Burdastyle Ute Sew-Along: Step 5 and Step 6 Part 2

By Tiffany - Friday, April 19, 2013

Now for more of Step 5 and 6 of the Burdastyle Ute Sew-Along. If you are following along with me, your fabric should start to look more and more shirt-like from here on out.

Ok, so if you haven't trimmed and neatened your seams, you can do that now. All I did was trim and use zig-zag stitch on mine, as I don't have a serger. I also had to re-cut my neckline, since it was a little higher due to my alterations.

Now cut your interfacing and apply to your fabric (Step 5). We are going to put the collar and the sleeve cuffs together (part of Steps 6 and 9).

If you need help with interfacing, I recommend reading this post by Amy at Sew Well.

I'm going to do something a little different, as well. I've made a bunch of piping to apply to my cuffs and collar. At first, I thought of doing a contrasting colour for my collar and cuffs. But, since my polka dots are so small, I think that piping would fit the scale of the pattern better.

I followed this great post on making your own cording from yarn by Mrs. Micawber and this post on making piping from Coletterie.

I pinned the piping to the pieces without the interfacing and also cut slits and notches in the piping to get it around the curves. Then, I machine basted my piping inside the seam allowance.

By machine basting the piping, I was able to easily sew the second pieces with the interfacing on afterwards. There is no messiness with trying to line up the piping with the edges. I sewed at the seam allowance so my previous stitches won't show.

Then you can turn and press the pieces right-side out.

Viola! A pretty looking cuff

I did not top-stitch the cuffs and collar as my sewing machine did not want to go through 6 layers of fabric and 2 layers of interfacing. However, with the piping, it looks fine without the top-stitching. Definitely top-stitch if you are not using piping.

Now you can finish Step 6: applying the collar.

With the shirt right side out and the collar sitting the way you want it to sit on the neckline, pin as directed. The notches in the collar should match up with the shoulder seams.

The instructions then tell you to trim the seam allowances. I don't know about you, but to me it seems tricky to trim a seam allowance that is full of pins. It is probably easier to machine baste the collar into place first. I machine basted the collar inside the seam allowances and then trimmed off 2/8". This will leave a 3/8" (1cm) seam allowance as directed.