I want to sew a couple of black and white tops to wear underneath my new yellow jacket.
First up, I'll show you Burda 2/2011 102B. It was easy to sew and worked out well. It fits tightly through the shoulders and bust and then skims the tummy. (Well, it skims my tummy because I flared out from a 40 on top to a 44 at the bottom hem.) Not a bad look for a lot of us. I was glad I made it in a busy print because I find it difficult to precision sew on most knits. Things stretch and slip and slide, so obscuring that with a print helps. I would certainly recommend this pattern. My only caution is that it ends right at the waist, so if you pair it with low slung trousers which are still ubiquitous, you will end up with a couple of inches of your lower belly peaking through. This is either terribly sexy, or an absolute train-wreck. In my case it's the later!
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| This looks a lot better on a real woman to fill out the sleeves and decollate. I got the fabric from Gorgeous Fabrics. |
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| Here is the Burda 2/2011 102a/b technical drawing. |
Next, I tried Burda 2/2011 106. A couple of years ago I bought 5 metres of plain white, all cotton jersey from Truro fabrics. I have been using it to "muslin" knit tops. If it doesn't work out, at least it was cheap. If it does, hurray! another white tshirt, always useable.  |
| Burda 2/2011 106 |
In this case the knit top is barely useable. The t-shirt fits me like a moulage! I look like a fat little sausage in it. The pictures of the model in the magazine show it to be fitted, but not with negative ease, so I got out my tape measure. My bust had grown from 36" to 36 3/4". I am bigger, but not so much bigger that I would go up from a 40 to a 42. So, if you are considering using this pattern beware. It would work fine with a stretchy jersey with plenty of spandex, but not if you want something looser.
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| I had the hips flare out a from a 40 to a 44- that's the shape I am in! But this gives you the basic idea of how it would sew up. |
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| This is the detail on the neck line. You end up with a very thin band of self fabric to finish the neckline. It looks nice enough. You can see my booboo in the top left where I failed to catch the binding while I stitched in the ditch. |
So, I still have a black and white stripe knit from Gorgeous Fabrics burning a hole in my stash. I need to find another suitable pattern to try. I have Burda mags going back to November 2009, so there must be something.
