When I started sewing on a more regular basis, I mostly sewed with knits. I didn’t know they were supposed to be difficult to sew because I wasn’t reading blogs yet. Though knits have never really scared me it’s really helpful to find the best techniques for sewing with different kind of knits. Today I want to share some tips I’ve tested and found very helpful – one for a neckline binding method for jerseys, and one for finishing bulky knits on a serger.
I am so thrilled to have this post for you today! A while back a gorgeous Jasper hack popped up in my feed. Lindsey from Stannel had used another tutorial on the Jasper to make a collar with a crossover front. She mentioned wanting to do a tutorial in Dutch, so I asked if I could post it here too, and she said yes. This one will be in English, you can read the Dutch version on Lindsy’s blog. Take it away Lindsy!
Today I’m going to show you my favorite way to attach a neckband to a garment. This is meant for stretch fabrics like jersey and french terry. The most common method is to divide the neckband in four, divide the neckline in four, match them up and then stretch the neckband while you sew. I also used this method in my Zircon instructions because it’s the one people are most familiar with. For this method the pattern designer provides a pattern piece for the neckband that is the right length, with a 10% or 15% stretch calculated in the pattern.
In this tutorial I’ll show you how to finish a neckline with bias tape. We’ll be walking through Step 2 of the Onyx Shirt instructions, but you can follow these steps for any curved seam finished with bias tape. Before I used the techniques shown here, it took me quite a few tries to get this right. I always felt like tutorials made it seem so easy. And yet I could not get the neckline to lay flat, there were wrinkles, just not something I could really be proud of. But I’ve developed/discovered a few tricks that now give me the results I want, and I hope that after this tutorial you can be proud of your bias tape necklines too!
One of the Jasper product samples is made with a fun striped sweatshirt fleece. I had envisioned this one and was eager to bring it to life, but at the same time I didn’t look forward to matching the stripes on the princess seam bodice. In the end it wasn’t that hard, just a bit of extra prep work. If you want a stripy Jasper too, no need to fear! In this post I’ll show you how to match the stripes in the most important places.
Welt pockets are not a common feature on sweatshirts, but I love the structure they add to the Jasper Sweater/Dress. They give a polished look to the design and they’re not so hard once you understand the process. They are considered one of the more tricky techniques to master, but that just makes it more satisfying to add to your skill set! So no need to worry, if you need more words and photo’s to understand this process, that’s what you get in this post.
If you want some more tightness at the waist of the Jade Skirt you could add elastic in the waistband. This could be especially useful if you have traced the pattern with the waist size bigger than the hip size (hopefully making it easy for yourself by using this method), or when you’re using a jersey fabric. Inserting elastic is not hard to do, and in this tutorial I’ll show you how it’s done.
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