The space cadet shirt

Jersey shirt made from a La Mia Boutique pattern.

This is the first pattern that I've sewn from the Italian pattern magazine La Mia Boutique. It's from the October issue, which I've blogged about before. The design is pretty military inspired, and I was hoping to pull off a Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan look (of M*A*S*H fame). But the end result is more space cadet I think. I guess it's the embroidery from Sublime Stitching that adds a certian Star Trek touch. Still like my shirt though. I've reviewed the pattern over at Pattern Review.

Sewing a shirt using stretchy knits is pretty tricky, so I used a few handy helpers:

Transparent elastic, spray starch, iron-on adhesive tape and light weight interfacing.

The transparent elastic is for stabilizing the shoulder seams. The spray starch is for keeping folded and pressed jersey in place. The adhesive tape is placed between the inner and outer collar stand to keep it in place when topstiching. The interfacing is Vilene H180, the most light weight fusible available in Sweden. It's great for knits as it has some crosswise stretch and is so light that the knit fabric will still be supple after the fusible is applied.

Pressing thin jersey can be really hard as it doesn't hold folds very well, but here are a few tips on how to get neat folds:

A paper ruler is a great tool when pressing knits. The notches represents 1 cm each.

Press the seam allowance against the edge of the paper ruler.

Spray a little starch over the pressed edge and iron again to fix the starch. This will keep the fold in place.

This is what it looks from the outside. The pressed side will be the inside of the sleeve cuff and thus topstiched in place. The outside will be sewn togheter with the sleeve so there is obviously no need to press that side.