Playing with the Pattern - Jalie 2806

Yesterday I decided to make another version of the Jalie 2806, which is fast becoming a fave-rave of mine. For this iteration, I made it as the ruched neck version. I wanted to use a very cool Wool/Rayon Jersey Doublecloth from Gorgeous Fabrics. And I wanted to make it reversible to take advantage of the fabric. Here's how I went about making it.

The first thing I did was serge the seams together as usual. After serging, I used my sewing machine, set on the narrowest zigzag (.5 mm) with a stitch length of 3 mm. For this shirt, I put gray thread in the bobbin and white thread in the needle and topstitched along the seam lines. This flattened and finished the serged side. I could have done the same with my coverstitch machine, but I decided to try this way. I topstitched each seam right after serging it. It's very straightforward with the straight seams.

The only tricky part was the sleeves, because you have to stitch in a hole. Sorry for the blurry photo - I suppose I need to learn about depth of field and how to set it up on my camera at some point. But I think you get the drift.
I attached the neckline piece as a binding, leaving the raw edges exposed on either side. Again I used the narrow zigzag stitch set on 3 mm length.

For the hems, I simply stitched 5/8 of an inch from the raw edges. I'm hopful that when I wash it (hand wash in Eucalan) the raw edges will curl.So overall, this gives me a fun top for casual wear. The gray side looks more "finished", and the white side looks more deconstructed. I can wear it either way, and it will make a comfortable (and warm) top for cooler weather.

Happy sewing!