Sunday 21 February 2016

Pink Pyjama Top

Do you ever sew with knits? Or do you avoid them because you think they're too tricky to sew with? For years I have avoided sewing knits. Why? My past sewing machines, I guess. I had a hard time keeping the seams from puckering, my stitches never seemed to be formed properly, I felt incompetent. Then Pinterest came along. That didn't help things. I kept reading people's pins on how to sew knits. Even they made it seem like a losing battle. But they were WRONG!

I love knits. I mean I love wearing knits. I have more than one piece of fabric in my stash that has been bought with a beautiful knit wrap dress or a floral tee in mind. But once I got the fabric home, my fear stopped me from following through with my plan. That's part of the reason that I decided to take on the challenge of sewing 52 projects in 52 weeks. I hope to learn new skills, become more confident in my skills, and use up some of my fabric stash.

So after the last project's pyjama pants, I thought I'd ease into sewing knits with a pyjama top. I chose McCall's 6658, and I chose View C. It's a very easy pattern, it only has four pieces... bodice front, bodice back, sleeve, and neckband. I chose View C because the envelope artwork shows a crew neck. I was disappointed to find that in reality it's a scoop neck. But I digress. Back to the sewing...


I had a piece of fabric in my stash that I think came from a second-hand store. It certainly isn't something I would have bought from a fabric store. I tend to gravitate toward patterned knits with bold colours. This fabric is neither patterned nor bold in colour. I think I bought it because the price was right and there are three females in this house... we might want a piece of pink knit fabric for something one day. And that one day has finally come.

I took the advice of Peggy Sagers, owner/designer/pattern maker of Silhouette patterns, who insists that what we've all been taught about pattern alteration is wrong. Instead of starting off with the pattern size that matches my narrow shoulders and doing a full bust adjustment to accommodate the girls, I started with the pattern size that was appropriate for my bust measurement and adjusted the shoulders instead. Oh my! It was SO much easier to do it this way! I will definitely be keeping this trick up my sleeve.  That was the first thing that I learned.

The second thing I learned is that knits are not to be feared. I sewed every single seam without my machine eating the fabric, the seam breaking, the seam puckering or any of the other horror stories that I'd heard or experienced when sewing knits. In fact, the only time I had to use my seam ripper was when I attached my neckband to the wrong side of the fabric. I can't blame that on it being a knit. Perhaps the second glass of wine should have waited until I had finished sewing for the day. 

That's a lot of stitching to undo.
I know that knits don't unravel like wovens do, so you don't have to finish the seams like you do with a woven, but I just didn't feel right about leaving seams unfinished. I think it would make them look... unfinished. So instead of sewing the seam and then finishing it, I used one of the "fancy" stitches on my sewing machine to sew and finish at the same time. I also used the same stitch on the sleeve and bodice hems.
McCall's 6658 - View C neck band
And here's the finished product. Now if you'll excuse me, it's bed time.
McCall's 6658 (top) & Simplicity 3696 (pants)

Completed projects: 6
Remaining projects: 46

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