Love Burda, Still Hate Polyester

I spent all afternoon doing about an hours worth of work on the black jacquard shirt. In spite of cutting it out with a pinking blade, it frays all over the place, mostly over me and my clothes. I went off to tai chi class this morning needing a wipe-down to get rid of the little black bits that fell out of the pinking points. Better that than the long theads which followed, in spite of care-taking to not handle the stuff too much.

I am practicing Hong-Kong seam bindings, and spent about an hour putting lovely black satin bindings on the shoulder seams. Was it worth an hour? Not likely, but it was fun. Besides, it gave the rest of the garment a chance to ravel some more. I don't particularly like the look of seam edges overlocked on my regular machine, though I may have to do that anyway, as binding seams takes a long time, especially for a casual garment. But I hate those frayed, home-made looking edges that happen with almost any fabric. The pictures in the books always use some beautiful stiff tightly woven edge to show the zig-zag or stitched under edges. Welcome to polyester folks. It has a mind of its own.

This is my first Burda Pattern (8360) except for the velour tank top aforementioned. It seems to fit better than other, or at least require less adjustment. Maybe I'm getting better; I'm certainly getting smaller, so that helps I suppose.

The pattern is not made for the fabric I am using, so I have a rather bulky collar assembly, however the fit is right, and that it what I am doing this for. I moved the shoulder seam 1/4 inch to the front, which made everything hang well. Don't know what this will do to the sleeve gathering, but it should not be enough to make a big difference. Hopefully.


While I was admiring myself, or rather my shirt collar after clipping neckline seams, and pressing carefully, I was quite disappointed to discover the the width of the collar on one side is 1/4" more than on the other side. One should never be too proud. I have no idea how this happened as I did pull it up at the front corner before sewing, and make sure it was in the right place. Fudged a bit to correct it somewhat, and decided it was time for a computer break. Now my computer area is also covered in black polyester threads. Time for a serger I guess. It would make me a good Christmas present.