Tutorial: Jasmine Bias Bound Neckline

Rather than a facing on my jasmine blouse I decided to try putting bias binding around the neckline seam. I don't really like facings, I find that they often fold out annoyingly, or the edge shows through a garment, so tend to prefer to line things or bind the edge.

If anybody knows why facings are supposed to be so amazing, please do tell me, because I'm curious why patterns are such advocates for them, there must be a reason, I just don't know it yet.

Anyway, I thought I would put together a little tutorial of how I added the biased binding to the neckline on the jasmine blouse.

To prepare I made some 1" bias binding, pressing it with my little bias binding presser gadget so the edges were pressed into the centre. I used the scraps left from cutting the blouse pieces on the bias to cut the strips.

I followed the instructions in the pattern up until the "create facing" steps. This left me with the front and back of the blouse sewn together, with the collar basted onto the neckline:

The collar is basted flat onto the raw edge of the neckline:

Then I pinned the bias binding around the edge of the neckline. I lined up one of the folds in the bias strip with the basting seamline

Because the seam allowance at the neckline is 5/8", and the edge of the bias binding is 1/4", you will have about 3/8" of the collar and neckline seam allowance hanging outside of the edge of the bias binding:

Now you need to sew the bias binding onto the neckline. You need to stitch along the fold in the bias binding (so 1/4" from the edge of the binding):

After you've stitched it it should look something like this:

On the inside you should see that your stitching line is hopefully right on top of your basting line (the two black lines in the below picture, the white line is my stay stitching):

Now you need to trim your seam allowance. I trimmed mine to about 1/4" inch, which was nice and easy as I cut approximately along the edge of the bias strip:

Now you need to fold the bias binding back around to the inside of the blouse and pin it down:

When you do this it's important that the collar is sticking out, and that you only pin through the bias binding, and blouse layers, and that the collar is left free.

This step was a bit tricky to get a photo of, but hopefully in the below photo you can see the blouse and bias binding folded together on the left, and the collar out on its own on the right. The seam allowance you just trimmed is enclosed between the bias binding and the blouse.

You then need to stitch along the edge of the bias binding to hold it down - as you can see above, i'm stitching about 1/8" away from the left edge of the bias binding (the right edge was the side I just stitched)

Once you've gone all the way around the inside of the neckline of your blouse will look like this:

And on the outside underneath the collar you'll have a nice neat row of stitching where you stitched down the bias binding:

Which is completely hidden by the collar:

Even at the front:

You can now resume with the pattern instructions from the "attach sleeve cuff" steps, having skipped the "create facing" and "attach facing" steps.

I hope that you find this tutorial clear and useful. If you have any questions please ask them in the comments.

Jasmine Fitting Issues

I managed to stitch together the rest of the Jasmine before my machine broke again, but unfortunately there are a fair few. On the surface of it the blouse looks ok. As I mentioned in my last post, the bust measurement is about right, as is the hips, and the waist has about the right amount of design ease.

 

Despite the fit problems with the blouse, I love the look with the black gingham and really want to get it to work for me, I can see it being a wardrobe staple if I work out the fit problems.

So, in no particular order, the fit problems I've so far identified...

There is a funny poofy thing happening on the back of the sleeve - it's almost as if it's the wrong shape, you can see below. The sleeve sticks out at the back, but behind where you can see it goes smooth-ish against my back. The extra fabric could probably be pinched out.

The sleeves are HUGE! They're a good two inches too large in circumference at least, and probably about 1/2" too long - they hit in the middle of my elbow at the moment, not above it.

The sleeves aren't just too wide down the arm, but the arm hole is way too big, going down too far, meaning the blouse pulls funny when I move my arms:

Also there's a weird wrinkle thing on the centre front over the bust that appears almost instantly, even if you smooth it down. I don't know if i stretched the bias as i sewed it? As it's not caused by lack of ease as there's a fair bit of ease in the blouse on me, and it also happened when Claire tried it on, who is a few inches smaller than me in the bust, although the wrinkles were less pronounced on her.

Lastly the neckline is just too wide for my shoulders - you can see in the above photo that even standing straight it starts to fall off my shoulder and show my bra strap when I'm standing straight, and in the below photo you can see that it starts to gape even more when I'm not standing/sitting straight.

All these issues (bar the bust wrinkles) may be due to the blouse being too big for my frame. (I cut a size 8 above the waist, based on my full bust measurement) So I was thinking that my next plan of attack should be to try making a smaller size and then making a full bust adjustment to the pattern to bring the bust measurement back up to the bust size of the 8. What do you think?

Also, if I try that, how many sizes down should I go? My full bust is about 37" and my "upper bust" 34". That would put my upper bust as a size 2, which is a lot of size differences from the size 8 (especially since the hips need to be a size 10)... Advice? Opinions?

Anyway, other than it not being the right shape for me, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this version of the blouse. I am really happy with the construction and it's finished except for the hem. So, is anybody interested in having it? It seems a shame if it were to just be thrown away. It's a 37" bust, so if you're interested in it please leave me a comment (make sure your email address is included) or send me an email.

Lastly, I didn't do the facing around the neckline, I did a bias bound finish instead. I took step by step photos of it, so if you're interested in how I did it there will be a tutorial on it coming in the next few days. Here's a sneak peek of what the inside of the neckline looks like:

As good as new

I've got my machine back, hurrah! I traded shifts at work yesterday so I could get to the shop before it closed and pickup my machine. And this evening I've tried it out, and I'm pleased to report that it seems as good as new. As well a service to clean it out and fix the timing, it apparently needed a new bobbin holder unit.

I didn't want to launch straight in with anything too difficult on the machine (like FMQ), so I have cut out and started stitching what I'm hoping will be a "wearable" muslin of a Jasmine blouse. I'm using some black and white gingham that I traded with my friend Laura, and plan to have a plain black collar. I had traced off the pattern for version 2 the other week (a size 8 above the waist, tapering to a 10 at the hips) so I just needed to cut out the pieces.

So far I have the front and back pieces stitched together, and a quick try on tells me that the size seems to be about right; it seems to be the right size across the bust and hips. It's a bit hard to check the fit without the collar and sleeves though.

I'm glad to have my machine back, that's for sure! Expect more progress soon.

Pretty Colette

I went in with some friends to get some Colette patterns, which arrived while I was away over Christmas. We got the Lady Grey, Crepe, Beignet, Jasmine and Rooibos:

I got the Beignet, Jasmine and Rooibos, and have actually already got fabric for them. This is what I got:

The Beignet is a grey drill, the Jasmine a voile/lawn and the Rooibos a poplin (all from Spotlight)

I can't wait to get started on them!