Lekala 8001 Tunic - A successful top

Following on from my last post, I have managed to make a successful tunic top using the free Lekala 8001 pattern from here

I was very optimistic about the pattern, as I had to provide my measurements for bust, underbust, waist, full hip, with options to add in hip, neck and upper arm.  I chose to add in upper arm as I thought that might be important, and then made further adjustments regarding bust and back, where I could pick a description which fitted me best.

In the end, I chose lower than normal protruding bust points (what a description), narrow back and wide bust.  It would be helpful if Lekala provided some sort of guidance as to what they think normal is, and also a guide to their terminology, as I was unsure about a couple of the optional measurements.

You can choose to have seam allowances included for $0.50 (about 32p in the UK), which I did, but they didn't charge me, something that also happened today when I ordered more patterns.

In less than a couple of hours, my pattern was emailed to me and I printed it out.  I have only pieced together a couple of other PDF patterns, and this one was the worst I have tried.  There are no helpful marks on the corners to make sure you have everything lined up, and it took me a few attempts to get it all sorted.

Making the tunic is easy.  You sew two back darts, then the two back panels together before attaching the front panel, then the facings.  The instructions are minimalistic, but give you enough to go on, and google is always there to help with any unfamiliar terms.

In total, I probably spent about 8 hours making the top, including cutting out, and this could have been reduced had I chosen not to top stitch the facings.

This is the front view of my tunic, I do still have to put buttons on the planket, but it is wearable without.  I have a couple of puckers at the shoulders where I think the armholes stretched, next time I will staystitch.

The casing for the tie is too high, I hate to think where it would have been if I'd said I had a normal bust height!!

The back is slightly less flattering, but I plan to take in the darts a bit as they are very narrow, and see what happens.  I'm also not sure how I feel about the back seam, it might not bother me in a darker colour, but it seems quite obvious here.

The fabric is this cotton shirting from Croft Mill, and was lovely to sew, although a little prone to fraying.  It's a good thickness and washes brilliantly.

What was the first successful top you made?

Burda 7042 - Making up part 1

Having done all my initial cutting and marking, the next stage was to start making the pieces into a skirt.

First of all, I set up my sewing machine, and put my magnetic seam guide (a Hemline one which was about £3.00) on the footer plate to help guide my material at the correct seam allowance.  I find sewing to a regular width very difficult, so I did find this guide to be a help.

I decided to use a fairly small stitch length, unfortunately my sewing machine model (Brother JK1700) does not have an adjustible stitch length, so I had to just pick what looked best from the stitch guide on the machine.

Using the guide to help, I did a few stitches, then reversed the machine and went back over them to secure.  After that I just slowing worked my way down to the bottom, where I used the integrated thread cutter to snip off the work. I did this to all 4 sets of panels, and then pressed the seams open.

The fabric frayed quite badly when I was cutting out, so I knew I would have to neaten the seams.  I decided to do the easy option of running a zigzag stitch along the seam and then snipping the fabric close to the edge of this.  I used quite a small stitch length, I did try a longer one but found it hard to control.

The photo above shows the unfinished and finished seam, I didn't press the seam after this, so it looks a bt wavy, but after pressing was lovely and straight.

It was only after I did this that I realised that if I did this to all the seams, I would not be able to let the skirt out if I had made it a bit on the small side.  Definitely something to remember in future.

I then sewed the larger panels together, but did not join them into a full circle.  As I currently don't have a zip for the skirt, I couldn;t do the next part of the instructions, so I skipped forward a bit.

The next step was putting in a tuck along the line marked in the centre of each small panel.  To do this, I first folder the fabric along the line, and then pressed in place.  The instructions called for this part to be stitched at 1/8", which was not marked on my machine.  I did try to guess, but ended up with a tuck 2/8" wide, which over the whole skirt would have made it a full inch narrower, so I unpicked it all and tried another method.

I measured 1/8" from the needle, and put a bit of masking tape on the footer plate to be my guide.  Thankfully this worked, and I was able to put all these tucks in place.

I pressed the tucks to the side, and put the skirt round me to check fit.  I can't have been holding it right as the photo looks a bit squint, but overall I think it's looking good.

I have ordered a zip from eBay, which I hope will arrive soon, and then I will be able to do the next section of adding the zip and waistband.

Any tips for the zipper insertion? I don't have an invisible zipper foot, so I have just ordered a normal one, and hopefully I can work it out.