck insert is a nice detail, worn gathered or loose, and the pattern has other thoughtful details such as finishing the armscye with silk satin bias binding- very soft and comfortable against the skin



I would never have thought of this fabric combination myself, but I think it works well to add a touch of luxury to a knit top.