I used Design Plus super fine fusible stay tape, a product I use a lot for the shoulders of knit tops. I ironed on stay tape to the top sleeve seams, but I used straight, not bias tape. If you have stripes to match, you could hand baste to make sure they line up and then machine-baste to get two rows of even stitches.
It occurred to me that you could join the pieces first and then gather them. Since my fabric has stripes I wanted to make sure they matched so I carefully basted the two pieces together, which was difficult with all the gathers. The instructions say to gather each piece separately and then join them. Yes, but I think there's an easier way to do the gather on the hip, which I didn't think of until after I'd followed their instructions. Jersey shirt with long, raglan sleeves and gathers at the left shoulder and right hip, giving the front a diagonal look.ĭid it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it? It wasn't too difficult to sew, although the gathers on the hip took a while. Maybe if I were younger I could get away with pairing it with leggings. The top is a little long, but I think it will look nice over slim jeans or pants.
I think it looks better on me than on my dressform. I even basted the hems before coverstitching! I don't often use pins when I'm serging - partly because I'm afraid of running the knife blade over them but also because there's not a lot of room to work around the needle. If there's a situation where I won't have access to it after I sew, then I use matching thread. I always baste set-in sleeves, anytime I need to match something exactly, slippery fabrics, or if the area I'm sewing is difficult to maneuver in the sewing machine. With this Burda top I basted all but the flat side seams. I've recall someone, Kenneth King maybe, telling me in a class to use the same color thread to you don't have to pick it out afterward but I always pick out my basting thread. I use contrasting so that I can find it to pick it out. So anytime I might have a difficult area to sew around I reach for a contrasting thread and a long needle, and I baste. I hate getting stuck by pins - hate, hate, hate it. I baste where most people probably just pin. It wasn't absolutely necessary to do all this basting but that's how I do things. The reason? I cut only 1/4" seam allowances, which left me with too little real estate for gathering and fussing. This should have been a quick sew but I got bogged down by the gathered portion across the right hip.